bud height

Air, I Wanna (Arawana)

Posted on by Smoke

How can every day be so epic. Especially when you get so tired.

So very tired.

The crack of noon freeriding team…

Stewie on the log that broke Emandem’s foot.

Actually, he didn’t make it that far on the log. Or even this far….

More Gadget Lags.

If a man rides a tree in the forest and no one is there, will anyone notice?

Everyone pushed it up a notch for this one. Here’s Mark on a little gapper.

OK, now to the big stuff. Yours truly, wood to wood. I had to put it up because this hit has been buggin’ me for three years. Feels so good to step up. Thanks for getting the pic, Llew.

Glen, going big.

Barb, going bigger.

Another casualty. Mark was OK but his bike took one on the nose. The injured Emandem lent him his bike for the rest of the ride. Whattaniceguyeh?

Another big move was a gap across a barbwire fence to platform to drop. Here’s Glen on takeoff.

….and ride right to the lake where the cold ones are waiting.

OK then. Not bad for a rest day.

Achtung, Baby

Posted on by Smoke

So I just got back from the Okanagan. Condolences go out to the Kelowna riders. However, the trails you see below are still OK for now, and they are within driving distance. Talk to Kurt at Freedom for directions and local beta.

Here’s Ralf eyeing up the skinnies on 7 Up at Arawana.

Leandro really started to find his rhythm here. This is not a very big drop, but the landing is tuff.

This, on the other hand, is pretty big. Over ten feet with a super short tranny. MOnsters make this really cool KLACK noise when you hit.

Barb REALLY stepped it up a notch. This is the Bud Height Air, me, and a Newfie.

Here’s the lame blurry shot of Barb actually doing it.

Here’s the NASA engineered computer simulation from another angle.

I know, it’s not proof, but that Konica camera really sucked ass. I missed pretty much every shot I tried with it. Excuses, excuses……

I did feel inadequate at this point and tried for some redemption. It IS kinda skinny and it seems a lot higher in real life.

…and this one is sorta tricky, too.

I know, I’m a wuss. I’m thinking of everyone else’s safety, ya dig?

Check out my sunglasses line. It was a little dusty (that’s a 300 foot drop right behind Thorsten).

Mmmmmmm. Fresh fruit.

Ewwww. Rotten lycra.

As you can see, another crappy day in the Okanagan. I think we sat there for a while and drank beer.

Wouldn’t you?

Interior Freeride

Posted on by Smoke

OK,so I’ve been ignoring my updates for a while.

After the Cypress ride we got cleaned up, loaded our gear, picked up the Germans from the airport, and went to Penticton.

Some of these shots are a little sad because currently the area is on fire and some of these trails may disappear.

That’s still in the future at this point.

Here’s what we woke up to in Summerland.

Everyone was a little worn out by all the travel, so we had a bit of a slow start. The sun was well up by the time we hit Penticton.

When we were getting ready, we met a couple of young punks from Nelson getting dropped in the woods by their Mom. Feeling that I owe a debt to anyone from the Kootenays just for being from there, I offered to bring them the good way through.

Kevin and Geoff showed early that the Kootenay kids get the job done.

They made up for riding good by proceeding to blow every tube we had. Well, maybe I got a couple too.

Back to more stellar Peat Bog trail.

The thing about the Okanagan rides is the sheer size. Here we are approaching the end of the third hour of the FIRST run of the day.

If the trail seems easy, remember that you keep getting distracted by all the killer scenery.

On our second lap we did a little exploring and found this cool little sand drop. You buried your wheels up to the axles on impact, but it was prett cool.

It’s the end of the day which always makes it for me.

Oh….so THAT’S why they call me “meat.”

Dinner. Ever notice the correlation of off center pictures and empty beer bottles on the table?

…and finally, this is how you look at the end of a day with the Bush Pilot. So tired even Harry Potter can’t keep your eyes open.

Next update I will have some pics of the Arawana trails plus some news about whether they have survived the fires.