builders only

Girls Skillz – Day 2

Posted on by Smoke

Wow, THAT was a rainstorm.   Pretty tough to get motivated after that, especially with how tired I know all the girls feel after yesterday.  Well, we got Smith Creek to play with today, so lets see if the rain will clear off.

It was time to work on the cones.  Sorta like traffic school…with full suspension bikes and short skirts.

Lorraine tries to dress to match her pylons as much as possible.

Silly low speed corners.  Lets go try some slippery stunts.  That sounds like more fun.

If you don’t make it over on the first try, Lorraine spanks you on the bum.  I failed at least 20 times.

Karen just makes it look boring…

The Smith Creek warmup loop is perfect for learning how to deal with stunts.  There’s a ton of small ones, and they’re sort of sketchy.  Makes you really have to be on top of your bike to get ‘em.

After 2 days of this, the message really starts to sink in.

Having Hanna around to set the pace helps though.  She just powered into everything.

Cynthia, with one of my favourite shots ever.  Look there, go there.

OK, that’s how it’s done.

There’s a bit of new stuff around Smith Creek now.  The sun was just coming out for this one.

OK, he’s not a girl.  But it’s a nice jacket.

There’s a girl.  Lorraine shows the girls how to drop a skinny with only one ACL.

The last run of the clinic was on Powers.  Thought that we should try a real world freeride trail. 

Pretty amazing to see the girls going for it in early season conditions.  I even heard some comments about maybe switching over to Freeride from XC.  

Ignore the beard, it’s all about the long hair.  I’m just trying to demo the concept of over the front end for a centered position.

Lorraine’s got it.  Then again, she is kind of rad.  Almost as rad as Barb (sorry ‘Raine, ya gotta have a kid to compete on that level).

Awesome weekend, ladies.  You all really threw me for a loop.

Manfest! – 2

Posted on by Smoke

Ahhhh, here we go.   Well, it’s a good thing these guys are all from either Rossland or the North Shore, because the wet weather is back.  Actually, the crew all has a Rossland connection of some kind of another, which is good for me since my Dad is from there.

Now you can see the weather we’re in for.  One really good thing about the wet; since these guys are looking for some tough riding, this makes everything out here pretty rad.  Say hi to my cousin Eric.  He’s the stylish dude in the lower left corner there.  Ask him about old BMX races when he was a kid and he would make Schley and Simmons cry.

No log riding around here.  Just fog riding.

Another theme with a big crew.  Lots of flat tires.   They’re not used to the hard rock we got here, eh?

It gave us some time to session some little jumps though.

Two minutes more riding, and yet another set of flat tires.  Seriously guys, put more than 12psi in, OK?

They really liked this steep drop section. 

It’s ‘busy’ as I like to say.  Some chicken wire, a little steep roller, a gap, and a berm.

…and all so close together that it becomes like a single move.  Especially when it’s this slick.  I like how the gallery makes it look like a World Cup DH course or something.

Allez allez!

Speaking of World Cups, former Canadian DH champ Eric Goss was with us today.

That ride was shit.  This on the other hand, is a nice lamb sausage.

A seriously full van.  For you old skiers out there, that’s former Alpine Canada super star Felix Belczyk smilin’ at ya there.  Trivia:  he was the first North American to win a WC Super G event.  Props, yo.

We had lots left in the tank, and as the gang was off to Kelowna anyway, we hit up Powers Creek for some more.  It was deadly in the wet.  I had some wicked near misses on slick woodwork.  There was a gnarly crash here too.  One guy no-footed it onto Crazy Train (not on purpose) and ended up in the hole on the lower left of the pic.  Walked away with no real injuries.  Yikes…

This was surprisingly not any harder in the wet than the dry.

Nor was the CIA log.

Some wildlife.  Somehow I don’t think this is a native species to the area.

Uh oh.   I didn’t see it, but this was a high speed balk at a wood to wood gap.  He cut all his speed by breaking a 2×4 the thick way with his forearm.  It didn’t look too bad, but we splinted it and took it easy on the way out.  As it turns out, he’d shattered his arm and it would require more than a couple of pins to fix.  Oh, and a few stitches in the chin.   My perfect season with no medicals is looooooong gone now.

The end of the day, and the traditional awards ceremonies.

There you go princess.  That nice drop you did above doesn’t count now, does it?

Salad Doggers – 7

Posted on by Smoke

Since we’re stuck in Revy, we figured we’d go out on the town.  And with all the pics from yesterday, I’m putting the after midnight shots up for today. 

See if you can see how many things are wrong in this next pic…

OK, now how ‘bout this one?

The morning dawned wet and gloomy, so I let the boys sleep while I dealt with the van.  Luckily it was a fairly easy fix and there’s some great mechanics in town.  $60 and a few hours waiting around was all it took.  If you ever break down in Revy, call Trukars.  Good folks.

Tart?

Luckily, the boys are pretty tired at this point, so a half day ride was fine with them.  I took them out for an afternoon session in Westbank on the Powers Creek trails, and they got their gap on.

Big time.

For guys that don’t jump, they are taking too it quickly.

Having a trail like Builders Only is a bonus though. Makes it easy to get that monkey off the back.

Speaking of monkeys, Mark was on fire today.

Almost like blue sky up there.  I remember when this trail was dusty (it’s better this way).

Lee, suck yer butt in!

More Mark ‘Monkeyman’ Sheffield domination.

He even sent this large-ish gap at the end of Crazy Train.   Couldn’t get anyone to do the whole line, but he did hit this jump a few times.  Which is actually harder to do without hitting the rest of the stuff buy whatever…makes for a good reason for them all to come back next year.