The Quiet Achiever

Pretty darn stoked on this!  A short film that Tim Pierce and I collaborated on with some dirt jumping the morning after farm jam and some freeride lines that I spent over 40 hours making, but all the hard work was well and truly worth it!  Check it out...



A big thanks to Teva, WideOpen, Spoke, Marzocchi, BlackMarket, Gravity, SDG and Atomlab for supporting us.

Hopefully we'll make something bigger and better next summer!!

Diaries Down Under

Got the chance to have a wee ride with the Diaries guys, turned into quite the epic but was so much fun!  Got to go in a heli again which is always an awesome feeling, ride some old 4x4 tracks from back during one of the world wars when they used to mine shelite on the hills around Glenorchy plus some of the best local trail rides.

Check it...

Teva Slopestyle official clip

Here's the official event highlight video along with the best trick highlight reel, enjoy!

Mons Royale

A few weeks before the Teva Slopestyle Hamish from Mons Royale hit me up about riding for Mons  and you cant say no to that!  It ended up being perfect timing as he was sponsoring the Teva Slopestyle so was good to have another rider in the event along with Elmo. 

I’d like to thank Hamish for the hook up, so if your in the market for some sweet merino gears check out Mons Royle.

Teva Slopestyle 2013

Teva Slopestyle went off this year!  I don't have anything bad to say about the event, the course worked perfect, judging was fair, crowd was twice the size of last year and all the riders had an awesome time.  I had popped in over the week before the event took place and watched/ helped a little as the course took shape. By Tuesday the course was ready to test out, everything worked perfect first go and nothing had to be changed, pretty good if you ask me.

First hit on the stepdown so excuse the terrible looking style.  Photo: James Clark

It was good to get a few tricks out f the way on the Tuesday and know what the course rode like so I could think about what I wanted to try the next day.  Practice on Wednesday was sweet, it was more of a big session with all the boys throwing down which always makes it easier for you to throw down as well.  I managed to get most of the tricks I wanted to try out of the way including learning flairs, stoked!

Flair with the boys looking on.  Photo: Caleb Smith

Thursday was much the same as Wednesday during the day with some sweet sessions going down.  As 6 pm rolled around the crowd started turning up and we were herded up the roll in ramp.  We got to watch the amateurs show their stuff which was pretty impressive, some were doing runs as good as and better than some of the pros runs which was cool.

Flip during practice, almost under-rotated this one hence the posture.  

My first run went perfect apart from washing out on the flair at the end which was annoying but I cant complain about that with only learning them the day before.  On my second run I went for a 540 on the quarter to play it safe and get a good run under my belt.  The run went as planned so the next run I could throw more into it, I tried a t-wip onto the fruitbowl which I had been doing in practice but slipped a foot so was run over.  My second run was enough for 3rd which I was stoked on!  Going into the comp I was thinking I would be stoked to make it into the final with all the international and homegrown talent that were going to be attending the event so 3rd was awesome!

T-wip during practice

1st Sam P, 2nd Thomas, 3rd Me, 4th Chad, 5th Sam D

I'd like to thank all the people who helped put the event on and made it run smoothly, cant wait for next year!



2013 Teva Slopestyle Finals Day from firstfloor on Vimeo.

Rider Profile

Check out this Teva Slopestyle rider profile on Bikeland.  They're dropping a whole bunch of them leading up to the event.

http://bikeland.co.nz/2013/03/mtb-exclusive-teva-slopestyle-2013-rider-profile-conor-mcfarlane/

Things are starting to shape up, course design is sorted, rider list is growing and and I'm getting excited for one of the best events of the year.

Farm Jam 2013

So, Farm Jam 2013, awesome!  This year’s jam was far by my favourite, the weather played ball, the jumps were the best they’ve ever been and the company was as good as it could get; all a recipe for a good time!  I knocked off work at 5 on Thursday and picked up Nick Dethridge, Chris Beverland and Justin Roy and headed down to the farm for a chilly night in the tents.  I woke up to my first frost for the season and the sound of cows... 

After a morning of digging and putting up signage the jumps were opened; session on.  I must admit, I rode the worst I have ever ridden at the farm and had a bunch of silly crashes doing tricks which I had done many times before on the same jumps.  I decided to call it quits early and go home to Invers for a good shower, feed and sleep. 

Saturday morning at the farm was a chilled out affair with a bit of practice, some digging and some relaxing; just the way the farm is supposed to be.  Once the motos started firing we headed over to watch them, highlight for me was seeing Callum Shaw, a guy I went to school with and used to live down the road from me, flipping dirt to dirt hits and throwing supermen and Indians whilst upside down, don’t even think he could flip this time last year, progression!  As 3pm got closer the mountain bikers started warming up then it was straight into the 45 min jam.  Although I had been riding terrible on the Friday I felt not too bad, I tried to ride all the lines during the jam for a bit of variety along with some tricks.  For me I was most stoked on the transfer jump into the big line from the hips line.  When we were building it I knew it was going to be an awesome feeling jump and I wasn’t disappointed!  The saying ‘time flies when you’re having fun’ definitely applied to the jam as within no time (35 min to be precise) we got the 10 min to go call, where had all the time gone...  After the jam was done we watched the BMXers KILL IT.  So many tricks, some I had never even seen before, and not to mention a few of the most steezy riders I have ever seen ride.

Transfer/ hip flip thingy which is what got me 1st= best trick

I didn’t have a clue where I would end up and was surprised and stoked to be called up in second place and first equal in best trick somehow.  It was sweet being on the podium again and still being the tallest thanks to a small Spanish man beside me.

This is my favorite web clip to come out of the farm yet, no point putting up the 'official MTB highlights' as it contains hardly any highlights so heres Red Bulls Farm Jam - The action. 

All in all it was an awesome weekend and is a pity that it is over for another year, bring on Farm Jam 2014!

Aaaand, Tim Pierce and I are currently doing some filming... Here is a photo to wet your appetite, its going to be a bangers clip!

Tim Pierce Instagram

X-Up Freeride Festival

It’s been a week or two since I went over to Aussy for the X-up Freeride Festival and as you may know the weather didn't end up playing ball for us. 

I flew out of Queenstown on Thursday, put my bike on the plane beside Mcgazzas and when we got to Sydney my bike didn't show up, and his did.  Not ideal when your whole trip is only five days long and revolving around riding your bike but it’s all part of the game.  Shorty, one of the course designers and builders, picked up us and drove us 1.5 hours north the event location.  Riding the course on Thursday arvo was out of the question for me so I just chilled and checked out the course.

All photos stolen off the X-up facebook page.

After many a phone call I couldn't find anyone who knew where my bike was so decided to go back to Sydney with Jacko and a few others.  Ended up being a good choice as it ended up being around 47 degrees!  It was some sort of record I think, hottest day since 1990 or something along the lines of that, so we spent the day at the beach and I went for my first surf in four years, good times!  I used to surf almost every day before I discovered how much fun biking was so was good to do it again.

On Saturday I managed to track down my bike and get it delivered to the course, quickly built it up and did three jumps of the best whip line and then it started to hammer down with rain so had to can it.  It did end up clearing up later and managed to do two jumps then the whole course once before it got to wet to ride again. Twelve jumps for my whole time there as Sunday was a wash out and the event had to be cancelled unfortunately.

I’d like to thank all the guys who helped put the event on and to Nick for helping us out when we were there; it made it so much easier!