Supporting the Whip

Inspired by whip videos from The Coastal Crew and Ian Morrison, I really wanted to make one of my own. Whips are a neat move. Every rider has their individual style and no two whips look alike. I wanted to make mine fast paced and fast cut. Matty Miles was the man for the job. We spent two evenings filming whips on the same two jumps and then compressed it all into one 40 second edit. Usually my interest would fade filming the same thing for two days but whips just never get old…

Back on my feet

So this weekend I finally left my crutches behind and even got out for a light pedal on two wheels. You really don't really know what you have until it is gone, and you don't fully appreciate it until you get it back. And generally I am pretty appreciative of every chance I get on my steed. Stepping backed on the pedals this weekend marked the end of a little over six weeks off my bike due to a knee injury and the subsequent surgery. Feeling confident I could finally get a full stroke in on the pedals, I pulled my bike out of my basement and decided to ride down my street to the end and back. A little over an hour later I returned home after having ridden back and forth down every street downtown above my house. It might seem pretty elementary to enjoy riding a downhill bike down a paved road but it was a huge relief to just be on my bike again and achieve that milestone in my recovery. I still couldn't stand up and pedal with much force, but I am noticing improvements every day and am pretty stoked not to have to crutch around school anymore. I lust for the day I can sit on my bike at the top of Rio, looking down the valley through the grasslands and knowing that I can finally enjoy what I love every day, hopefully surrounded by a crew of likewise smiling Cafe shredders. Here surrounded by textbooks and projects up to my ears, God I can't wait.

J

crashing

Today I would like to talk about how much I like crashing. Crashing is a great thing to do into soft dirt, or anywhere that doesn't have rocks, trees concrete and other hard things. I hope that next riding season I can find lots of soft, sketchy jumps and crash all over them, and I highly recommend crashing to anyone who is good at riding and doesn't crash very often. Anyway, that's all I have to say for now, here's a picture of me crashing, taken by Allan Mcvicar.

sponsed

dug this up. gettin hella steezy.

Sun Peaks Freeride Camp

Have you ever wanted to ride your bike down a variety of different trails ranging from tech shore style runs to high speed, bermed up, machine built race courses? How about build some new skills and ride some stunts you never thought you could? Snack on some fancy food or soak up the atmosphere of a super laid back European style resort? What if you could do all this at the same time, under the careful instruction of the locals who know this zone the best? For one sunny week in July a fortunate group of young riders got to experience it all at the Sun Peaks Freeride Camp.



On the first morning of camp I immediately began to sympathize for my high school teachers. I used to make fun of them for being awkward and appearing to be so nervous. Standing in front of 27 sugar-high-super-stoked kids all jumping around asking questions and super-keen to hop on the lift, I think I got a taste of what it was like to be in the shoes of all those teachers I hassled. Lucky for the coaches, we were all at Sun Peaks to teach the kids about riding bikes and not to teach them about math. With a stacked roster of coaches including myself, Matt Hunter, Graham Agassiz, Chayse Marshall, Justin Terwiel, and Justin’s father, George Terwiel, the kids knew they were in for some excitement and that made it easy for us to mellow them out. As with any sort of multi-day event, the first day at freeride camp was spent getting organized and feeling everything out. I was about to spend a week helping kids push their limits on their bikes and it appeared to me that ensuring those bikes were safe and the riders were up to the task was number one on the checklist. After the first day of feeling out riders abilities and making some adjustments to the groups we had our wheels rolling smoothly.



For the days to follow their was nothing but hard shredding and good times. I was continually impressed by how enthusiastic and open-minded my campers were to learning new things and taking advice on old things. Stepping it up on a daily basis riders were dropping down rock faces they’d previously thought to be too steep and airing over gaps they never imagined they would have the confidence for. It was insane to watch all of the riders feed off each others excitement and help push each other to new limits. Especially at the moment when my 9 year old buddy, Jackson Phillips, who I know through work at the Bicycle Cafe, launched himself over the biggest doubles in the park, only to be followed by the rest of the kids. By the end of the week we all walked away with some new skills, a lot more confidence and a whole new group of friends to ride with.



I’ve always enjoyed doing events with kids or helping people learn to ride and this was my first time having my own camp. Helping people to realize their potential and have a lot of fun at the same time are both extremely rewarding tasks for me to work at and working as a mountain bike coach is the perfect way to accomplish those tasks. It ends up being a ton of fun for everyone involved, and nobody walks away without a smile. Sun Peaks Freeride camp was a new experience that took a bit of work to get in the groove of but I found my way pretty quick and had just as much, if not more fun than all the kids I had the chance to shred with. Thanks to everyone at Sun Peaks Resort, Race Face and Dakine for making the camps possible. Now I just can’t wait till next summer’s camp!

BR

Ross, Gully, Harookz and a group of the bicycle rocker dudes did a trip down to Merritt this weekend to shred some mountain, i showed them around to a couple of trails and some abandoned condo's. I ended up with these, soo stoked!

Road trip!

I love road trips! My last one (which was just over a week ago) Jason and I decided to go to the Kootenays and ride Rossland, Castlegar and Nelson. I figure we got to ride some of the best the Kootenays has to offer. Some of the trails on our agenda: The Flume & Whoopity-Do in Rossland, The Awakener & Grandiflorum in Castlegar, Baldface and other random awesome trails in Nelson. In Rossland, we stayed at Derek Frankowski’s place and were lucky to have popped in to the studio where we got to see a clip of his new bike movie Life Cycles. This movie is so visually stimulating; I felt shivers through my body as I watched it. The Awakener in Castlegar didn’t let us down. This trail is littered with med-large size jumps, gaps, step-ups, skinnies, etc. We were pleasantly surprised with the trail on the other side of the road, Grandiflorum. It’s a super long, flowy, fast trail with amazing corners and non-threatening stunts. A real good, feel good trail for anyone! Nelson showed us what we almost were expecting: great hospitality, great people, and great trails. We were lucky enough to have run into Roland, a friend of Sacred Ride, who shuttled us both of the days we were there. We also managed to end one of our rides at the shop on “100 beer Wednesday”......and needless to say we had to help them out! Many beers later we managed to make plans to ride Baldface the next morning. Good idea or bad? After that many beers it was tough to say. Luckily it was good. A great way to end our trip, a 5,500 ft. descent from alpine, wild flowers up to my head, through steep , rocky technical corners, to the fast flowiness of Shannon Pass. Thanks to Leroy Brown and the crew at Sacred Ride! It was definitely the highlight of the trip! I encourage anyone that is in need of something new, the excitement of riding in a new place does wonders for your soul. Or it did for mine anyways!

(photo is from Baldface in Nelson - I wanna go back!)

average shred

matt and korb came down to merritt a couple weeks ago stoked to shoot a video on my favorite trail. I had alot of fun because we share really similiar idea's and im stoked on the outcome. its short but alot of fun.

Sideways Days

It must have been a pleasant scene to view for anyone riding the hill that day. The dirt stained a slightly darker brown from the previous nights rain. Thin clouds passing over the sky, not so much as to block the sun but to allow everything a fine gold tint. Small pink flowers brushed the green hillside and three young men wore yellow boots. It was fall at Sun Peaks.



Beyond the orange flags and black signs urging riders to wear helmets and gauge there speed accordingly lie a particularly exciting addition to the adventures Sun Peaks has to offer. Freshly sculpted mounds of dirt shaped carefully to ensure a flowing succession of big airs. No brakes, no pedals. Just shredding. This area was designed as part of the ride down the mountain but we found ourselves stuck in this section for hours and hours , riding the jumps over and over. Rushing to get the shots as if we were addled enough in our thinking that we might forget whats important to us if we don’t show others.



Eventually the thin sky grew thicker until the sun could no longer stab its way through. The temperature dropped and the scene grew dark. We could smell the rain before it even began to bead up on our sleeves. As the rain began to pour we put the cameras away and worked our way to the bottom where we could find warm, dry clothes and hot chocolate to aid in regaining or warmth. It was one of those epic days where everything went right and anything that wasn’t right wasn’t real. One of those days that make you feel both content with recent events and excited for what might be around the next corner.