Wednesday 22 August 2012

Camp Days



Photo: Mandi Grant

Weekend full of outlaws.

The flesh Grater outlaw had a pretty low turnout, 7 racers in all. So i decided to drop the entry fee and just use prizes from Rayne and regular underground as motivation. The course starts with a steep dropping left hander, then meanders down a very steep, very narrow and very slippery road. it only took a few rounds of racing before I found myself at the start line with Adam walton racing for first. The early round against Ben Sloat had been particularly gnarly, as we found ourselves tucking down the straight stretches, dodging skateboards and trees that people had thrown on to the track and i didn't quiet avoid hitting the hanging chain we had been leaping over for the finish line. Adam was a more cautious racer then Ben, and with that I won my own outlaw.

The Splinter outlaw had a much better turnout. The shitvan decided to breakdown at the top of the hill, so we only had my truck to shuttle, thankfully Curtis from Regular Underground showed with his pickup and saved the day.  We decided to race twice. first would be 9 teams, (one under 16, paired with one over 16 randomly) and the second would be fixed pairs. Racing with a grommet as your partner led to some interesting tactics, as faster riders tried to block each other to allow they're slower teammates to keep ahead, Adrian English and his partner Alex crashed just before the finish line, and at the end, Griffin Hopkins and Lukas won. Fixed partners was an entirely different monster, tight pack riding at 100kph made for some memorable runs, Adrian and Sloat proved to be unstopable, and in the 4 team (8 man) final the won out, merging together out of the chaos early and steamrolled away from the other six riders who were busy trying to avoid each other. The last event was a chinese downhill, except that no one was allowed to pass me, so the winner had to be right behind me. As i was the last one to arrive at the top of the hill, i put my gear on, and yelled go. Lazy skaters weren't ready, but many were on the ball. After I had tossed my slide pucks behind me in the first set of sweepers, Dion and Adrian battled hard to stay right behind me, and it looked like a win for Adrian, unfortunatly, Griffin is well schooled in the ways of the sandbagger and swept in at the last minute to steal his spot. Being as the prize was a Rayne Rival, and Griffin skates for Sector Nine, he gave the win to Adrian anyways. good sport. Next was podium pictures, helping Brian Sloat finish fixing the van and spending 40 min stuck on the malahat because people suck at driving. fun times.

Camp days

Photo: Mandi Grant

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Shitvan MIA: Saltspring slasher

"what we have here, is a failure, to communicate" Rolling up to Bens house on friday at noon, the Van wasn't there. no amount of calls to Ben resulted in an answer. so we went to plan B, load my truck with everyones Gear, then make them all hitchhike. It actually worked pretty well, given how easy it is to get from Victoria to Ganges. we met at the skatepark, seshed the bowl for a bit, then headed up to juniper to set up camp. Camping was waay up at the top of slasher this year, which was actually pretty awesome. amazing view. we woke up the next day, got ready to head into town for breakfast and registration at the church, got my truck out of the parking nightmare that was the campsite. Then found that Adrian was doing breakfast and registration at the top of the hill. awesome. The race itself was broken up into different classes. under 14, 18 and under, Pro and Am. Hubris in full swing, I raced Pro along with my Ontario friend Jason Epp. Racing was quick, no major incidents or injuries kept things moving along. Dane Hanna won under 14, and would later on make top 8 in open. Open class was added because we got through the rounds so fast, Levi De bruin and Ben sloat both made it quite far. pretty awesome race by all accounts. We cooled down the day with a shitvan Channel ridge session, 7 man packs down that hill is always fun. Skated a few new runs and called it a day. moving on to the party, Sloat passed out first, and as i winded down the night i actually thought i was one of the last to go to bed, little did i know Sloat was going to awake with a second wind, team up with Wolfgang and proceed to spend the rest of the night making bad desicions. The next morning i woke early to drive Jason to the 7am ferry so he could make a flight out of vancouver. Ethan, a ontario alum who now lives in Vancouver (and maybe works at landy, i can't remember?) tagged along so he could get back to Van to pursue a lady friend. A half hour trip accross the island, about 40 min loitering around the grocery store eating breakfast, and a bumpy gravel road trip later, i found wolf passed out far in the back of the van sleeping under packing blankets. I was unsure how he managed to sleep through all that until i tried to wake Ben up around 830 and realized that they must have been up all night. (strike, i hear they were looting beers from the cribb bomb while you slept). we spent the next day skating, and trying to muster the energy to skate (it was really hot) A grom blew a spot out and a not so grom made some tired descisions, so we decided to call it a weekend and go full lurk mode at fulford harbour till the ferry at 4. Last legit race of the year for the shitvan, thank god. We're getting pretty tired. shit. Outlaw season is apon us. see you guys at the Splinter outlaw on sunday.

Ben Sloat getting his chunder on.

"No but I've drank 9. I'm 9 in."

BAAAAAARF

Sunday 12 August 2012

I have a History of Bad ideas

Flesh Grater Outlaw preview from Big Picnic on Vimeo.

Giants heads Race day.

Race day was wicked, even when you got elimated you got the top 2/3rds of the hill to play on non stop all day. the wall ride was game on and first heat was call out your own opponent. Levi did pretty well for him self, out greasing a few people before getting  taken down by wolf head to head. The trip back was great, no overheats, no almost running out of gas, and a few amazing runs in peachland. Amazing, check that town out if your ever driving by. Picked up a pretty lucky hitchhiker who just so happened to be heading for victoria. He was scared shitless watching Levi and Jepp tackle a 9km bomb heading into Merriet. We arrived roughly 4 hours late for the last ferry and proceeded to poach camping. word to the wise, just because you've been sleeping outside on a desert mountain all weekend, doesn't mean doing it at sea level next to a swamp is a good idea. Out hitcher spent the night with us in the swamp, came with us in the ferry, (you found the suprise picture i took with your phone yet bro?) and we dropped him off in town. Got back around 10 monday morning, and headed to work hoping to make enough to make it to slasher.

Giants head freeride Day 1

I woke up on the front bench in the van. Noah was also sleeping there. it was then i realized that i had no idea where anyone else was camped. So after a fair bit of walking about, and one awkward moment where I learned that Dion does not possess the only pop up tent in the province. I decided to just move the van to the other side of the campground and wait for my phone to ring. it worked. A quick stop at Nestors market and we were on our way. Alas, the road to Giants head park was very very steep, and for a moment i wasnt sure if we'd be walking. but we soon made it, found parking. had a laugh at a resident who had already called the police to whine about not being allowed to move a baracade and waited for the event to get going. we all were given score cards, with points being awarded for things like, hands free runs, 2*4 runs, hitting the wall ride switch, etc etc. and a free set of wheels. which was awesome. we got 4 runs in the morning. which were down right gnarly as the mix of 200 riders, some spinning endlessly, others trying to go very very fast got really mixed up until people started sorting themselves out. Dylan and Erin of victoria met up with us. it was there first legit event, and definatly the gnarliest thing they'd ridden. they killed it, but paid their pound of flesh. Giants head road is long, narrow and filled with hairpins, each one hiding its very own special dangers, nets stopped crashing riders from flying off cliffs, haybails attemped to cover rocks and gym mats were tied to the worst of the trees, but injuries insued non the less. One young fellow learned he shouldn't be poaching runs when the wall ride mangled him during lunch and the paramedics were off in town getting something to eat. after mangling a few sets of wheels each, and another 4 runs in the afternoon, we headed to the lake to swim. then back to the campsite for what turned out to be a trend for the weekend, a few beers and an early night.
View from the campsite on top of the Slasher.

Saltspring Shenanigans

Wolfie Coleman was randomly found asleep in the Van. How did he get in there?

Friday 10 August 2012

Thursday 9 August 2012

Kelsey went down to the maryhill sheride. push culture's doing some sort of video. Heres a trailer. looks like it was a pretty good time.
"Team Leader" Brendan Grant looking edgy pondering life as the van explodes on the side of the Coquihalla.

Wednesday 8 August 2012

Ride the Giant. The trip up. hot hot hot

In an almost unheard of precident. no one was late, so we made the noon ferry as planned. I should have known this might be a highlight of the trip to summerland. With a 40 litre tank, its not wise to pass a gas station, but impatiant from dealing with heavy traffic in vancouver, I bet Dion that we could make it from abbotsford to Merriet on one tank, as we approached hope, the gauge read 3/4 tank, while that seemed a bit high, i passed the last gas station with confidence. about 2 min later as we started up the mountain, the float decided to do its job and suddenly we had less than a half tank. now stressing about that, i didn't notice how hot the van was getting as we climbed the coquihalla. The van overheated pretty hard just past the avalanche tunnels and spewing coolant and steam we pulled over. Forced to chill out for an hour while it cooled down, Dion and Jepp took the time to play with their fancy camera's and take pictures of things not skateboarding. The eh teamed passed, obviously their rad was newer than ours. We rolled into Merriet on fumes, enjoyed dinner and stocked up on coolant. The super hot day was not kind to the van, and by the time we got to the campsite, it was well after 9pm. we set camp, (and by that, i mean got drunk and slept on the ground) and awaited the next morning with excitment, none of the crew had ever ridden Giants head before.