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...