Queenstown

I've been slack again, to much riding and not enough taking photos but that's the way it goes.  Anyways I'm now in Queenstown and have been for a week or two but unfortunately am moving back home again as my job didn't end up working out but not to worry I'm going to make sure I get back in Jan to ride/work for afew months.  Been enjoying gorge road jumps, skyline and wynyard along with afew other spots.  Did one of the League Of Gentlemen races and got completely lost up skyline, ate it super hard at remarks DH track and have been getting headaches from it for a day or two after (don't pin it down a DH track you've never done before) and had afew stupid crashes at wynyard but has still been sweet.

Table mini dream hip. Photo by Tani

Had a sweet sesh at wynyard with phil adam and adrian.  Phil was ripping it up and canned the stedown into mini dream and did a sweet superman seatgrab on the hip along with adrian getting all racer on us while still throwing down some sweet tables.

Adrian.  Photo by Phil

I have wanted to flip the hip at mini dream for awhile now and decided it was time so threw it and on my runin i sumhow managed to get offtrack and ended up taking off the small side of the lip and only pulled back the same amount i should have for the big lip...

About to eat it.  Photo by Tani

So I did it again and made sure i sent it off the bigger part of the lip but went way to fast and landed almost at the bottom of the landing on my rear wheel and came off again.  Third try got it sweet though, pretty bumbed that took that many tries to get it but know I can easily do it again now.

360 wynyard stepdown.  Photo by Tani

I had also been wanting to 360 the stepdown into mini dream ever since i got my killswitch as I had considered it on my hardtail when Tom Hey suggested it to me last wynard jam but I decided Id wait until I had a bike better suited to that style and size of riding which I now have.  Stomped it first try so was good to end the day on a high.

Chilling

Photos of "The Trail"

 Last week i was busy filming with Pieter from 'Aint a big deal' and sent some cool stuff.  Not everything worked out as we had a few problems with a lip rutting which isn't to surprising with the amount of rain we've had and the lack of time for it to pack in but I am still stoked on what I got done.

Big thanks to Stefan Gilmour for coming out and snapping some pics.  He hasn't done much in the way of biking photography (but has done lots of sporting photography) but is starting to get into it and is looking good.

 

 

Cant cleanly ride out of these yet.  I think this is the wrong way for me to flair but with this setup it is the easiest way to try.

I've tried to not show to much of what I did while I was filming so photos of that might come out later, otherwise wait till the film comes out with Australian MTBR mid next year.

Wide Open 2011 product launch

Just got back from the sweetest trip, didn't manage to get many photos but if you head over to spokemagazine.com and wideopen.co.nz you should be able to find some videos and photos of the trip.


It started off with me almost missing my flight coz the airport shuttle decided it didn't want to come pick me up at 5.30 for some reason so had to do some frantic phone calling until found a ride.  I ended up getting there 10min before my flight left but fortunately they could still load my bike on.

I got up to Rotorua and finally met dogboy (the big cheese at wideopen) which was sweet.  Matt V who is one of the three main people at FSA was also there so got to meet him, super nice down to earth guy.  We then went to summer hill DJs which were awesome, I was super amped on the big line which were around the 20- 30foot mark but it was abit to windy and they weren't rideable at the time.

Summer Hill

On thurs we went to Paul Langlands DJs which were sweet, it was abit windy and rainy but we managed to have a cool session.  Paul had broken his foot 4 weeks ago and decided he would hop on the bike for the first time and he killed it even though he was taking it 'easy'.  We then went back to the launch of the 2011 Wide Open stuff which was good to get an incite into what was coming.

Friday was spent at the demo day and shooting photos with Caleb.  I didn't manage to have a ride on my dream trail bike which was a pity, the turner 5spot was a huge hit and was gone most of the day.  And sat was spent filming with Pieter from aint a big deal.

I also got my TSG gear which is awesome, the helmet is stupid light and don't even notice it on your head which is cool.  I also got pads and a fullface which I will be putting through their paces over the summer.

A big thanks to everyone involved for making it such a sweet trip and especially Matt at wideopen for organising everything and putting us up.

Pimpn top cap

I've been useless at updating this thing lately, all I've been doing is studying, that time of year unfortunately. 

I've got some news anyways, I have just signed with TSG safety gear distributed by the guys at cycletech (www.cycletech.co.nz), I'm so stoked and they make the lightest coolest helmet on the market that I am aware of.  Stay tuned for more on that after I get back from the Wideopen Product launch which I'm pumped for!

Also in the weekend I went back to my roots and did a team XC race, it was sweet and ended up coming 2nd so was all good.  Cheers to Eddie Masters for roping me into it.  I've heard that hes going to release a series of webasodes called Eddie T.V....

New Trick

Thought I'd unveil my newest trick...

Cliffhanger flip.


I wish, cant even cliffhanger.  Was just looking through some old photos on my emails and came accross this.  Flip bail at Q-town last summer captured perfectly by Eddie Cuthers.  Bring on Q-town in the summer!!

The trail

I'm the most uncreative person when it comes to most things, like the name of the trail.  None of us have had any good ideas of what to call it.  I may be uncreative when it comes to naming things but when I build I feel like I get creative.  I love dirt jumps but to me they're just to common and you can go anywhere and ride some, so I tried to build this trail as more of a trail instead of trails if you get me.

It all started when I was asked by Pieter Reichwein if there was anywhere that he could film me in Dunners when the Oceania MTB champs were on.  There wasn't really so I build a quick stepdown to hipped drop  in a day or two.  After I had filmed on that I showed Cam Dunn the area and we decided to build a trick stepup and it just got out of control from there.

Not the best photos and was rather wet when I took them but this is the 2nd feature a nice solid 20 footer, yes it is a dj but whats in between the 'regular hits' is what makes it different.

Yes another dj but again its not just dj after dj.  The next feature is one of the best feeling jumps I've ever hit, along with Dream Track, but it depends what line you take out of it...

Further on down the trail is this landing to a speed jump into a big stepdown, I'm pretty excited to see what can be thrown down on it.

Theres a few wooden features on the trail but this is all I'll show you, this one is abit different and as far as I'm aware theres nothing like it in NZ.

I couldn't have done all this by myself so big thanks to all the guys for helping especially Cam Dunn.  We're just starting to ride it and dial it in but next winter there will be lots of new lines getting built.  Watch out for more Photos of this place in the future as well as videos.

Strike

On Wednesday the secondary school teachers decided to strike, why couldn't they do that when I was at school..  anyways this gave a few of my riding mates from down home the chance to come up and hangout for the day.

Nico

Chaz destroys anything he rides

We went to all the parks around dunners, most of which I have never been to as they are to far for me to be bothered biking to them.

Fairfield ramps

The Fairfield ramps are a sweet setup but the copings stick out a mile which makes it abit harder to ride.

At mornington I stole chazes BMX to try t-whips so he jumped on my bike and t-whiped and barred second try on each, jealous.  I've been told so many times that once you get to a certain stage with tailwhips its all in your head so maby one day I can get my head around it...

Was supposed to be doing a 6 hour team XC race this arvo but the weather decided it had to  crap itself, been so long since I've dun a XC race so was really looking forward to it and was even going to get a sweet XC machine from Bike Otago (who aren't here to fk spiders apparently).  But before the weather crapped itself I managed to get my first ride of the season in on the trail me cam and afew others have been working on over winter.

I'll get some photos of it at a later date but heres one of the stepup before I rode it today.  Before the ride today I had dun a ratio of approx 1:300 hours riding to digging and after I had dun a ratio of about 1:70. Rode for 2 hours today so you might be able to work out how many hours digging I've put in.  I've been wondering lately how much better my grades at uni might be if I didn't dig so much.
When I came to dunners most people I talked to said how there was nowhere to DJ around the area, simple, if you go dig you'll reap the rewards.

Get busy

Sandy Hills

Not long before we (me, adam and chaz) built the jump I had heard that stony hills was located in Otatara just out of Invercargill, where I live...I wish!  It was said to cover up where is really is but we decided that seeing as where we built the jump was in a hilly region (old sand dunes) and it was in Otatara we would it would suit the name Sandy Hills instead of Stony Hills.

Sands pretty nice to fall on so is a sweet jump to do tricks on and no pedaling required which is rare at jumps around Invercargill.

The day I got my Killswitch

Carrying the pre-built ramp in was a mammoth effort!  The hill was so steep and the thing weighed a ton!

It gets dark alot earlier than my jumps behind the house so one night we decided we'd see if could get a sesh in on my jumps after leaving Sandy Hills.

Adam - trippy unturndown

Pete

Me - 1foot euro

We ended up riding in car lights in almost complete darkness.  It was a sweet sesh until i decided to end it by crashing.

Went for a footplant...

Back Home

Uni holidays for me at the moment, stoked!  On Saturday I met up with the local crew of Adam, Pete, Ricky, Sam and Tibby and we had a jump in my back yard before meeting up with Brett Frew who had come in from the farm for the day.  We had a bit of a street ride then went out to a secret jump (well not as secret as it used to be before someone we thought we could trust told everyone) and had a bit of a session.  Towards the end of the session everyone went nuts, Pete started landing his 3s and Ricky decided it was time to step up and try some flips.  After one 'scary to watch' attempt he managed to get it round only to 50/50 the landing which ended up being the story of the day for him.  This got Adam and Brett pumped to join in as well.  Brett landed afew flips without to much trouble after a crash or two and Adam landed his first clean flip!  Saturday ended well with a bit of a barby at Petes (cheers greg for the feed) with a bit of a discussion of what we would do on Sunday.

We decided if the weather was good we would go out to the Frew Farm and have a dig/ride.  We woke up to rain which was a disappointment so decided we'd go to some old quarry's which were in the direction of the farm incase we got the text.

We got to the quarry and decided we'd build a small hip, after 10 min work we had fashioned a hip out of the dirt/pebbles and as soon as we started riding the rain stopped, perfect.  I decided to take my Killswitch out for the day as would suit the dj's at the frews well and was perfect for the kind of riding the quarry's gave us.

Pete took first hit

Toboggan

1 hand thing

I decided I'd have a go at 450ing the killswitch, 2nd go nailed it.

 I had never 360d my killswitch off a drop before and saw a place a hipped drop could easily be made. 5min on the spade and had a drop i could 270.  Turns out its hard to underspin a drop, spun about 360 both times I tried but rode away clean 2nd go so just need to find a drop that I dont have to underspin.

We moved on to the second quarry, there were plenty of wallrides on offer, some huge ones that would require a tow-in...one day maby.

Adam, tyre grab in his quater

I was stoked on how well the killswitch rode in the quater once i got used to it

Stall/fuf

We didnt end up going to the farm because spent so much time in the quarries but all in all was a sweet w.e back home.  Cheers to all the guys and Tibby for being a photog for the day.

It was quite muddy

New Bike

Well not all new but pretty much everything is new except for my blk mrkt frame.  I have been in need of new parts for ages now.  The parts I had on it before were about 2 years old so I was due for some new kit.

I'm now running

• Marzocchi DJ1s 100mm
• Atomlab Pimplite wheelset with tioga tyres
• Gravity bar and stem with FSA Nasty Boy Cranks
• Pivotal Pimplite seat
• Atomlab polytec pedals

For those of you that don't know I'm a Gravity/ Wideopen rider on Wide Opens development team along with Jay Barrett.  Cant wait for summer!

Jambo (James Allen) was in Dunners for the w.e so met up and shot a few photos.   It was my last ride on my old wheelset and I'm stoked as to be rolling on atomlab pimplite wheels now and got my new gravity bars as well.

On another note I just got an email from Pieter and Toby about filming for their up coming movie called "Where we ride" so keep an eye out for that at the end of summer and also for web edits produced by them which should be dropping any day soon...including one of me so as soon as that's out I'll see if i can figure out how to get it to show up here.

Chur