Red Bull Elevation

Having only been legal to purchase in Canada for about a year, Red Bull are going all out with their Canadian events. Whistler plays host to the Elevation competition this weekend... basically a bmx dirt jump competition with some huge jumps and a fantastic amount of construction going into creating a great looking park right in the village.

Whistler Blackcomb reportedly spent some $35,000 on getting the 'special' dirt in for the event. It must be bl**dy special if it cost that much!

Qualifying has been going on over the last couple of days with the finals set to run on Saturday night.. should be a good show!

Squamish Gearjammer

This weekend was the sister race to the much respected Test of Metal - Gearjammer.

The race distance was increased to 47km this year with some great technical singletrack and descents. The Squamish trails were in great condition for the race and a little drizzle and cloud cover served to keep the temperature at a perfect race level.

Last years race was a nightmare for me having broken my chain 5 times. This year saw one break and a mysteriously self loosening chainset that decided it wasn't too happy being attatched to my bike and dropping itself off on the trail.

The mechanical problems were one thing, but having only ridden 1 1/2 hours max so far this season, cramp and fatigue set in about an hour from the finish. Crumpet woods, Lost loop and the 3 virgins zapped what energy and fluids I had left and it was all I could do to get to the end.

Needless to say I felt super strong for the first 2 hours and that seemed to set me up for a good race finish. I managed to get 1st in category - somehow!

Mark had a blazing ride on his Epic and finished a clear 15 minutes ahead of me and came in 3rd in his Marathon series catagory.

So, a well organised race on a superb course... just these blasted cramps in my legs to marr the memory!

Kewlona, Kamloops, Knackered

Wow, What a trip! After a 6am start and a couple of stops in Vancouver to pick up our boys from New Brunswick and our guys from Utah we were on our way to Kewlona.

6 hours later and a tour around what seemed like most of Okanagen Lake we were getting kitted up to start riding. Penticton was a good start and a couple of laps sorted the boys urges.

After riding, we headed out to Chute Lake resort to get some food into is and grab a shower, a good nights sleep, a hearty breakfast and we were off just down the road to our next destination.

Gillard Mountain was our home for the day and a look at the 50ft road gap that Steve Romaniuk is known to hit. I was shuttle buddy, but still got a buzz from the boy's trail tales on the way back up.

Our first injury of the group! a nasty 'ball banger'! Matt hit his pride and joy on his 'uncut' stem and on set the swelling process. His left nut was reportedly the size of a baseball.. a fact that we struggled to believe until we witnessed him in his swimmers after a soak in the lake.... jesus h christ!

After riding Gillard, it was back to Chute Lake, and an early departure for Kamloops. A few laps on Harper late into the afternoon would have been perfect.. had it not been for injury #2 - ME! A stupid fall off one of the ladder features and I was busted! I didnt realise just how bad till I'd ridden down.. but its all part and parcel! A huge swelling on my right ankle (looked to be broken but with pretty good mobility, 2 very sore wrists and a dead arm and a numb hip! Not a great day for me.

Anyways, a night off work and on the beer and the swelling reduced and I was walking only with a limp and in circles.

Sumpeaks was next, Brian and I took it easy, crashing one of the posh hotels pool, jacuzzi and showers for the afternoon, we were fully refreshed. The rest of the guys rode hard all day and Michael struggled to keep up with Glyn.. but no supprise there;)

A wet night in camp with the heavens opening and giving the place a real soaking. Laps of Harper would've been superb with the extra traction that the rain brought.. but Pemberton was todays destination. A lap of Hawaii 5-0 and Cop Killer and off back to Whistler.

Great trip, great fun.. even more to be had over the next few days with the Heli drop, bike park and North Shore jollies!



For more info and a rough guide to our schedule, check out the West Coast Freeride Guides 8 day tour

Kewlona Road Trip

Well.. i'm up bright and early tomorrow as I'm heading out to Kewlona on a 4 day road trip! I'm going as shuttle bunny/breakfast b*tch/camp slave/guide. The lot!

Glyn O'Brien is the Pro guide for the trip with Brian and Michael from the Freeride guides as the main hosts. Its a pretty good ratio of guests to guides. 7 guests, 4 guides!

So.. there wont be a great deal of stuff going on here for the next few days, but there will be stories and piccys from the trip just as soon as I get back.

Gracia's Bike on the shore

Well today I had the pleasure of accompanying the West Coast Freeride Guides and some of our guests down to the North Shore to ride CBC, Neds etc. A perfect day today with the sky a little overcast and the temperatures a little lower than the rest of the week.

At the top of Seymour we were innundated with 'extras' and support crew for a new Robin Williams film called RV. A few of the crew came over to chat bike with us before we set off into CBC. We didnt manage to blag our way into the catering tent though unfortuneately!

The Freeride Guides were also running a heli drop for the Cannondale R&D team and were offered use of a couple of demo Gracia bikes - they weren't going to say no!

Michael was loving the bike and was feeling the Gracia inspired confidence flowing through the bike. HE said it was a superfast bike that just wanted to rip! I jumped on for a half lap and was blown away by the feel of the back end. Its a single pivot, that apparently works as a virtual pivot over the last 3rd of its travel?!? How that works I have no idea.. but thats what the Cannondale boys said.

Up front was the soon to be released Manitou Travers 7" single crown fork. It was pretty nice, a fast fork as opposed to a plush fork, but it had a sticky first inch of travel that you had to get through before it got going.

More on Cannondale bike click here

Thunder and Lightning

Had the first thunder I can remember since June last year today! Its not a regular occurance in the mountains, and the lightning strikes caused the lifts to be shut down and the park closed for a while!

Intrawest, the resort operator, have a duty to close the lifts when a lightening storm is within a certain radius.

The lifts did open up again for the afternoon/extended play session, but only up to olympic station. Garbanzo stayed shut for the rest of the day.

A spattering of rain also served to damp down some of the dust caused by huge traffic over the Crankworx festival and the last month of hot hot sun.

The park is still riding well and the trail maintainance crews have been busy repairing some of the damage caused to the trails by the 1700 riders logged on the Saturday!

Crankworx Slopestyle

The finals of Crankworx's Slopestyle event was witnessed by literally thousands of fans, bike fanatics and Joe Public. There were noticeably more people packed into the boneyard that last year.. a fair testament to the raised profile of the sport!

The big boys were pulling out the stops again this year. Timo once again crashed out hard, but not any where near as badly as last year.
Photos show Schley and Joscha pulling out their stuff.

Cedric failed to land his barrel roll that he lands hapily on skis.. his excuse being that "its much harder to do it 50lbs of bike between your legs.. and what with him being French has more than most down there!" The joke was comic genious which seemed lost on a majority of spectators.

Darren Berrecloth failed to keep his run of slopestyle domination after being judged only 2nd. His high speed 360 off the road gap certainly got the crowd cheering though and was a moment of awe. Something that hasn't been seen before!

Paul Bassagotia took the win with his final round packed full of consecutive stunts, 360, back flips, x-ups etc etc. But nothing as new and mind blowing as Berrecloths gap!

In all.. a great event that can only serve to showcase the huge progression of the sport!

Cam Mcrae has been in Whistler all weekend following the events at Crankworx. Pop across to his site for more news and pictures.
NSMB e-zine

Rocky Mountain Party

A big thanks to Rocky Mountain Bikes and Summit Sports for the invitation to their industry party. As always Summit hosted a fantastic night with the free beer flowing and the goodies being handed out.

Their signature pro riders were there and lots of other big wigs from the industry as were their new bikes for next year. The new Slayer looks particularly enticing and the new Switch is beefed up for next year to 7" in the rear.. it looks much stronger too.

Slopestyle was great to watch too.. i'll pop up some pics later today

Crankworx

Well, Crankworx is literally buzzing the whole town! There are so many companies here trying to jump on the bandwagon of the biggest DH/FR show on earth!

Many manufacturers are here with workshop assistance. I've already been to the Hayes, Rockshox and Marzocchi and Mavic tents to get problems resolved.. all free of charge of course.. plus beer ;)

Most of the big names are in town, Gracia, Lopez and Pete are battling it out for most of the titles, but tomorrow brings the Slopestyle finals and the expected reign of Darren Berrecloth as has been par for the last few slopestyle events!

Were all expecting something new and something big this year. We'll be sure to let you know if it happens!

Loonie TT

Well, tonights loonie was something special!

It was a time trial event with 10 second start intervals and a huge amount of racers (well.. riders as a most part). Needless to say there was a good mix of bikers participating as always, some not finishing due to mechanicals or biologicals, but it was a fairly tough course with the winner finishing in 40 minutes!

The course included a vast amount of the Lost Lake trail network with some fast sections and more technical single track sections.

The apres was put on in the GLC and sponsored by Samurai Sushi, Slope Side supply, the GLC and Whistler Bike Park. The race finished before the end of extended play, so it was pretty amusing to watch the lycra clad racers coming down along side the downhill armour shod dudes!

For more info on the loonie races, check out worca's site and for a map of the crosscountry trails in and around Lost Lake, take a peak at our cross country pages

It became clear tonight that there is still som eserious training to be done before the Gear Jammer and 24hr races, I just need to stop having so much fun on the DH bike and get myself motivated for some cardio punishment!

Weekend in Kamloops

So.. the weekend went pretty much as follows...

After a hearty breakfast of scrambled egg bagel laid on by the freeride guides we loaded up into the van and headed towards Sun Peaks bike park. A few fixed mechanical problems later and we were set to go. It was the day of the SRAM/NSMB sponsored High Rollers event that offered a few bits of swag and $1000 to the higest roller. It was basically 5 stations spread across the mountain where you roll 2 dice to get as high a score as possible. We didn't win :(


Anyways, the riding was vastly different to that of Whistler. Its far drier and more natural in terms of the use of the terrain. Favourites of the day were Smitty Steeps, Insanity 1, Sugar and Sweet-One. Some nice technical desending with a few stunts thrown in for good measure on Sugar.

The day was superb and we managed 4000 vertical feet of descending over 7 hits of the park! The only downer on the day was the stop start of the chair lift, not too bad, but enough to make me think twice about going back.

We headed back to camp via the cold beer and wine store and set about getting the chilli sorted for dinner. A few beers, a good chat with some pretty amusing stories and bed again was calling!

Up early again and French toast for breakfast and we broke camp and set off for Harper Mountain. Its described by the WCFG boys as epic downhill.. and thats exactly what we got! Ladders, steeps, gaps, drops.. everything and all in a package where we got driven back up to the top in the WCFG shuttle bus.

I tried a few things that I wouldn't normally have ridden and it was good to see the guides riding everything there was.

We met up with a couple of local guys who were a good craic, they persuaded us to head up to Mount Lolo with them to see for ourselves a trail that they are tremendously proud of. It was 45 minutes or so to the top of Lolo and the descent was an absolute hoot. We dropped in on a steep loose line and had to negotiate a few sketchy corners and fields before we were into some of the tightest and skinniest ladder/log sections I have ridden. The trail is built and maintained by these guys and they have done a fantastic job. Lolo was the perfect end to the weekend!

After we'd loaded up our gear at the bottom, we set off for Paul Lake for a quick dip to get the sweat and dust off our aching bodies. Back in the van and driven back to Whistler for a propper bed!

A big thanks to Michael and Brian at our sister company the West Coast Freeride Guides for their hospitality and knowledge of the areas, the riding they chose for us was perfect at each decision!

Looking forwards to doing it all again soon!

Kamloops Road Trip

Well, what a weekend!
We've just got back in from a cracking weekend away to Kamloops where we rode Sunpeaks and a few trails off Harper Mountain.
It took us about 5 hours to get out to Kamloops and the campground that was to be our riding base for the 2 nights. After a perfect campsite bbq and a few relaxing beers around the fire we hit the tents. An early start in the morning and a long drive out warranted a good few hours kip.

Beds calling my name right now after amassing some serious vertical descending over the weekend, but i'll update the info tommorrow.