Martin's Canadian Epic

The end is nigh!...

2006-08-31T04:50:00.000+01:00

Down to the last couple of days now and i'm not really looking forward to getting back to the soggy ol UK but al good things come to an end! First off we have some pics from the ride on Seymour the other day.

the Kiwi JT

and me!

TUESDAY//Our buddy Steve McCabe was 50 today woohoo! The ol man is still kicking strong so we went for a birthday ride up Seymour, the other Steve and Dan also came along.

steve on the gerbil cage

We did the usual ride down CBC, Corkscrew, Salvation and Pingu to Pangor. The weather was sweet but the trails are starting to resemble piles of talcum powder it's so dry! Had a good ride though, we all hit stunts that scare us a bit, so that was cool.

After the ride we head back to steve's for a BBQ and PARTY!!! This of course meant lots of drinking, but there were also some nice desserts on offer. Everyone had a good time including Steve, glad u had a good one bud!

WEDNESDAY//2 more days to go!!! oh no!!!!! So i made up for it by riding Fromme today with Paul, after a short visit to NorthShoreBillet's factory. It was smaller than i expected for a company that makes products for companies such as Chromag and Envy, but they sure do churn out some quality gear, like whole wheels made of CNC ally. Sick!

Mtn's Grouse and Fromme - view from Seabus

Back to the ride... we hiked to the top of the mountain and rode down 7th secret to Ladies only. It's a run i've done a couple of times now and i really enjoyed it, so was keen to get down it again before i leave. No pics i'm afraid - was on helmet cam duties today and all the files are too big for here.

I'm busy relaxing right now, planning my last day of riding tommorow. Hope it ends in joy and not tears.
Peace

life is nice upsidedown...

2006-08-29T01:26:00.000+01:00

WEDNESDAY//I received a call from the Steve's saying that their buddy from NZ is in town and it's his last day of riding, so we felt it of great urgency to go up to the top of Seymour and ride down!

We only rode the usual trails; CBC, corkscrew, Salvation, Pingu and Pangor but the ride was awesome. One of the Steve's had to go to work, so it was just three of us riding, and we were going at a real fun pace. I cleaned some stunts i've not managed to before so i was really stoked. I was esp. happy with cleaning the long skinny to zig-zag teeter on Salvation, enjoy:

No pics yet i'm afraid, keep checking for an update though!

SATURDAY//It's my last weekend in Canada, so i spent it in Whistler! Me and Dave the Jew went up with the intention of camping Sat night, but ended up sleeping in the back of his van on an inflatable double mattress. Nice and cheap cos i'm skint =) We also walked down the road and *ahem* helped ourselves to the Spa and sauna facilities at a near by hotel after our ride in the evening.

Talking of the ride, we had a blast just the Jew and I. We rode some familiar stuff like A-line and Schleyer, but also some trails that we've not yet been down this season like Goats Gully. Here's the stud in action

Dave rippin on Joyride

Overall it was an awesome day of riding, and a good evening of spa and drinking action in the Village.

SUNDAY//AIR DOME BABY! Went and hit some foam in the morning at the newly opened air dome on Blackcomb. This place is SAVAGE, check out the flips and indian airs in this vid:

There were some lil kids there ripping it up too which was cool to watch. Some crazy lad was trying frontys and no-foots to no foot can to no-foot. SICK combo and loads of style. Dave tried to ride it but busted his nuts rolling in, so i got him on camera duties for a little bit.

After a couple of hours had passed we packed up and heading back to the bike park and met up with the two Steve's for a couple of runs. They had been there since early in the day and were quite baked as it was scorching hot. I was knackered from the air dome and Jew's nuts were hurting so we just hit up a couple of runs, one down Dirt Merchant and the other down crank it up. Good fun was had.

And that was my last weekend in Whistler... sucks but i've had a fekking awesome time riding there. Roll on next season.

More old news...

2006-08-22T19:51:00.000+01:00

So yesterday i managed to update all the news and info from the Crankworx week, here's the next few weeks of fun:

TUESDAY 2nd//Went for a hike up Fromme today with Mike and Chris, and what an awesome day to do it. The weather was nice and warm, but not too hot so we weren't sweating our loads on the push up. Due to the nice conditions we went right to the top and rode Seventh Secret.. love this trail!

After Seventh we went down Ladies only, and then onto lower Ladies which was loose and sketchy but so much fun. We finished our ride with a little session on the crater gap at the bottom of the mountain.

Didn't really get many good pics today, so enjoy the bit of video i managed to grab:

SATURDAY 5th//Ah-ha, today was an awesome day.. we hiked the Stawamus Chief - the 2nd biggest granite rock in the world. It was an all day affair, but well worth it. Along for the journey was Pikey Dave, Owen, Dee and myself.

just a small part of the Chief

The rock is named so by the natives, who claim that it resembles an Idian Chief lying on his back. Whatever it looks like, hiking the old chap is no walk in the park...

It starts off with a huge rock (see pic above), then a good few hundred wooden steps, and onto the mountain. There is a trail all the way to the top of the three peaks, so we went to the 3rd, and then traversed accross to the second. The trail is so sick. It manages to stay natural using all the rocks and natural features, but is man made for hikers. Once you get to the top the view are worth the 2 hours of pulling yourself up boulders.

And i couldn't resist taking the good ol union jack with me to reprazent:

There were some nice cliff edges too which we just had to stand near =)

It was a fun ass day... the hike was fun, the scenery was breath taking, couldn't ask for more.

SATURDAY 12th//Woohoo!! today was an awesome day... last night i made myself a headcam with cardboard and duct tape, today was the first outing with it. Oh yeah, Dave's parent's are coming into town today for two weeks so that will be cool.

So, we took the new toy up Seymour to ride CBC etc. but as the camera was taped to my helmet there's no pics. Here's a little bit of the footage though, enjoy!

SUNDAY 13th//Rode Whistler, more helmet cam footage which is too big to put up here. No pics... sorry.

MONDAY 14th//Crazy day! Dave's dad (Jamie) rented a bike today as they are all staying at Whistler for the week. We took him down some of the easier trails on the mountain and he had an absolute blast! Managed to get a pic of me and my wondercam!

TUESDAY 15th//BUNGEEEEEEEEEE!!!! Today we jumped off a bridge and plummeted 160ft with a giant elastic band tied to us,WHAT A BUZZ!! i enjoyed it soooooo much, want to do it again real bad.

So yeah sick day, didn't stop buzzing!

WEDNESDAY 16th//Today we got very cold and wet, but all in the name of fun and adrenaline!! We went white water rafting along the Elaho river in Squamish, which is about an hour from Whistler. As it was all water based we couldn't take any pics, but i managed to get this one:

It was another amazing day! Dave Jamie Owen and myself were in this inflatable raft hitting some crazy big waves. The guide said we had so much power we could hit all the sick lines on the river, which made us happy to say the least =) We were mainly going through grade 3 waves which are a bit choppy, but some places there were good 4's which was more like it! The 4's knocked us of our seats and all over the raft, apparantly 5+6's can kill you, woohoo!!

At one point we were ushered off of the raft and onto a cliff where we were welcome to jump off.. i did my first backflip off something other than a trampoline, and Owen followed suit with a front flip. What a couple of gnarly b****rds we are! Dave and Jamie boosted in after us to complete the quad jump. Back in the raft and we spent the next couple of hours paddling and relaxing. Some of the views were so sick, we were going up the backside of a huge mountainous valley where we could see some amazing glaciers and waterfalls. Again no pics, but sweet sweet memories.

The day was rounded off with beer and BBQ, what better ay?!

THURSDAY 17th//Today we ruturned from the extreme week at whistler, but me an O were not finished with the sightseeing and decided to have a little stop at Shannon Falls next to the Chief. Not much to say, it was beautiful, check out the pics:

And that was that...

FRI-SUN 18-20th//Whilst Dave's parents are here we went off to Sophie's Island again for the weekend. Like last time the weather was spanking and we pretty much spent the whole time sat on our asses relaxing...

...But me and Owen are too hardcore to sit and do nothing, so went for a bit of a tube ride. Sophie's Dad thought he would shrug us off on the first set of waves, but we held on for dear life and lasted quite a while before getting dumped in the sea.

The rest of the weekend was spent in the sun =)

-----------------------

Woohoo i think that's it at last! I'm all up to date with the blog so have fun reading, and i'll try to get these last 2 weeks documented. In the meantime peace out, and enjoy this:

The Uber late Crankworx Update!

2006-08-21T21:15:00.000+01:00

So it's nearing the end of my holiday.. i have less than two weeks remaining and my bike is broken which sucks ass, but gives me time to update this ere blog because i've been pretty lame recently. As there is so much to update i'll just try to round up the weeks

CRANKWORX WEEK//Well of course this was a kick ass week filled with bike madness...

WEDNESDAY//It all started on the wednesday when i got an invitation to the grand opening of Whistler's new training facility.. the Air Dome.

We were ushered in like honoured guests and helped ourselves to complimentary food and Kokanee whilst a few riders inc. Cam Zink and Jordy Lunn demonstrated how best to use the foam pit.

Whilst they were having a play in the 6ft high pit of fun, Rob McSkimming (VP of Business Development at Whistler Blackcomb) and Richie Schley addressed the crowd and introduced the Air Dome, as well as offereing info regarding the Crankworx slopestyle course and the new Gravity Logic group.

Here's a video of Cam and Jordy strutting their stuff:

THURSDAY//It was Biker-x training and slopestyle qualifiers pretty much all day... Which gave me a chance to test out my new fandangled media pass and wangle my way into some nice spots on the Boneyard. I dont think i did too bad with the pics, whaddya think? Was fun mingling with all the big lense snappers holding up a lil digi cam and a disposable!

Can't be arsed to put pics of the biker-x up, sorry. Although it was quite a sick course i must say. The jumps were all really high but not too long, so clearing them was really easy... to hit them with speed takes skill indeed. The Yeto boys were flying, there were loads of em too!! Mr Lopes was not looking happy, and Cedric was killing it even with a broken wrist!

Qualifying results from the slopestyle are as follows:

Andreu Lacondeguy - Spain - 31.6
Paul Basagoita - Minden, NV - 30.2
Darren Berrecloth - Qualicum Beach, BC - 29.9
Thomas Vanderham - North Van, BC - 29.4
Cam McCaul - Aptos, CA - 29.2
Cam Zink - Dayton, NV - 27.8
Kyle Strait - Redlands, CA - 27.5
Lluis Lacondeguy - Spain - 27.2

16. Lance McDermott - Manchester, UK - 23.8

The top 23 riders qualified, with the Godfather Wade Simmons finishing the pack and proving the the OG's still have it in em.

On the way down to the Village i spotted Timo on his way to the Red Bull dirt jumps, so we hung around and had a lil chat with him, and took advantage of his little private practice session.

The dude rips!:

After all the riding had finished we chilled out to the thumping tunes from a Whole Lotta Led who put on a classic performance.

FRIDAY//There was not much in the way of events running today, only training for the various disciplines. thus we decided to kit up and have a bit of a ride today. Nothing special, just a few rips here and there as half of the park is shutdown due to Garbanzo and Biker-x training. Here's what we got up to on Crank it up:

We had fun and had a little session on the wallrides as usual, check it out in this video:

After our bit of fun we started to make our way back to the van and ultimately the campsite, however the biker-x finals were on and i just managed to catch Jared Graves and Cedric Gracia battling it out for the top two spots. It wasn't really much of a race as Jared led from the start and seemed to have it in the bag, although Cedric wasn't giving up. He was riding with a carbon fibre support to help his broken wrist, this man meant business. A few corners from the end he took a crazy line and nipped in front of Jared, the crowd went sick watching this battle develop on the big screen. In the end Jared's line choices and super smooth riding led him to pass Cedric just two corners from the finish and take the lead. Sick race and one happy Yeti.

And here is the two podiums:

Jared Graves
Cedric Gracia
Mik Hannah

Jill Kintner
Fionn Griffiths
Leana Gerrard

That evening at the campsite many beers were drunk and lots of fun was had at other people's expense...bliss. The less is say the better i think, so here's some pics:

SATURDAY//As you can guess we all woke up a bit sheepish and with heavy heads, but on the bright side it was Slopestyle finals today woop woop!!

I took my place on the hill, proudly perched in the media section reprazenting it for dubriders with my trusty digi cam and disposable back up =) The riders seemed a bit nervous at the top; the course this year is by far the biggest and sickest seen at Crankworx, and there is no shortage of riders willing to sacrifice their bodies for glory on this fine day.

The finals ran all day, with the top 23 riders having 2 runs to prove their worth and get into the super final. This weened out even more of the boys from the men, and set us up for an awesome final at the end of the day.

Enjoy some of the shots i managed to get throughout the day, click on them to enlarge:

When all was said and done, after the blood and broken bikes had been swept up, there could only be one winner. Taking the 2006 Kokanee Crankworx title was Cameron Zink with an impressive run which included an indian air flip. It was a super close call, i think any of the top 4 guys could of taken it myself. If Cam McCaul had of landed his barspin to tailwhip he probably would of won, just like if Paul Bas had of landed his 720.. there were rumours he had a big trick ready to unleash for the winning run. It was not meant to be however, so here's the final top 8 results:

Cam Zink - 34.2
Cam McCaul - 33.2
Kyle Strait - 32.2
Ben Boyko - 32.1
Darren Berrecloth - 31.5
Ryder Kasprick - 29.3
Thomas Vanderham - 28.0
Lance McDermott - 24.4

SUNDAY//Crankworx is now winding down, most of the main events are over and some people have gone home. What's got into everyone?!? We're all fired up for the Kona Jump Jam finals... however we seemed to get sidetracked and got quite wasted. By the time we made it over to the Red Bull jumps the finals were well underway, so i missed a lot of good shots.

Due to the strong winds and high technicality of the jumps many riders seemed to be struggling to throw down the big tricks, and as such it was a two man race between Timo and Cam McCaul. At the end of the day Timo was crowned the Jump Jam Champion, and shortly after evryone packed up and went home.

CRAZY frikkin week, had loads of fun. So much for a rounded up week but there we go. Keep checking for me next update.. i've made a helmet cam!

Peace xx

the BIG update, inc CRANKWORX 06!

2006-08-03T19:53:00.000+01:00

So i haven't updated in about two weeks now which is pretty lame, but i have been in Whistler for one of those weeks so it's not too bad. Got loads of riding in and have stepped my game up hitting bigger stuff and going faster down the trails. Having loads of fun! Gonna stay here for September as well now methinks, hopefully will get back home to some nice weather so i can ride dirt jumps on my hardtail again before the rain comes. See you all soon!

TUESDAY 18th//Spent most of the day chilling out in the hot weather, but went out for a bit of a street ride when it cooled down late in the afternoon. We didn't go out for a hardcore ride, just more of a cruise about. However we did stop off at the detox dirt jump for a lil play:

me

mike and pikey

pikey and me

So we playe don the dirt jump for a bit longer then went on our little journey around the coast of Vancouver. Here's what it looked like when we left, the sun was setting behind th emountains... sooo sweet.

And here's a vid of our dj session:

WEDNESDAY 19th//We rode Cypress today WOOHOO!! It's the first time i've ridden this mountain and i was stoked and nervous prior to the ride. It's known for being the steepest gnarliest mountain out of the 3, and one which gets ridden the least. What a day though! The sun was shining, something silly like 36 degrees or summat, but that didn't bother us. Only problem it did create was some seriously dusty trails, which made for loose riding =)

Steve's friend Sandy offered to be our shuttle bitch for the day and drive us up the mountain a few times so we can get a couple of runs in, which kicked ass! So the first run down was Wild Cherry to Roach Hit to Roach Clip. They were all a bit different in style of trail, but were all really tech and steep. Lots of rock sections, drops and steep steeps! Dusty conditions meant lots of sliding round and down stuff! Good fun though, good fun.

I tried to ride a really sketchy log drop on one of the trails. Pretty much had a tree in the way of the run in and a soft as foam run out. Crashed, ah well soft landing!

We sessioned this little gap on one of the trails for a bit, had nice tech run in and a dusty berm out.

pikey

Steve E

Me!

And here's another lil vid:

After the run down we jumped in the big red shuttle bus and went half way back up the hill to ride a trail called Family Guy. This trail kicked so much ass it's untrue. So fast and flowy but still steep and gnarly. You could just rip down it fly off the drops and double up the rock sections. All with a huge grin. Had to much fun here to take pics. Maybe next time.

Oh yeah, jew crashed and looked like this lol:

And that was that.

THURSDAY 20th//Another action packed day of bike riding! Rode Seymour today, CBC and accross to Neds Atomic Dustbin. I've not hit neds since my return to Canada so was keen to hit it up. We picked up a random dude in the car park as we had a spare seat and drove on up to the top.

Another awesome day of ripping, but it was over 2 weeks ago now so can't remeber the finer details. Check these pics out from the Gap on Neds:

me

random dude

mike

me off the drop

We got another lil video of the session too:

FRIDAY 21st//Did nothing but chill and sort me bike out.

SATURDAY 22nd//whistler baby!! This was the second day of Crankworx 06 but there weren't any decent events going on so we had a bit of a ride. Had a warm up on Dirt Merchant to World Cup Singletrack and Devils Club. Then we went up to the top and had a session on a few different trails, mainly No Joke, Original Sin and In Deep. We made sure to end up at the trailer drop so we could hit that up with speed and style...

After Garbonzo we rode some more lower mountain stuff, Schleyer was an awesome rip down, as was heart of Darkness. No pics today but here's a small video of Adam and Mike on the trailer, and Pikey on Schleyer gaping some woodwork.

SUNDAY 23rd//Today we had another big group ride shuttling up Seymour, again hitting the famous CBC trail and then on to Neds as well as another trail called bottletop. Sooooo fast and flowy, i want to ride these two trails everyday!!

I think there was a good 8 or so of us all ripping an shredding having a real blast! Another hot as fuck day means lots of dry dusty trails again, and drifting round loose rocky corners!

Some pics from Neds:

pikey

Steve

After another run down the mountain taking in trails such as Pingu to Pangor and Corkscrew, as well as bottletop again as its soooo fun. By now we were baked and knackered so we retreated to a nice little river at the base of Seymour and Chilled out.

It was so nice and relaxing being chilled out on the rocks with the fresh water flowing by. After a few hours of relaxing we packed up and headed off... but after such an awesome day we couldn't leave it at that!

Everyone was startving so we popped over to a Surf/Mexican place in North Van and pigged out. The highlight of the meal being desert =)

MONDAY 25th & TUESDAY 26th//Pretty much just bummed around getting the bikes fixed and bags packed for Wednesday!

EPIC WEEKEND!!

2006-07-18T03:19:00.000+01:00

Well after spending the whole week sat on my ass doing nothing i was keen to get out and rip some trails on me bike. This last weekend has pretty much been my best one out here so far, we just did so much cool riding!

SATURDAY//Whistler baby yeah! Yet another Saturday spent at Whistler, and yet another one with some mechanicals. I got through two tubes and a chain, woohoo!! Ah well, it didn't dampen my spirits as it was an awesome day ripping.

We had a quick warm up run down dirt Merchant to A-line, and then went up to the very top and rode some Garbonzo! We had some rain at last a couple of days ago so the trails were all nice and tacky, just sweet for hooking up your tyres on round the turns. The first run down was pretty much Freight Train all the way, but finished off with Duff Man which i hadn't ridden yet. Was nice and tight n technical but still flowy, awesome fun.

No pics from today but heres a lil vid of me and Pikey riding some of Freight Train:

I think that was our only Garbonzo run of the day, we spent the rest of it doing lower mountain runs on Schleyer, A-line, dirt Merchant, Crabapple hits (BIG jumps), Angry Pirate and Whistler Downhill. Had to stop a couple of times to fix me bike too, but overall an awesome day pinning it real fast. Mmmmmmmmm whistler....

SUNDAY//Now here's where the epic really begins... today we paid a trip to a place called the Woodlot, which is on a mountain about an hours drive east of Vancouver. This place is pretty legendary, just as the North Shore is, so i was really amped to see what the place was like. But first was the hike up, which took well over an hour and involves walking up creek roads with toaster sized loose rocks on. Needless to say it was all well worth it, this place puts Whistler to Shame!

We had the luck of being shown around the trails here by one of the locals, big thanks to Brian for being patient with us! He showed us some awesome rides, like Blood donor, Heckle, Shotgun and one or two I cannot name. What we found though was that this place is very unlike the shore; instead of being really technical, rough and steep it was very smooth and not so many rock sections. It makes up for this by having huge commitment lines which you have to nail at high speed. I was in my element when i arrived at the top of these trails, it's like a huge set of dirt jumps traversing down a mountain with tight lines and high groomed berms.

me

pikey

This was one of the first big hits on the trail and i din't waste any time getting comfy and pulling some tricks. Here's me with a 1ft table:

Some of the trails has some really well constructed woodwork including long skinnies, rollercoasters and drops.

At the end of the last trail we rode was a drop which must of been 10ft easily. Was one of the scariest hits i've done so far, but felt awesome when i rode away still in one piece. Here's a couple more random pics:

me

pikey

This was the last big hit on the trail and proved a bit tricky to clear, as you can see from my first attempt! The guy who hits it first with style is our guide Brian:

After the immensly epic ride which took hours, we hit up an old BMX track that the Steves used to race at. It was a cool little spot, and the track looked awesome. Me pikey and steve grabbed our bikes and summed up enough energy for two laps of the track, after which we were breathing out of our asses! Was all good fun though, trying to pump whoops and ride doubles on a full squish.

And that rounds up one hell of a cool weekend. I'll leave you with a pic of a green field and Mount Baker (tis on the US border) in the background. Take it easy!

UMMMMM??

2006-07-13T21:39:00.000+01:00

Well... not really been up to much to be honest. Monday and tuesday i spent doing sweet FA as i didn't have a seatpost in my bike after Whistler on Sat. Yesterday i was gonna go ride after getting a new post, but it rained all day and the whimps i was due to go out with cancelled on me. Great. So here i am, it's now Thursday and i can't find anyone to rip the hills with so will spend another day just soaking up the fine Canadian air. At least there isn't water falling from the sky today.

Might get out and ride tommorrow, will have to hope and see. The weekend is shaping up to be an amazing time, watch this space!

Here's a random pic of owen and his huge tackle for your entertainment:

Peace

if you do it i've gotta do it!

2006-07-10T19:49:00.000+01:00

It seems i am getting lazier every week as my updates are few and far between at the mo. But it's so hard sitting here in front of a computer when the weather is spanking and the trails are calling out to you! Although i havn't done much riding this week (not on bikes anyways :p ) mostly due to fine weather and broken bike parts. Also not got too many pics, so you'll have to make do i'm afraid, will get back on the case soon!!

THURSDAY//GRRRRRRRR!!!! The plan was to jump on a couple of busses and meet Dan at Hoodlums as some kids have been making a scene up there recently. I wont go in to detail but the bus ride took me a good 3 hours, when it should of taken about 1. So i was not a happy bunny at all!!! There were a couple of groms ripping the trails when i finally got there so just forgot about busses and had a good ride. Hit the big line again, sooooo happy about that!

Had to chase a bus down a big fekking hill to get home, but it was all good. Ended up getting a free ticket so the day didn't turn out too bad at all.

FRIDAY//Didn't really do much today. The weather was sweet so i sat in the sun and drank beer again. Oh yeah, packed my bags and got ready for the weekend ahead on an island!

SATURDAY//Well this is the day, finally, that i get to see the mystery island Sophie has been telling me about for the past 3 years!!....

So after a little ferry ride and a bit of island hopping we were at our destination, a small island located off the coast of Vancouver in the Gulf islands. It is called North Secretary and is owned by 14 families, Sophie's being one of them. Words can't describe how beautiful this place is, so i'll let some pics do the talking:

Rest of the day was spent settling in, setting up base camp and drinking some beers.

SUNDAY//Went for a hike around the island today. Me and Dave originally planned to go an look for some stuff to build for our bikes, but ended up on a coastal hike. More pics:

After spending very little time here you can't helop but notice the beautiful Arbutis tree, which is a bright orange and doesn't seem to grow anywhere but BC??

Yet again the evening consisted of fine food and a bit of beer. I'll leave it at that for now.

MONDAY//Came back. Unpacked. got drunk.

TUESDAY//Pretty much just chiled out and enjoyed some more fine sunshine after such a hard weekend!! :p

WEDNESDAY//It was such a cool weekend that Dave decided it shouldn't end, so had to do 'important paperwork' and have the day off work. So we rode Seymour with Phil the sheepshagger. We went to the top and did the typical CBC corkscrew runs, but then went off on one and rode some secret trails that i cannot name. These were real fun, and was made even more interesting by the fact that it was getting dark and i had ripped another rear mech off, this time injuring spokes on me wheel too. The Jew came alog for the ride but got a bit spooked by the dark... i nearly crashed a fwe times just beacuase i was laughing so hard at a grown man screaming cos he was in a dark forest. HAHA!! No pics today, but was a fun ride on some new and secret trails that i felt honoured to ride.

THURSDAY - FRIDAY//It's a bit to explicit to put here... but was certainly fun =)

SATURDAY//Woohoo Whistler again!! As garbanzo is now open we headed straight to the top for our first run and continued like that all day. The first run down was pretty much all on No Joke, then Dirt Merchant the A-line. The second run down was on Frieght Train, which i love more every time i ride it! Near the bottom i had a mechanical (broken seatpost) and called it a day. However two runs down from Grabanzo is no mean feat, it really takes it out of you. 4,800ft of descending rocks and drops is hardcore, but soooo much fun at the same time. Again no pics i'm afraid, maybe next time!

SUNDAY//I couldn't find a new seatpost anywhere so Dave fekke doff to Whistler again whilst Owen Sophie an myself went off on a mission to Lighthouse Park for some cliff jumping.

Another beautiful spot littered with Arbutis and a real big cliff to huck yourself off of.

After looking at the big drop for quite a while like a bunch of girls me and Owen opted to warm up on the smaller jump, which is about 15ft. This was real fun and we hit it twice for the good kicks it gave us.

Owen - Me

So after calming down from the mild buzz the adrenaline was giving us we went back up to look at the big beast, which we estimated with climbing rope to be around 75ft....

Yet again we paced around this rock looking over the edge trying to pluck up the courage to jump off. It was a BIG drop and we were both admittidly very scared. But the time came, i cleared my thoughts and went.

WOW. the freefall was sick!!! i resurfaced and clung onto a rock to catch my breath and see if Big O was gonna come. After a couple of seconds i called up to Owen to hurry up, but just as i was shouting i could see him fly over my head and plummet into the water beside me.

We were stoked and shouting about it too!! That was a long way down, a long time in the air and a long time in the water. And believe the adrenaline was pumping for a LONG time. We will return again soon to get some more pics and some videos fully showing the extent of the jump.

In the meantime enjoy:

Hitchin' a ride...

2006-06-29T03:00:00.000+01:00

MONDAY//Sat on my ass and drank beer in the sun =)

TUESDAY//Woohoo what a result! Me and Paul planned to hike up to Grouse today, which entails a 3 hour hike up Fromme, and then a further hour or so to get to Grouse. We managed to do it in 20mins! Although that did entail hitchin a lift from a couple of guys and their Dodge Ram, which was a bonus. turns out they were working on a movie that had just been filmed up on the peak, so we a ride right to the very top of the mountain! This was the view, slightly polluted but still beautiful:

The joy of Grouse is that it is a Ski resort in the winter but stays open in the summer for tourists and hikers. This meant we could go sit at the bar and drink some beers after our well deserved *cough* hike up... The temperature today was something silly like 32 degrees, so we had a nice long rest in the sun with our golden beverages. We spent a good couple of hours up there riding about terrorising the tourists, taking scenic chair rides and checking the place out. Like this grizzly bear for example:

We did eventually decide to pad up and tear down the mountain, albeit a little tipsy. We rode down the cut, which is a world famous ski run..famous for it's view of BC:

As we had the joy of being at the top of the mountain we chose to ride the highest trail there, called Seventh Secret.

Being the highest trail i thought it would be the hardest, but i was wrong. It turned out to the one of the most enjoyable trails i've ridden on Fromme so far. We rode pretty much all of the stunts no problem, only being caught out on a couple of skinnys.

We took a wrong turn at the end of the trail and ended up going accross the leoprad trail which is a lame ass xc route so we weren't too happy. We realised our mistake and hooked up onto the fireroad for a small hike up to ladies.

I remember this trail from my last trip here, however there's no snow this time so i think it might be a little easier! It's an awesome trail, one of the harder ones on the mountain for sure. Should of got more pics really because there is some awesome construction on there.

Well it was one of the most amazing days i've had out here yet, so happy at the end, and i slept like a baby. Here's a lil vid of our exploits:

WEDNESDAY//Well after having such a sweet time on Fromme yesterday we hit it up again today with faint hopes of another lift...which didn't happen today. Still, the weather was a little cooler so we made the hike with a few rest stops. We somehow found the energy to go higher than we planned and rode Pink Starfish.

This is a double black diamond, and we soon realised why. What a trail, it has loads of natural sections and some real gnarly skinny lines and rock rolls. We rode a fair few of the stunts but there was some stuff we couldn't really handle. Although i did make some skinny lines and a couple of drops i was real happy with.

Not really and pics or vids today as we were too busy concentrating on not killing ourselves. Concentration was certainly needed on some bits. Still, we made it down and really enjoyed it nonetheless and ripped down the lower boundary trail to exit at the base of the mountain.

Another real fun and fulfilling day on Fromme, and another that nothing has broken on my bike, woohoo!! Going to hoodlums tommorrow mehthinks, some scrotes are causing trouble up there so we gotta sort it out.

Peace and love

Hellooooooo Garbonzo!

2006-06-26T21:35:00.000+01:00

The last Week has been one of long days full of riding digging drinking and not much else. By the time i've got home and sat on my ass i've passed out most nights so thus no updates recently, but today i'm having a lazy one enjoying the beaming sun and tapping away. Besides, me and my bike need a bit of a rest from the battering over the last week. This is what i've been up to:

WEDNESDAY//Me and Mikey had an easy day and jumped on the bus to SFU for a few rips down Burnaby Mountain. The first run down was so sweet we were pinning it the whole way down no remorse, it was so much fun riding those lines again. It was a bit dry though, we were going round some corners moto style with a leg out and the back end sideways.

Run 2 started off at the same pace, but when we both wiped out on a nasty corner we chilled for a little bit. Half way down on a nice drop we took a little bit of video with Mike dropping in first:

After the drop we started to pin it again but nearly wiped out a hiker who was on his way up the tight twisty trail. Twat should of been on a walking trail not a black diamond bike run! Ah well, we rode to the bottom and jumped on the bus once more.

Last run of the day as time was running out on our tickets and it wasn't the fastest but i think wa sprob the smoothest. Really starting to learn the lines on that Mtn, it's awesome fun to play on.

THURSDAY//I managed to blag a lift with Steve McCabe to Whistler today, really looking forward to my first mid week ride there. It's getting soooooo busy on the weekends now it's silly, esp. when you're standing in a huge queue with all your body armour on in the scorching heat. Tis all worth it though. Quite a few peeps came along for the ride today, inc. Phil the Kiwi sheepshagger, Adam from the Cove and Riki Martin. Was good to meet the new faces and exchange gang stories on the drive to Whistler, interesting.

It was a bit of a chilled out day really, warming up on B-line and Devils Club for the first run down and Crank it up to Heart of Drkness for the second. The third run had to Be a Dirt Merchant to lower A-line run, and this is where it gets faster and with some big jumps, it's one of my favourite routes down the mountain so far. Had an awesome rip down at high speed whipping it here and there, so flowy and smooth.

On one run down instead of riding off the GLC drops i decided to hit the slopestyle and biker-x course. The biker-x is sick, but i think there will be some casualties come race day as the jumps aren't too well thought out. Anyways, after hitting half of the biker-x i went onto the slopestyle and hit up the infamous camo box. After dropping off the end i tried to link onto the GLC, but due to high speed loose rocks and a big blue fence I crashed and cartwheeled for a bit. Bent bars, thank you! So i did another run with the bent bars and called it a day.

At some point in the day i rode Angry pirate and Detroit rock city. These are two trails i've not ridden much yet but i intend to clock up more hours on em as they are real techy but also barrells of fun. On the Rock city there is a huge rock roller which i didn't think could be done until i saw it. Well, here's me doing it:

And that was pretty much Whistler for the day as we were all knackered by now. On the drive back we stopped off in Squamish for a bite to eat in a boozer. Had an amazing burger, was just the trick. I slept well that night.

FRIDAY//Pikey had 'important' paperwork to do today which was a shame, meant we had to load the van up with tools and go to Berkley to do some digging. We spent a good 8 hours or so up there without our bikes just sorting out a couple of lines. It feels so good to create new stuff, esp. with the golden soil they have here, it's fekkin beautiful. Tried to get some pics but it was a bit too dark by the time i put the shovel down and picked the camera up.

SATURDAY//GARBONZO BABY!!! Well it opened today woohoo, sooo happy. Got to ride freight train which also made me happy. Only had one run down Garbanzo so only got to ride Freight Train and No Joke, will get to hit all the others over the next 2 months!

I think we only managed to get about 3 or 4 runs in today as we got up to Whistler real late after waiting for Pikey to get new forks fitted to his bike. He had a look at his Super T's the other day only to find a nice big crack in the lowers, nice! So today he purchased some nice new 66's, alright for some!

So yeah, not many runs today, but an awesome view from the top of Garbanzo where there is still snow despite the temp being 32 degrees, enjoy!

SUNDAY//Well after being battered by Whistler twice in the past week and going through a set of bars we had another chilled day at the trails in Berkley. This time we came uber prepared with all the tools water and supplies, as well as burgers and a propane grill. Oh the joys of instant flame when you're hanging for a burger.

Pretty much finished the line we've been working on for the past couple of weeks, will have to get some snaps soonly cos it's an awesome line. Seems like we've got a lot of the locals all psyched up on digging again too, which is good as the trails are in need of some serious love.

After digging for hours a bit of a session went down, and i hit the big jump i was scared of, even tricked the beast! I'm not gonna blab anymore cos we got pics this time!

FLANGE!!

2006-06-21T07:15:00.000+01:00

TUESDAY//Word of the day is officially flange after todays session at Berkley. After a slow start to the day pikey got home early so we loaded the van up and cruised on over to the hoodlums dirt jumps. Once again me and Mikey dug some more on a new line which is gonna be sweet when it's done. The others pitched in too and before long more jumps were emerging from the golden soil.

Then the camera came out, so we all dropped tools and jumped on our bikes for a session before batteries died on us.It was quite dark by now so pictures are a bit shabby.

me

paul

pikey

paul

me

paul

look mum, no hands!

Paul was on form all day ripping the piss outta some guy who had verbal diarreha, as in every time he spoke shit came out. Infact it was a bit of a brit invasion at the trails today, we had a right laff... don't think the locals knew how to take us.

After a hard day at the trails we went and had some munch and drank some beer.

Have fun watching pikey through the trails:

Good night

bang goes another 100 bucks!

2006-06-20T06:58:00.000+01:00

MONDAY//No rest for the wikkid as today i rode Fromme with Mikey G and a buddy from Margate called Paul. Last time i rode Fromme me and Mike hiked up past the 5th switchback to ride Espresso, this time we went past the 6th and Hit upper Oilcan.

After and hour and a half of pushing up we reached our destination and chowed down on peanut butter and banana sandwiches. As i was happily enjoying my muchies i heard Mike yelling about something so went over to investigate. It turns out that lurking somewhere hidden away he found a crazy trail called Flying Circus which has been in various MTB films and is simply very VERY sick. Lots of really skinny skinnies way up high in the sky, check it out:

We rode a couple of the smaller lines and then hiked back up to the start of oilcan, which turned out to be a really fun trail. There was lots of woodwork, some of it low some of it high and was certainly a challange. Near the end of the trail i had another rear mech blow on me.. BOLLOCKS!! So yet again i rode half way down the mountain chainless and had the spend another 100 bucks on parts. The guys from On Top Bikes hooked me up with a sweet deal though, cheers guys.

So after a small bike stripping session i cruised behind the guys down Air supply with no chain, not that we could ride anything on that trail anyway. Lots of big wooden kickers onto big landings. Looked real fun but real gnarly, esp. as i couldn't pedal! At the end of this we came to another super fun trail called Lower Boundary, i rode this with Mike last time. Due to it being quite steep i was able to ride this one, woohoo! We hit a few gaps and drops with the video camera rolling, so check this shiznit out:

So we came out at the bottom and went to On Top to get my new rear mech. Got half way down the hill and Mike pointed out i left my helmet in the shop, DOH! At last we got to the seabus terminal and the journey home began. Well not quite just yet, Paul had one more thing he had to do (after pulling 20ft stoppies down Lonsdale)... enjoy the escalator ride:

It stopped moving when he got to the bottom too, think he broke it haha!

I've just spent another hour or so trying to fix my bike and have given up, so many bits are breaking out here! Chilling out with corona looking forward to hitting up some dirt jumps tommorrow.

TTFN

Weekend numero 3... and the fun continues

2006-06-19T06:54:00.000+01:00

SATURDAY//This was my third Saturday in Canada, and the third time i have spent it riding Whistler =) Oh how i love that place, but the knuckles in my hands really don't.

After awaking at half 8 in the morning for an 'early start' and waiting for Dave to faff as usual, i think we ended up in whistler at around 2. This was peak time and the place was busy as hell. We started off the day with an easy ride down Crank it up, and had ourselves a mini photo-shoot on the wallride section.

pikey Dave

me

pikey

Mikey G

pikey

Dave the Jew

me

After acting like rockstars we went to the jump/drop park and had a little session there. We rode another run or two down the mountain taking in dirt Merchant, Lower A-line, Lower Whistler Downhill and more. Mike and Jew nearly ran into a bear, Mike's friend got bit by one too after t-boning the poor thing. I've seen this fella about loads over the past 3 trips:

It was real busy by now and we were hungry so went off for a German burger in a kaiser bun. mmmmmmmm... Still busy when we got back, but it was starting to calm down a bit. Did a couple of runs down schleyer which was fun, getting some sweet lines on there now. Here's Mike and Jew doing the big rock drop

So by now the park was getting a bit quieter and the line up for the gondola was shrinking, we were starting to really pin it down the hill. I'm not touching my brakes on a lot of the berms now, going sooooo fast. As it was quiet we starting ripping A-line top to bottom without stopping and boy was it sweet. Normally you have to rest a couple of times due to being knackered or having arm pump, but the stamina is starting to get there now! Me and pikey were absolutly tearing it down the hill, it was amazing.

Dan Pikey Mike and the Jew just before Schleyer

We ran into Dan who was leaking blood and took a trip down some trails i've not ridden yet, Detroit Rock City to Lower Joyride. There were some really cool steep fast techy sections, but it was flowy. There was this huge steep as hell rock that we rode down, until i saw Dan stomp it i couldn't believe it could be done.

We crammed a few more runs in until time ended at 8pm but i managed to get another rip down by doing a sweeper run.. basically you ride down certain trails and make sure everyone is off them and moving down the hill. So i got a real full day of riding in and was well psyched up from having such a blast. The drive home was quiet as we were all knackered, just as it should be.

Heres a lil video of me off the Schleyer rock drop and Mikey off the GLC:

SUNDAY//The plan was to ride Whistler again today with the Steve's, but was sleeping like a baby and was loving it so stayed in bed (well, on the sofa). After spending a mellow morning eating breakfast and looking in skate shops we went to the Berkley dirt jumps and had a session.

As soon as we turned up i started digging and packing and shaping... i just can't help myself! It's all worth it though, get those lips sweet!! Well, basically we had an awesome session, i hit some new lines, pikey hit some new lines so we were both stoked. Owen the big gay Ray was our intrepid camera man and took lodsa pics, as well as Mikey on the Handycam. A few locals came up and were stoked we were building and fixing, hopefully they'll carry on what we started, as no-one seems to do much digging out here. It's crazy i tell you!!

Well i wont bore you any more, a picture paints a thousand words:

So after two hard days of riding i'm sitting on my ass with some corona, mm this stuff is sweet. Tommorrow i think me and Mikey are hiking Fromme with a buddy of mine from Margate whos been here a while. Should be good.

Peace out

The Snake rules!!

2006-06-17T04:59:00.000+01:00

my man Mikey G

FRIDAY//After spending yesterday hiking for most of the day today me and Mike decided to have a lazy day and go to Burnaby Mtn. This has a bus service that runs from the bottom of the hill right to the top =) so it was plain sailing.

This mountain is not as big as any of those on the North Shore, but still had some awesome trails packed into it. The main ones we rode were Gear grinder, Upper Snake and Lower Snake. They were real fast, flowy, steep but was mostly singletrack which made them even more fun to ride. It was also quite suprising to see quite a few ladders and skinnys dotted about.

this was LONG!

Had a bad day with the camera... batteries died on me twice which was a real shitter. The trails we rode today were soooo fun they needed to be shown, but we've decided to ride there every week so plenty more to come. I did manage to get some more video, we got mike and myself hitting a jump on Upper Snake, then me riding a prety high concrete skinny on the side of the highway.

We got four runs in over the day and were real stoked with the ride so called it a day and returned home for BBQ chicken burgers and corona, mmmmmm.

WHISTLER TOMMORROW WOOHOO!!

1st ride on Fromme

2006-06-16T05:35:00.000+01:00

THURSDAY//Mmmmmm, another nice long sleep till noon today followed by a deep fried breakfast. Not the best way to start the day but it's the life of a bum for sure =) Mike suggested riding Fromme today which is another one of the local mountains, but one you can't shuttle up so a long walk was ahead. We didn't get on our way till about half 4 due to having to spend hours fixing our bikes. After many hours of fettling and swearing the journey began.

A long bus journey dropped us at the base of Fromme and we began the long hike up. There is one fireroad that leads to the top of the mountain where you can ride the 7th special trail which is 7 switchbacks up. We were going to Espreso which is just over 5 up. Watching people ride up the hill whilst you are pushing is a bit degrading, but at least we weren't wearing lycra and sweating out of our asses haha!!

the start of Espresso, a black diamond trail

The trail starts off with a little roller over two old logs which you can see in the bottom right of the above pic. And then down a ladder which you can see below:

This spits you onto a trail that was very rooty and rough with lots of nice ladderwork and skinnys at the beginning, and lots of steeps and drops near the end. Was too busy riding to take many pics:

After a small rest at the bottom of Espresso we hiked up a little bit and connected onto the Lower Boundary trail which would lead us down and off the bottom of the mountain. This was an awesome trail, much more natural and flowy but still with some woden stunts. We hit this roller and took some footage too, had to figure the google video thing out but here you go.. i'm in front:

Well it was a fun day riding a couple of sweet trails. Had a nice bus ride home, got waved at by a cute chick, and now i'm here typing crap so i'm gonna rest up and wait to see what tommorrow holds.

peace out x

Dirt jumping and Riki Martin...

2006-06-15T07:00:00.000+01:00

TUESDAY//Today i had the longest lye-in i've had so far, and boy was it nice. After having a bit of chow and sorting my bike out we went for an afternoon/evening session at the dirt jumps in North Van called la tete. I rode there on my last trip so was nice to return to a familiar spot.

dave stomping a transfer line

me trying to rip out the tobogans

We rode for a fair few hours hitting all the jumps we could on the lines we could. There was one jump that was wide enough for two people to jump off and had two lines going into it. So we rode the two lines side by side and got so close to each other i could nearly touch Dave's bike, everyone was pretty stoked.

And that was that really. Was good to see the two Steve's out, cheers to them for taking some of these pics, and the same praise to the ugly O. We went home and drank beer. Good good fun day.

WEDNESDAY//Crappy day today... Went to ride some trails on Seymore with the Steve's from Northshorefreerideguides and one of their clients from England called Riki Martin. He was a cool dude who writes computer games for EA sports, pretty sweet.

We got halfway dow the trail and my back brake went on me, fluid oozing everywhere. So i continued to ride the trial with only a front brake... this was fun. Wasn't doing too bad then i heard a really nasty noise coming from the back of the bike and stopped straight away to see the damage. My rear mech had blown up in my back wheel. Tis a good job i stopped, otherwise i would be needing a new wheel as well as a new mech and brake fluid. The rest of the ride was fun, but could of been better, so i took the time to take some trail pics. Some are from CBC, some on Salvation.

Rest of the day has been spent buying new parts and eating nice stir fry.

Night night

wow, Stanley Park!

2006-06-13T22:22:00.000+01:00

MONDAY//Well i have a bit of a slideshow for you here as today i went to Stanley Park. It's not really a park though, more of what is left of the forest after Vancouver was Built. Apparantly people have only been settling here for around 150 years, so they don't have the history that we do. Here we go:

and that was Stanley Park says O

After returning home and resting as that was an immense walk, Mike gave us news about a dirt jump he had founs so we went to check it out. Small tiny session before security busted our asses.

peace and hugs y'all xx

digging with sticks, dirt jumping and my birthday weekend

2006-06-12T03:40:00.000+01:00

Well yet again i've left it a few days since my last post, but those days have been long and tiring but rewarding. Let me fill you in...

THURSDAY//The last post was on thursday and i said it was raining so was staying in.. well i ended up going to a dirt jump spot in Berkley North Van. It was pissing it down, and when we arrived there were swimming pools inbetween all the jumps.

me and Cove rider Dan Skogland very wet and muddy

Not letting the weather get us down me Dave and Dan found sticks buckets and bits of broken pipe to dig drainage and ride the trails regardless. The result was a lot of fun but at the expense of getting extremely wet. A good lil session went down but after a couple of hours we called it a day and went back to Steve's for a few beers.

me flowing with an x-up

trying to add a bit of style here

The rest of the day was spent drinking and chilling.

FRIDAY//After having quite a blast riding the one line at Berkley the previous day, i met Dan in North Van and we rode to the jumps for another session. It took us well over an hour to get there, was an absolute mission!! but sooo worth it as the weather was sweet and the trails were pretty much dry.

Today we came prepred with some shiny new shovels from canadian tyre so we did a little more work to the middle line then had a well deserved ride in the fine weather. Did more digging, more riding, more digging more riding. Sweet day. Dave and the yeti aka Owen turned up and took some snaps of me and Dan:

my shady 1ft table on the road gap//sweet whip from Dan in the train

SATURDAY//My birthday woohoo!! Had a lazy morning and slept in a bit then packed up and headed off to Whistler baby yeah! It was blazing sunshine on the drive up and the view was amazing. We listened to Clutch and got psyched up for a good ride.

Got to the park and met up with Chris and Cam, queued up for eternity and headed down the hill. Half way down i got a puncture, shitter. The guys headed off and i fixed myself up, and helped another downed rider sort his flat out too. took this random pic whilst i was waiting for the others:

turns out dave was on this giving me the finger

We went down to the river after a couple of runs and i had my first birthday beer courtesy of Chris, cheers buddy! Chris and Cam went off home to see the Eagles of Death metal whilst me and Dave shredded till about 6:60-7pm. I'm starting to lay off the brakes round the hugh speed berms now, tis a sick feeling.

Got no pics of me at Whistler yet but here's some i took of others and random stuff:

the Jew and Dave on schleyer

the slopestyle is coming on//random rider on the GLC

We had a real chilled drive back, drank beers and ate fine BBQ food. what a way to celebrate being 22!

SUNDAY//And that leads us to today. Another lazy day resting and relaxing. Been to the two Cove bike shops, had pancakes for lunch with lots of syrup, tis all good. Was the CBC ripper race today, apaprantly Dan ate shit. get well soon bud.

Will report back soon with more tales from the bollock.

back to british

2006-06-08T21:36:00.000+01:00

Well after bragging about the fine weather i have woken up to rain rain and more rain, so here's a couple of pics for ya!

the first 2 rides.. =)

2006-06-07T00:09:00.000+01:00

Well i've been here for a few days now so thought i should fill you lot in with what i've been up to... WHISTLER BABY YEAH!! What an initiation to Canada =) I rode loads of trails, such as a-line, dirt merchant, heart of darkness, clown shoes, schleyer, lower whistler downhill, and a few others i couldn't remember the names of. Only the trails on the lower part of the mountain were open as the garbanzo line is still under snow. And i can tell you this it isn't cold here!! infact i spent today on a nudist beach enjoying the nice view..
Back to the bikes then. So, out of all the trails on the lower line Clown Shoes has the biggest drop on it, which is about 12-13ft but has a super steep tranny. I stomped the biatch and nearly flat landed her. Was crazy. That was a real fun weekend.

Had a day playing hacky sac in the sun drinking beer... not much else

Then it came to my shore initiation day (yesterday). We rode one of the local mountains called Seymour and OH MY GOD. I thought the arm pump at Whistler was bad, the shore kicked my ass!! Crashed lots of times, all good though. Was riding with lots of people, including the two Steve's from northshorefreerideguides, check out their site and get in contact if you're coming over here for sure. These guys have been riding on the shore all their lives and know all the best trails. They also top you up with real interesting info on the history of the north shore trails. So we rode CBC two times, and i had hardcore arm pump so got left behind. When i got to the bottom half of the crew had gone back up to look for me hahaha so we waited for them and went back up. Rode CBC then pingu to Pangor and went back to the Cove. After waiting for Dave for what seemed like an eternity we shuttled back up Seymor and rode TNT, Dirty Diapers then some shitty cross country type crap, and on to Neds and some others with wierd names. I need to get a trail map really.

Oh and pictures too, not taken many of them yet! Owen is off climbing and has got my camera so when he's back i'll stick em up here!

Yeah and today i was on that beach enjoying the view. Well it's 18:50 and i'm hungry so bye bye

love from canada x