Spoke magazine

Just flicked through the latest spoke magazine, not expecting to find me in it, and up I popped, stoked!  Theres a small writeup about Tobys and Pieters film "the south" along with a photo of me 3ing my old dh bike off a drop.

Theres lots of other good content and photos so go grab yourself a copy!

Wakatipu Shore #2

I got held down and was made to write a thing about the gorge road jam and don't think it turned out to bad.  Russ made another short vid from the gorge jam and afew other sessions there, nothing banger just lots of mellow good times.


More Mountain Biking Videos

To check out the whole post hit up dirt mag

Front page of Southland Times

The other day the Southland Times ran a photo of me on the front page of the paper taken before the jam.  I reckon that they must have run out of other interesting stuff to put on the front page but im not complaining!

Some of the other flatties also managed get in the local paper... when they were supposed to be at work.

Wakatipu Shore

So Adrian jacked up what was midweek enzed last year and is now Wakatipu shore (not to sure about the name as it sounds to much like a extremely gay t.v show) and will be coming to you every once and awile but most certainly not weekly, pretty-much just whenever something exciting happens.

To check out the first one hit this link wakatipu shore

Or if you just want to check out the vid check this out...



More Mountain Biking Videos

Frew farm

The Frews have been pretty busy lately moving dirt, alot of it! One of the features is pretty gnarly, anyone that likes sending it will be in their element.

Brett oppo 3

A whole crew of people have been out there digging and riding (when the wind has stopped blowing) and generally having a good time.  Emmerson took afew snaps of some of the riding so enjoy...

Emmerson nacnac

nac seat grab

Final trailer for "The South"

Pieter and Toby have released a final teaser for their movie.

The South Trailer on pinkbike.com

Not 100% sure when it is coming out but the word is the CDs are getting burnt nowish.

[R]evolution Entroducing

I'm abit late on this, its the September magazine (should still be in the shops though), but I managed to get the entroducing page in [R]evolution magazine.

Stoked!  Photo is from Camilla in Central Otago.

Mountain Scene

I'm not even a racer really but I managed to snake a photo in the local rag, the Mountain Scene, from the DH race up Skyline in the weekend.

I've been getting into racing quite alot lately (which isn't like me at all) doing all the races I can get to, I might even make an appearance at a national or two if I carry on my new found enjoyment for racing...

Wideopen Product launch vids

John Drew has pumped out afew vids from the product launch with me in them, enjoy...

WideOpen. Connors Pro Tip. from Jonathan Drew on Vimeo.

Wide Open Conor Macfarlane in Queenstown New Zealand from Jonathan Drew on Vimeo.

Wideopen product launch 2011

Its that time of the year again.  Its in Q-town this year which is sweet, my home town for the summer.

Stolen from wideopen.co.nz.  out filming with John Drew

Pad for the summer

"The South"

Pieter Reichwein and Toby Nowland-Forman just released the first teaser for their second full length movie titled "The South". Being Christchurch locals they decided to contribute $2 from every DVD sale towards getting the local trails on the Port Hills back up and running.


The South - Teaser on pinkbike.com

The DVD features many of NZs top riders such as Cam Cole, Justin Leov and Kelly Mcgarry along with a host of other local talent (including me).  From what I've seen of it its not just DH Freeriding and DJing, theres some BANGER trailriding in there along with Instructional videos and also their first full length movie "Sketchy Lines" (2008).

So go over to Spokes online shop and order yourself a copy!

Cya Whistler

So I'm back home now working on all the tricks I didn't want to try straight to the rock hard dirt jumps in Whistler and so far so good.  Back to Whistler though, I ended up leaving at the perfect time as I felt I had done everything I had gone there to do and was just starting to get the DJ bug back again after having the DH bug for most of my trip.

I would have a video of my trip made by now but my computer decided it didn't want to work for me (it actually crashed when I was doing some editing) so you'll have to make do with and edit that Ben Tyas put together.  Its a sweet edit showing a good chunk of the kiwi boys that were in Whistler doing what they do best.


Whistler Kiwi Style on pinkbike.com

I've also got afew photos from Whistler floating around so enjoy.

James Allan photo

Style

There are plenty of jumps on the Whistler DH tracks so once one is sick of hucking and getting wild on gnarly tracks they have plenty of opportunities to work on their style.  As you can see below I've had a good few months to perfect my style and damn is it looking good!  Captured by the lens of James Allen.

style  (stl)

n.

1. The way in which something is said, done, expressed, or performed: a style of speech and writing.

2. The combination of distinctive features of literary or artistic expression, execution, or performance characterizing a particular person, group, school, or era.

3. Sort; type: a style of furniture.

4. A quality of imagination and individuality expressed in one's actions and tastes: does things with style.

Origin: 
1250–1300; Middle English  (noun) < Latin stylus, spelling variant of stilus tool for writing, hence, written composition, style

Canada

The rest of my time in Canada will be spent in Whistler doing whatever pops up.  The other day Adrian Dom and I decided we wanted to do a full day of DH, not to try do as many runs as we could just to complete it without dieing...  Afew people told us we wouldn't make it due to our hands and arms getting to sore, which you might not understand unless you have done lots of runs in whistler or a bike park.  Full on DH race tracks that are rough rocky and rooty aren't to bad its the runs like Aline that have lots of small braking bumps that hurt your hands.  Anyways we managed to last a full day and ended up doing 35 runs which totalled over 12000 vertical meters, I'm glad I did it but don't think I'll be doing it again any time soon.

River jumps are always a good time especially when a good session gets going, theres a ton of riders here of all abilities including absolute shredders which is awesome, makes you push yourself that much more.

One of my favourite new tricks, if you can tell what it is.

Cheers to Dom for the photos

Even though Whistler is the "capital of the world" for mountain biking you cant always find what you need to fix your bike, one snapped bolt and I'm out for afew days so sightseeing it is for me.

Green River Utah

Here's a small vid put together by Drew Vandergriend of Ben Glassen in Green River.  A tiny hick town in the middle of nowhere where everything is either falling down or shut...




I was on my rear brake only hardtail so wasn't really in my element but had an awesome time and couldn't pass up riding a famous spot like Green River!

Ride 2012 Calendar

Derek Morrison has put together another calendar for 2012 featuring some of NZ's top MTBers in stunning locations around NZ. 

 "Ride 2012: The Art of Riding raises the bar again. It combines some of New Zealand’s best mountain bike riders including Justin Leov, Conor Macfarlane, Harriet Harper, Reuben Olorenshaw and Kashi Leuchs with stunning locations throughout New Zealand. For 2012 it also features the dates of New Zealand’s best mountain bike events."

Hit up http://www.ridecalendars.com/ for more info, orders, preview and more.

Crankworks Qualifying Video

Crankworks Colorado

Crankworks Colorado was such an awesome experience for me, it started by road tripping down from Whistler with a awesome crew of people which kept it interesting.  We stopped in salt lake for a day to ride the local parks with Cody Gessel which was sweet but it was stupid hot!  We ended up getting to Winter Park on Tuesday night, after about 30ish hours driving all up) and went and checked out the course Wednesday morning  then hit up practice to try sort it out.  Kyle Ebbet and crew did a sweet job with the course, the idea of small to big was a really cool in my opinion with the bigger jumps getting up to 35ft.  We practiced and hot-tubbed  Wednesday and Thursday then Friday we hit up quails, I had a run sorted out so I hit that up and ended up qualifying in 17^th I think which to be honest I was disappointed with but at least I got into the finals so can’t complain with that.  

Americans love huge signs

Saturday I was the first person up practicing because I had afew ideas to help me better my score.  I got most things I wanted to in practice so I was stoked with that.  I was a lot more nervous for my first run here compared to Claymore but I managed to stick it and flipped the 35footer which was playing on my mind so it was good to get that out of the way, I also managed to 3 the drop which was really long and only 4 other people (I think) managed to 3 it so I was super stoked on that.  Because I had a good first run I decided to throw a 360 that I had been trying in practice which had smashed me once, popped my tyre once and ridden out once but with no speed, it was the long and low transfer which the biggest trick on so far was a barspin or tuck no –hander.  I nailed my run up top and sent the 3 and managed to land it but didn’t have much speed so pedalled my ass off and hucked the last jump and just cleared it but didn’t manage to trick it so I was bumbed on that as I was going to throw my biggest trick but ohwell I came out unhurt so I can’t complain and I got a lot of credit for the 3 so I was happy with that.  I ended up placing 15th which I’m pretty bumbed about because I know I could have done better but I'm stoked to come away from the event not even feeling banged up.

Might look like your usual drop...but it wasn't really, it was super long and hard to clear

360 transfer on the long and low

Overall it was an awesome experience and I’ve learned so much!   I didn’t know what I wanted to do next year because of studying but after this comp I’m super keen to get back over here and hit up the American comps again just to hang out with the crew and have fun so hopefully it will work out.  This was the last comp for me over here due to Goat Style getting cancelled so just lots of DH and freeride for me and hopefully a big roady with some of the crew from this event.

Contents page photo in NZMTBR

Just found out that scored a full page spread in the contents page in the latest NZMTBR mag, stoked!

 

Go check it out.

Crankworks Colorado

So I tripped down to Crankworks Colorado in Winter Park with Ben Glassen, Dan Brown and Drew Vandergriend.  We drove for around 1.5 days including stops until we got to Salt Lake City where we met up with Cody Gessel.  We hung out at the local parks for the day and just chilled in the 1000 degree heat, it was so hot compared to what I'm used to back home!

We finally got to Winter Park after another 9 hours driving and went to see the course, its a pretty sweet course and the idea of it going from small to big is an awesome idea, Kyle Ebbit and crew did an awesome job!  Check out the day 1 practice vid put together by Drew, its got abit of me in there along with a sweet flip crash on the 28ft (apparently) final jump where my ass got stuck between my tyre and seat, not to nice but didn't hurt and got it sweet next try so all good.



Check out Crankworks Colorado live webcast for the qualifiers which is on at 8am (I think) NZ time tomorrow and then finals the next day starting at 7am.  http://www.crankworxcolorado.com/live_webcast.html

Whistler

As everyone knows Whistler is the meca of mountainbiking and it kind of is...  Its got sick DH and trail riding but I must say Queenstown kicks its ass when it comes to jumps: gorge, mini dream and dream are definitely one of a kind.  So i must admit I was expecting abit more in that department but that's fine because the DH is so much fun!  There's every kind you could ask for, fast, slow, tech, you name it, and then there's Crab Apple Hits!  Its a sick five pack of jumps that are rather large, getting into the late 30s (feet) at a guess.  Might manage to get some photos on that at a later date.

Looking back over Whistler

Its crankworks at the moment and to start it off Chromag and Reece Wallace combined together to host the Family gathering which was a lax as jump jam at the river jumps.  There were some shredders there along with the odd pro, defiantly a great jam with a sweet vibe.  Also the longest train I've ever seen (or been in), I went through it three times and it ended the way I thought it might, by a crash, but luckily the person was fine.

Next stop for me is Crankworks Colorado! Stoked, Dan Brown and crew are giving me a ride there, 20 hours driving or so from what I hear!

Spoke Magazine cover!

I've managed to get on the cover of Spoke Magazine somehow, stoked!  The photo was taken by Camilla Stoddart when I was filming for Aint a Big Deal in central Otago.

Theres also a 7 page interview in there put together by Lester Perry.  Go check it out!

Claymore challenge vid put together by lucent productions.  If you ever get the chance to go to highland do it!!


2011 Claymore Challenge Highlights from Lucent Productions on Vimeo.

Also another vid put together from every1 shreding in the HTC indoor area waiting out the rain. Good times

2011 Claymore Challenge - HTC Sessions from Lucent Productions on Vimeo.

Claymore Challenge

You'll probably know that claymore didn't go well for me, my dodgy shoulder played up again and decided to pop out.  Basically I did everything that i was comfortable with in my first run but with a fronty at the end of it because we had been told that we might end up only getting one run due to the forcasted rain. 

I had watched  Cam McCaul and Dustin Guilding frontie the freebird jump (the redbull wooden kicker) and over-rotate and both did their collarbones I think (but could be wrong) so i really didn't want to over-rotate so pulled forward ever so slightly but not enough.  I'm ripped about crashing because feel like I coulda done well but never know with judges I mighta only jumped afew places. 

Wear a fullface kids, this happened even though i was wearing one

So my first proper comp was a fail but afew good things did come out of it, i got to see what level the top riders ride at and also learnt a bunch of new tricks which was cool.

Highland

So just a quick update on the Claymore Challenge.  I got to ride the course for afew hours on the first day of practice and its awesome!  its got abit of everything, dirtjumps, drops, stepdowns, wallrides etc.  unfortunately its been raining since about lunchtime on the first day of practice so everyone has only been able to ride in the indoor park and foampit.  it was supposed to be a delayed qualifier today but its raining again so doesn't seem like will happen again.  The Highland crew are doing their best and have tarped almost all the jumps so if worst comes to worst we can just have a slip and slide competition...

 

Ill keep you updated...

2010 promo

This was filmed nearly a year and a half ago but only got released afew months ago and i forgot to post it.


Conor Macfarlane - Promo 2010 from Aint a Big Deal on Vimeo.

Better late than never

Enjoy

Magazines

I managed to score two full page photos for the farm jam reports in [R]evolution and NZMTB mag along with a sweet photo of Lewis Jones doing a super seat.  Go check them out..

 

I'm abit embarrassed by one apparent quote in the revo article though, it quoted me saying that I would have defiantly landed the frontie drop of it was bigger or had taken off different, defiantly not a quote!  I may have landed it or got closer to landing it if was a bigger drop or had taken off different but nothing is definite! 

Canada!

Off to Canada in afew days, stoked!  Cya cold damp winter.

Been hectic organising things lately and being my first time I don't have a clue about anything so just winging it and seems to be working out alright.

Dogboy air freighted me a killswitch frame from the factory to ensure it got here before I left and to allow me afew days to get some practice on it, not that i've been able tho because it hasnt stopped raining or blowing.

Its awesome!  Cant believe how much difference a 1 inch shorter top tube and a lighter build makes.  Playing around in the yard it just feels just as flickable as my hardtail.

Photo stolen from paper

 The Southland Times  ran this article in today's paper about my trip overseas, spelling my name wrong even though I made sure I gave the photographer the correct spelling, some things never change.

270 table above Lake Wakatipu

Check out Derek Morrisons website it has this sweet "reject' photo on it from my photo shoot with him.  Keep an eye out in Spoke for some of his bangers.

Id better thank ILT Foundation and the Southland MTB club for financially helping me get over seas, couldn't have got to highland without them so thanks heaps!

Next stop claymore challenge in the USA

C-Mac's Sessions: DH and Hucking

C-Mac's Sessions: DH and Hucking on pinkbike.com

Short video from around Queenstown doing some self shot DH and getting used to my new Corsair Dominion (cheers dogboy) at Mini Dream. Song: The Flatliners - This Respirator

Stuff

Hey, its been awhile since i did anything on here, been super busy lately getting some extra money for Canada and riding.

First off I had a sweet photo shoot with Derek Morrison from Adventure Media Group and got some amazing shots!  So keep a look out for them in the next wee while.

B roll shot from Derek.

Hit up Adventure Media Groups Facebook for some more B roll shots.  Apparently I was quite lucky on this shoot that I didn't have to shoot until it was pitch dark which Derek apparently has a reputation for, got to get the shots though!

The day after the shoot I flew up to Auckland for the NZDJO.  My mate Jim (who happens to be the best badminton player in NZ) picked me up and we headed out to woodhill.  It didn't take long to get used to the jumps as they were pretty much the same as the year before with only afew speed differences.

Photo by Christian Wafer

Sunday was I allover the show in the morning, I hadn't had much sleep but after afew runs I was feeling normal again.  The comp got underway about 12 and everyone started throwing down.  It was a three round format in which the riders slowly got whittled down to around 10 in the filnal round i think.  Between the rounds they had best trick comps on two separate jumps, the first one was on the smaller jumps up the top, langlands was throwing down but went down on a flipwip and did his collarbone then almost straight after that another rider went down doing a 720 and bunged up his shoulder pretty badly.  This put a huge damper on the contest and was hard to get motivated to ride after 20min of waiting around.  I didn't feel like riding after the two injuries and I'm sure alot of the other riders felt the same.  We got underway again though and I had to physic myself up with music which I rarely have to do but it worked.  In the next session I flipped the stepdown which I was stoked on with plans for something bigger in the final.  After the second round they had another best trick comp on the big double, I was pretty tempted to try a big trick on it and try grab some cash but I managed to hold myself back as it was only 4 weeks until the Claymore challenge and wasn't worth risking getting hurt.  Matt Harris did a flip over it along with Elmo Cotter doing a sweet flip table thing over it but in the end Lewis won the money with a huge indy superman!

Finals came around and I decided to try fronty the stepdown as I really felt like doing a fronty but didn't want to risk it over the big jump.  I threw it twice and got worked but was allgood, was an awesome crash though!

Video of Crash from Jim

In the end Lewis Jones cleaned up with Phil Mclean and Chris Beverland in 2nd and 3rd.  It was awesome the see Chris up there as hes been ripping forever but I haven't seen him on a podium before.  I ended up getting 4th and Elmo Cotter 5th (although I thought we got 4th equal).  I defiantly didn't deserve to do any better than I did as I concentrated to much on afew big tricks rather than tricking every jump every run, I've learnt from my mistakes though.

Highlights for me were Tanis perfect 3wips and 3tables to ET, Phils superwip and Nick Dethridges 3 Bar.

Next stop for me, Claymore Challenge hopefully!

Southland DH champs

So I haven't raced in about 2 years because I normally cant be assed waiting around to do my run, I'd rather just pound out some laps.  I was really looking forward to doing a race again though and what better than to do a race on the hill where DH all started for me, Bluff hill.  the Southland MTB bike club had just built a new track as the old one had been logged.

My race day didn't get off to a good start, bad enough that I thought I wouldn't be able to race.  When I got picked up my bike was wheelless as I was changing over to muds, so I chucked everything in the van and we headed out.  Turns out I managed to leave my rear axle sitting on the floor at home, some things you can ride without but an axle is rather important!  Not a good start.  I rang up good old mum to see if she could bring it out for me, she could but only in time for my 1st race run.  Its normally nice to get a decent amount of runs in on a track before you race it.

Mum turned up just in time for my 1st race run so I sneaked in a quick practice, had a huge stack, and then raced back up to the top for my run.  1st run was sweet until I came out of the trees and then I couldn't see a thing because of the misty rain covering my goggles so i stopped and ripped them off, not normally the best way to get a good time but who cares it was the best fun I've had on a DH bike in awhile.  It was pretty muddy which is what I seem to enjoy the most when I DH.  We got a second race run so it was allgood, my run went sweet and I got loos so good times.

Turns out I managed to win my class and get fastest time by 7 seconds ahead of mr pro Dam Mccombie.

Maby I'll do more races again...

Road Tripping

So over the long weekend I had two choices, qtown or a week long roady around the south island.  Complications with my ride to qtown meant I ended up going on the roady which all good as qtown was super busy by the sounds of it and gorge road was shut half the time. 

On day one we packed up the car, alot later than we were planning so a good start to a proper roady, went to dunners for some of the guys to pick up parts for their bikes (chaz still ended up doing the whole roady without a sprocket), then on to Oamaru and Timaru skate parks before camping just out of Methvin for the night.  The plan was to ride the indoor skate park there but the earthquake had weakened the building and we wern't allowed in.

Not a bad view to wake up to

Christchurch and Kiakora the next day, scooters galore, I'm used to no more than 2 scooter kids at a park so was quite a shock and annoyance as lots of them have no skate park etiquette.  Christchurch was awesome though the parks are awesome compared to down home.  Then Nelson for two days riding and chilling with Adrian, cheers to horse and his parents for putting up up.

Screenshot from Nelson

Reefton was next on the list and pretty much the reason for the trip.  Reefton has a huge skate park and only has afew thousand people living there so it wasn't to busy thankfully.  No skate parks really suit my style and Reefton was no exception, still fun to ride though but to ride it to its full potential you would have to be an awesome park rider.

Chaz, turndown out of the deep bowl

Next was a huge drive down the west coast to Wanaka to ride their park and the first dirt for the trip, Lismore.  I was super stoked to be riding dirt again even though I was wasted along with the rest of the crew after 7 days of tripping.  Quick stop at ferg burger to get a feed and then home.  It was a long week but was awesome fun, even learnt some new tricks at the park so cant complain with that.

Chaz and Sam getting comfy in the back