Photo: Derek Vanderkooy

I think the title of this blog says it all. There was this nutty wall-ride that I had been scoping out for the past 6 months, it taunted me urging me to ride it. I had seen it staring at me on my way to school, while I was riding the skytrain to Simon Fraser University, Surrey campus. Now I don’t know about other people, but on occasion I see something from a distance and think it is totally rideable only to get up close and find out that the feature in question is enormous, unrideable or both. This was kind of the case with my wall-ride but I didn’t know it yet.

As the story goes Norco needed a bmx photo for their new catalogue and I didn’t want to just shoot a skate park, it’s been done, I wanted some gnar bmx street shots. So I decided to go to the gnarliest place in the Lower Mainland, Surrey, and not just any part of Surrey; we went to Whalley. For those of you that do not know the Vancouver area well, Whalley is not the place you want to go to hang out, some people might use the word “Ghetto” to describe it. Earlier in the day when I scoped out the wall there were people drinking and picking through nasty garbage, I didn’t have an urge to get jumped but I had to scope it out.

Photo: Derek Vanderkooy

Turns out the wall was huge, something like 25 feet high and 30 feet long and to top it off I would have to gap over a barricade to get off the wall. I was still optimistic about riding it; I figured with a little run in ramp, some digging and a piece of plywood on the barricade it would be possible. I could tell the Photographer Derek Vanderkooy and Videograher Alex from Alias lab had their reservations about it. They gave me the “are you nuts?” look, when I proceeded to start digging through a nearby garbage pile, that smelled like rotting fish and many other horrible smells that I’ll let you imagine, in order to scavenge some wood for my run in and transition.

Photo: Derek Vanderkooy

Like the little engine that could; I believed in myself and thought I could send this wall ride. Once I had my run up in place I decided to do a few runs to gauge my speed. At first I didn’t think I could get enough speed to get across the wall; however, after clearing more of the run up and starting further back, I figured I could make it. I was wrong… horribly wrong, I didn’t have quite enough speed and came up 4” short, the result was me taking a hard body slam to the pavement. After a few minutes of recovery, I could breathe again, and decided that if I pedaled and pumped a little harder I could make it.

Photo: Derek Vanderkooy

Round two:  it was getting dark and I knew I had to send it. As fast as I could sprint I came into the run-in full speed ahead and 100 percent committed, and this time it worked out. I sent it another time for the photos, it was sick! I broke the landing this time but we had the shot and I was still in one piece, something I was pretty happy about. So check out the pictures of what it looked like but if you want to see the riding shot you will have to pick up a 2010 Norco catalogue!!! Ha.

Happy Riding!

-Dylan

It’s another year and once again I decided to attend the Teva Mountain Games. This is a sick event hosted by Jeff Lenosky and Kyle Ebbet. Jeff puts together the speed trials and Kyle puts together the slopestyle; both events were exceptionally fun this year.

I went out to Colorado a few days early to give Jeff a hand with setting up the speed trials course. This year we had some original ideas flowing and it definitely made for a technical course. The course was full of turns, small turns but at high speed, combined with bunny-hops it made the course quite difficult. Carnage showed its face during practice, claiming a few riders, as the course proved to be difficult for some to figure out.

In the end pretty much all the riders had sorted out a way through the course, but it remained to be seen whose method was the best. In addition to the course being hard many riders, all of which happened to be really good, were out in full force. Being that there were no European events at the same time, pretty much the who’s who of Freeride Mountain biking in North America were in attendance.

So it was time to unleash the competition; great riders on a tough course. I was hoping to even qualify; considering there was about field of about 30 participants that would have to be cut down to 16 -I was a little frightened. Both my qualifying runs didn’t go quite as planned but I still managed to slide into the top 16.

Unfortunately, my first race in the finals had me lined up against Jamie Goldman who was obliterating the course with ruthless consistency, and posting some of the quickest qualifying times. After our first race, where I was a little slow out of the gate, I was only .5 of second behind Goldman. I figured the second lap just maybe, if I had the best race of my life, I could try to make it up, but .5 of a second on a 11 second course is a lot.

I was hoping Jamie would make a mistake or something, anything. As it turned out I had quite the surprise when I skipped my chain right out of the gate and coasted through the rest of the course. Ohh-well that’s competition and I still had wicked fun. Paul Bas ended up taking the whole thing; I guess his old bmx race days gave him a little edge out of the gate. Next up was the slopestyle.

The slopestyle course Kyle put together was awesome! It was still hardtail slopestyle but this year it was big enough to push the boundaries of our suspension travel. I was having a lot of fun on the course, but considering that there were some of the best slopestyle riders in the world in attendance, I wasn’t holding my breath for a big finish. I couldn’t quite stick my new corked flip over the last booter so that kind of counted me out.

Considering the level of some of the tricks that were being pulled in qualifying I wasn’t too worried. I ended up announcing the finals with Kyle Ebbet which was pretty fun too. Paul Bass ended up taking the final for the slopestyle as well. He threw down a super sick action packed first run that was going to be hard for anyone to beat.  That being said, the finals included tricks like double t-whips, front flips, truck drivers off a drop with no lip, and ridiculous flat spins to name a few. Paul Bass took the win and the overall event. Having great riders there though made it a pretty sick event to attend and it is definitely a must on my list for next year.

Peace

-Dylan

Sometimes, being a pro rider means having to deal with tight schedules.  I constantly find myself in situations where I fly in one day and jet out the next for another riding commitment. It is my personal belief that to be a professional you have to embrace, crazy time crunch end of riding by being super organized and prepared for anything that might come your way. As it turns out riding well is only half of the equation of being paid to ride. The other week I found myself wound up in 36 hours of straight craziness, and all I could do was keep on going.

I had just finished a Ride Guide trip with Darcy Turenne, freeride chick extraordinaire, read my earlier posts for a break-down of that trip. I pulled in from Arizona on a Tuesday afternoon knowing that I would be turning around and leaving for a photo-shoot in Kamloops the very next day.

Like Keifer Sutherland, without saving the world, I had 24 hours to clean my laundry re-pack and get on the road again. Being the ambitious young soul that I am, I decided I should also work in a few shuttles as well; so I gave my buddy Andrew Cho a call. If all went according to plan I could slip a few in while my laundry was washing and drying. We managed to get 5 short shuttles in, but that did indeed set me back a few minutes. I was a little late on my departure to rendezvous with teammate Jay Hoots and head up to our photo shoot in the loops.

Eventually myself, Hoots, Dustan (from the Norco office) and our photog Derek Vanderkooy all met up, and we pinned it to Kamloops for an early morning start and some sick mountain trails.

An early start was made possible by a classic breakfast of sausage, eggs, bacon and toast at a little diner in Kamloops. With a full stomach we went to hit up some trails on the Kamloops Bike Camps private shuttle ranch, very cool and definitely gnarly. Hooty hit up this huge grown over jump line that looked awesome! I was too much of a little girl to

even attempt it. Excuses are for people that need them and Jay Hoots don’t need em! The day actually ended up being a fun photo shoot but a lot of work trying to get the perfect shot.

The day may have been over but the craziness wouldn’t end for Jay or I; we had a catalogue photo-shoot back in Vancouver the following evening. Being too spent to drive down, we spent the night in Kamloops. The next day began in the wee morning hours with a rip down to Van. At this point I haven’t slept particularly well and when I get back home it was nap time, if only for a few hours as we have to be awake in no time to catch the evening light on a urban/lifestyle/skatepark shoot. We hooked up again and slayed the evenings shoot right until dark.

As if this had not all been enough for me I decided that the next morning I should head up to the foam pit in whistler for some training regardless of my exhaustion and sleep deprivation. I woke up drove 2 hours rode for 3 hours straight in the sweltering hot foam pit then proceeded t drive home another 2 hours. Yay. All the effort was totally worth it as I learned corked flips pretty dialled and the photo-shoots all went well, but still a jam packed crazy 36 hours!

After Scottsdale we headed south. Our next stop was the little town of Sierra Vista, littered with gnarly desert mountains it’s situated right next to the Mexican border. In fact the mountains that we were riding were heavily patrolled against illegal aliens trying to get into the United States of America.  As you pull into town you’re greeted by a blimp that floats several thousand feet above the town; turns out it is an eye in the sky with thermal imaging, and a bunch of surveillance stuff, that keeps track illegal’s trying to cross the border. While we were there, the border patrol actually chased down and illegal just minutes from where our trail head was; he got a free trip back to Mexico.

Being that we were so close to Mexico I was worried that I would get swine flu but I wasn’t making out with or sharing drinks with any illegal aliens so it turned out okay… Korba is swine flu free, that’s right ladies *(wink). Once again our ride started very early in the morning. The first thing you realize is that this place is gnarly for sure. Between the heat and the gnar of the trails it turned out to be one of our bigger days out. We ended up riding two trials; one which was a nasty little downhill piece and the other which was a super flowy fun trial. Both trails were a good time; the flowy trial was right by a creek so it was a little bit cooler the downhill, however,  was on an exposed rocky ridge and it was hot, damn hot.

After a great day of riding sick terrain, the question was: what would be the cool thing to go and do? Hmm… How about Mexican food and shooting guns! So after a great lunch we hit up the Sierra Vista shooting range. When I was younger my family used to be member of a range and my sister and I would target shoot (Yea redneck family). Anyway I had not shot a gun in about 6-7 years so I had a pretty itchy trigger finger and definitely got lucky. First I shot a 9mm and .22 cal both of which were hand guns. After a few shots with a .22 cal rifles as well, some of the locals offered me the chance to shoot some of their larger calibre pieces, and I obliged. So a .40 cal hand gun, a 30-30 rifle, and then it was all topped off with an AR15 – a military issue machine gun… SICK!!!  I had fun.

To finish off our Sierra Vista we went to get a taste of the old west out at neighboring town called Tombstone. Only 15-20 minutes out of Sierra Vista this is one of the most classic old-west towns still around. It is, of course, a bit of a tourist trap but it’s cool none-the-less. They actually re-enact some of the classic gun fights, so seeing that was very cool. For authenticity they even use real guns…. with blanks though. From the stories they told us, Tombstone sounded like a pretty wild town back at the turn of the century. It was essentially a lawless town through this time period and from the locals stories it sounded like some of that persists to this day. A taste of the old west was the perfect way to cap off the Arizona film trip and really rounded out the experience.

Later,

-Dylan

Holy cow ratzamunga what a blast off to the 09 season!  Hope everyone out there is enjoying this amazing stretch of killer weather!
So here is the update….

Hoots was invited to the Willoughby Bike Park and Port Moody Trials Skills Parks to build expansion features within the current park! Yeah! So sic.  Both of these parks have incredible history and I am honoured to be part of their movement!  Port Moody is the first Skills Park ever built in an urban environment and it’s under a bridge protected from the elements.  The redevelopment is being spearheaded by Ryan Leech, soooo cool!

Photo Credit: Jay Hoots

Photo Credit: Margus Riga

Went to Kamloops with Kobra (Dylan Korba) to send the KBC trails with Chuck and crew… Dang sweet dusty fast giggle worthy trails for sure!!!  Mace pimped us with new 09 threads and pads so it was awesome to get out there and get a few shots, some video footage with Derek Vanderkooy and Alex from Alias Labs and check out the Mace steeze…Check it here.

Photographer: Derek Vanderkooy

Straight up I left for Canmore to do trail workshops and presentations through the Bow Valley Trails Alliance and Nordic Centre and then hit it to Hinton Alberta where we have developed 30 acres into a huge Bike park complete with a 4 acre Skills centre, Slopestyle, Shore styles, Flow DH and some fun roller trails!  The club there rules and so does their vision for the town of Hinton…If you live within 10 hours of Hinton you really need to check it out there is nothing out there save Burns Lake that is so complex and big for free!!!!

Photo Credit: Jay Hoots

In the truck right now driving to Fort St James for a dirt jump contest in the park we built last year and then off to Vanderhoof to build a Skills park!  Just got the call that my Whistler pass is ready to rock so keep an eye out for the Dread in the park yo!

Out