Sometimes when you least expect it, the little crashes turn into the not so little injuries. Like the other day I went for a famed last lap and things went wrong… It always seems that when you are just going out for a 50 percent day, you get taken out. Last week I went for a chill day in Whistler Bike Park, with my sister and two non-freeride friends. I was just trying to get out from behind the books and wanted a chill day in whistler and I almost got it too.  The day was mostly great! We rode trails like B-line and Crank-it-up all day, and took a long lunch with friends. Good times.

After the day I decided to take one chill solo lap down A-Line. Long of the short of it, I was about 200 feet from the bottom in the biker-cross and slid out in a dry loose berm. I was going quite slow and thought I was fine, so I jumped back on my bike and continued on my way. I actually thought it was pretty stupid and was laughing to myself. Maybe a small amount of road rash I thought to myself, until I noticed blood all over my pants and frame. Turns out I must have clipped a sharp rock. There was actually very little road rash but a deep cut, with blood streaming out of it.

That was a bad way to end a day, but the worst part was yet to come. The emergency in Whistler is pretty much always a wait, so I decided to clean the wound out myself and drive back to Port Moody. It turns out the cut was deeper than I thought and was through all my layers of skin down to the muscle. I rinsed it all out with distilled water and then realized that I was not going to be fixing it with a couple butterflies when I could pull the layers of skin away from part of the muscle. All my friends were ridiculously grossed out. I poured a bunch of peroxide on the wound which hurt!! Rinsed it wrapped it and got my butt to the hospital.

The aftermath was 15 stitches and getting put on the bench for 10 days. Great… more time to study my Economics books! It has been healing well thought and the doctor was worried about infection but I think I’m off scott-free on that one! With the weather nice and the season ramping up I can’t wait for it to heal!

For me one of the most fun things to do in mountain biking is photo shoots. I think that most riders would agree that every shoot, has its own adventure. The purpose of this little photo session was to grab some photographs for the upcoming Norco catalogue. The idea was to get some street shots. Well, we definitely got a few pretty banging shots, but as always we have to keep the best ones under wraps for the actual catalogue. None the less here is a little re-cap of how the adventure went down.

Meet photographer Margus Riga at around 8:30pm so we can get some evening shots. I met Margus up at my university campus and was stuffing some Chinese food down my face because I had yet to eat that day. I knew of a few cool lines that might bear some fruits: banks, rails, stair sets and that kind of thing.

We decided to warm it up on one of the bank lines; it offered some cool framing options and a cool view of the sun setting. We shot as much as we could on the bank line and then moved on to a cool arch to get some manual shots and a few life styles, but at this point we were confronted by security. The security guard did his best job to shut us down… kind of. He said, when we were done, if we could stop riding on campus, it would be appreciated. Well I figured that meant when we were done shooting which could definitely be a little while.

We proceeded to go get a sick shot with this hand rail and staircase -that was awesome! I was super stoked because we were having a little trouble getting what I saw in my mind initially. It was a night shot though so it had to be flashed of course. But every time I did it, when the flash would go off I was basically blinded. So I was bunny hopping a full sized hand rail, of a full flight of stairs at night and blind. It was definitely sketchy for me and I kept hoping and praying (even though I wouldn’t consider myself a religious man) that I did not hang up my back tire on the railing. After around 20 tries we got the shot! I felt so good; nothing feels better than when I tee up a line and have the photo to prove it.

We decided to try and shoot one more shot, an underground wall ride, but it was getting late. Margus has a great eye, and found a super cool artistic shot, using the underground lighting. We were giving it on this one with a bit of an audience of the cleaning staff at the university and they were super cool with us throwing down. The funniest thing of the evening though, is we were busted by the same security guard. It was about 2.5 hours since we were initially busted so I kind of expected him to get a little ticked off with us, but all he said was “Not done quite yet?”, and cruised on. Shoot successful!

Mace Renegade D30 Knee and Shin Pads:
I’ve been Running all different types of knee pads over the last 10 years of my riding career. The Renegade pads use the D30® armour changes molecular density when subjected to impact. This allows these pads to be really thin but so stiff when I get smashed by my pedals or the concrete. I wear a slimmer cut pair of jeans most of the time so they don’t get caught in my chain. The renegade pads are hardly noticeable under any type of jean, even women’s jeans, lol.  Being so thin and porous they also breath better than any other shin or knee pad that I have ever used. Riding this rock threw me to play in the dirt at the bottom a few times. I smashed my knees into the ground and into some rocks with out a problem. I’ve been riding these pads now for about 2 months and my legs feel normal! My shins and knees are really chewed up from the years of pedal bites and crashes. Finally learning my lesson and without my Renegades I won’t ride. This D30 stuff is hands down pretty incredible!

-Ben

The Capilano University, Mountain Bike Operations course has gone through some changes and now Jay Hoots is the lead instructor! What!!!!!
True story, this last semester saw yours truly set down the assistant instructor role and step up into a position of responsibility!

Dan Scott from IMBA Canada and past student in the MBO program is my assistant instructor and with his help we have transformed the traditional course into a Dreaded jam packed Giv’R sorta gig that serves to give real experience and provide a huge range of skills…

The program now going into its 5th year continues to grow in so many cool ways. Great feedback from students and the open minded attitude of the school means that the program is getting better…

2010 is the first year a municipal partner has come on board to offer a large land area to be developed for future school trail building projects, Sechelt rocks!

The advanced trail building course runs for the month of April and it is ‘full on’ with multiple projects, massive amounts of information and of course project design and construction in the field. The students all rose to the occasion and designed and built “Brown Sugar” a multi level bike trail that is soo much fun.  It was great to work with all the students and I appreciate the time spent in and out of class with such a wide variety of characters.

During the month I lived on the coast and in between marking exams and assignments I did manage to get some solid riding in both on moto and mountain bike.

That’s it for now huge stuff for May!!! Hope the weather continues to hold…

Ride ON!

Hoots

Jersey reviews don’t come around everyday but Feedthehabit.com recently review our Perimeter Jeresy. Here is a bit of what they had to say:

“Heading out this Spring, I’ve been wearing a couple of pieces from Mace Gear: the Perimeter Jersey and Mirage Glove. I’ve been impressed with the overall quality of these products and know they come from rider-influenced designs. I mean, how could Ryan Leech lead anyone astray, right?”  Read the full review