5 Reasons to be pumped right now...

1. Sun Peaks Bike Park being open
2. All the sick berms on Barn Burner
3. Eating Graham Agassiz's roost
4. TomTom's ever-increasing mysteriousness
5. Shredding!

Where I've been

Ok soo I haven't posted on here for a while because I haven't really gotten out and taken pictures or filmed at all lately which kind of makes me sad but I have been riding a lot of different places. Last week Bryan Sherrard and I went and rode all day at Brad's dirt jumps in Vernon which are probably the funnest, flowiest jumps I have ever ridden. Then, last weekend my buddy Karl and I went and rode in Whistler. The trails were in perfect condition. Not too muddy but not dusty at all. He brought his camera and we were going to do a bit of filming but we ended up just riding because we were having way too much fun to stop. After trails we went and hit up the air dome where I worked on a few new tricks that I've never really tried before. One thing I learnt when I was there is that it's really hard to eat healthy food In whistler when you're low on money. While I was there I basically survived off of 7-11 taquitos and mcdonald's egg mcmuffins. Another thing I have been doing lately is digging. I have done some work on a cheese wedge booter to hip step up in the hills and I'm hoping I can get it finished before it turns into a pile of dust. Finally, I noticed today that two of our riders Deon Gibson and Justin Terwiel both placed second in their categories at the Arduum challenge in mission and I'm super stoked to see them doing so well so congrats to them! Anyways that's all I've got for now hopefully I'll have some pictures or something to post up soon.

Stoked on Life

Things are sooo rad right now. I just got back from a two day banger in Whistler and it was probably the most fun I have had in... ever? I got there at 2 AM on Wednesday morning, slept in the back of my car for 4 hours and then started shredding as soon as the lift opened. For tuesday and Wednesday I just charged as hard as I could, and I couldn't stop myself. I lost track of how many laps I did! I only brought my stinky with me and that thing was sick! It loves to pin it and gets so sideways so easy. It almost felt like being at home while I was there, being in the company of my friend Monte, as well as Justin Terwiel. After going harder and faster for two days than I ever have in my life, my hands are frickin sore! I gotta chill for a couple days to let them rest up for the opening of Sun Peaks next weekend! Hold your horses for lots of banger content once that place is rolling. In the mean time, check out these two photos that Kaleb Trozzo shot of me....

Sunny trails!

Tonight me and a friend decided to go discover a trail we knew a bit about, but werent totally sure of where it started. we got a ride up to the highest point we knew of and started hiking..we were unsuccessful in finding the top, but we shredded it down anyways! Sunset and singletrack trails make me very happy, and combined with a reallly happy song make for this little edit..enjoy!

http://vimeo.com/5178687

What's Next?

Aaron just put up the teaser for his movie this weekend. I have to say I am very impressed, I get frickin' stoked when I watch it! If the teaser is any indication of how the rest of the movie will turn out than I can't wait to see the finished product. Check 'er out, you deffinitely want to full screen this one!

What's Next? Trailer from Aaron Larocque on Vimeo.

moving the earth

the past week i have been blown away at how much can be done by two hard working people.. Jeremy and I have been shredding it ever other day for the past week at his house and have been averaging a jump and landing per-day, which has left me quite quite satisfied. After 3 days of work we have 1 super long and rad 17 foot double leading into a 12-14 foot hip with a tilted landing, which leads into our original and legit bermed roller, which is a tilted roller that is linked to the landing by a miniature berm. Today, we shaped up the last jumps landing and piled the lip, which was less productive than the other days, but a gnarly thunderstorm is to blame for that one..At the end of todays dig jib, we sessioned the first two, and after a bit of trial and error, some minor un-steepening, and many case fixes, I am quite pleased to say they are DIALED...some of the most tech and rad jumps I've ridden, and most certainly built.. Tomorrow im hoping to finish up the last jump...peace!

stabbin' the earth

So ive had my stab for close to 2 months now and i like it alot! super fun bike forsure. The other night Karl and i went out and shot some stuff in an hour because he had to sell his beauty truck, some killer bar humps and dust drifts, here is what was created!

Untitled from karl heldt on Vimeo.

Shock Bikes

It is getting way too dusty here in Kamloops. Dirt jumps are crumbling away for the summer and trying to ride any jumps on a small short travel bike is up there for scariest things I've encountered. However, all the trails around town are in killer shape and going really fast is one of the only ways I can find to beat the heat, so I've been riding my Stinky Air a ton lately, I even learned how to spin the big guy recently! Here are a couple jump photos that my buddy Jeff Conner shot the other day. All the chairlifts around the interior will be opening soon and I can't wait!

Trail day

This past sunday was some of the funnest bike riding i have done in soo long, and the fact that i didnt have to pay or travel far made it even more amasing, haha!...Dylan, Marcie, Jay came along with Yohanna from Fernie to shred some mountain bikes for the day. We headed out for some runs on Swakum mountain, which is just off the highway heading to Kamloops and we did 2 runs there. Personally one of my favorite trails, as Dylan summerized it- short and sweet with lots of hits. it was super super dry but once we figured out how much to space out it was tons of fun...From there we shredded on down to my house for some amasing sandwiches on triangle shaped buns(THANKS MOM). At this point i was sooo stoked on shredding and having some good food in my stomach, i was waay beyond stoked when my dad said he would shuttle us to the top of Iron Mtn. for a shred down 98, which turned out to be one of the funnest bike rides ive been on..keeping up to everyone proved to be super tiring, since i am used to riding really mellow and stopping often..we shredded down with minimal stopping and were at the bottom in about 45 minutes i would say...super stoked on shock biking! thats all for now!

Moondust jet-trails and race-cake

So the last few weeks have been super involved, flying by at a solid winged unicorn gallop. Balancing racing, coaching, work and riding has left the schedule full, and balancing riding, business, bills, unreliable resources and student debt has kept the budget tight. Kind of like riding a unicycle on a tightrope while juggling knives, only I don't even ride a unicycle... Anyways getting'er done piece by piece, and with all the practice I'm getting in by the end of the summer I'll be a solid knife juggling unicycle tight-rope rider. And not only are my multitasking skills stretching to accommodate, but my debt is nearly gone and things are falling into order for a successful race and coaching season to take place. Sick! On top of that, despite the pace of 70+ hour weeks and falling to the dreaded Norwalk virus, I have actually been able to get out and ride a fair bit. Dude! GA! The coaching business is helping with that, which is a nice added benefit of working for yourself and your passion, and the races that role around every few weeks are the icing on the cake. Alright, the knife juggling, beginner unicycle tight-rope cake, but the cake none-the-less. Note - my baking skills are increasing, and as I can afford and amass better ingredients the flavour is bound to improve - not to the point of say a multi-level wedding cake hah, but hopefully at least to the point of a heck yeah the season was a success through hard work celebratory cake. (continued below)

Moondust jet-trails and race-cake (cont'd)

So with a party in mind, this weekend the icing occurred in our own back yard. And it consisted of deep moon dust, concealing tire eating holes and covering everything that came in contact with it. The Race the Ranch track was by race time, aside from piled in aforementioned powder, extremely rutted, variable, slippery and delicious drifty. On my walk of parts of the track before my race run I was forced to change 4 of my lines to those I hadn't practiced, that hadn't even existed a few hours before. And at the top of the trail, for the parts I hadn't had the opportunity to walk, I changed a few more in my mind, envisioning disintegrating corners laden with invisible tire eating holes, like ones that had developed in practice, only with larger teeth. And I was right, although due to the difficulty of accurately practicing imaginary ruts in your mind beforehand I had some heavy bobbles hitting new lines blind at speed. Overall though I was pretty happy with how my run and the strategy entailed came together, the gongshow of speed logistics and all other things considered. What fun it is to compete, especially in your own hometown. My new key to balance, agility and traction is riding super low, and it played out well in the race, enabling me to sniper lines through everyone else’s wedding banana peels and pin corners on the pedals. I ended up 11th in elite men by a small margin, which as Taylor excitedly pointed out is definitely in the top 12, and this just puts me on the blood trail in the hunt for a podium kill. The second layer of icing, which I won’t get into too much this time around, is how my coaching has been going. All I am going to say is look out for the kids I am coaching through the rest of the circuit…
Until next time,
J

suckin back the dust

so this weekend was the annual b.c. cup race at the ranch, and oh boy was it ever dusty. This weekend was probably the worst ive ever seen that trail, after each rider went all the lines changed and alot of people crashed pretty hard because of it, me almost being one of them, i caught up to the rider in front of me and it was a pure dust screen for the lower portion of the race, not being able to see one of the huge ruts i smoked it and just about went down hard,i held it together and ended up getting 5th place, pretty stoked on that since there was over 60 riders in my category, Matty miles came in at sixth and De came in a 11th i think with a tumble.

Pictures will soon follow!

Debo

this is debo

Deon Gibson from Matt Miles on Vimeo.

quick shoot

Went for a quick shoot yesterday with my buddy J con. Finnaly learning how to ride my slopestyle bike for this season. Things are going good so far, love this bike, check out his photos.

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=87155608732&h=WXuyC&u=VhOqN&ref=mf