So lately we have been making the absolute most of the skinny piggy bank, stretching every last half-penny to the max and loving every section of trail I can find. Last week I had a couple shreds down Rio that were mindblowing. With all the rain the dirt was moist but had dried up just enough to be superman tacky. That trail puts a grin on your face in the moon dust, but on tacky soil it is euphoric. Gets a little scary how fast you can go actually.
Last weekend I spent down in Van and got to ride a bunch of Mt. Seymour, which was muddy and delightful. Coming from the desert, it is hard to fathom how much the trails are shaped by water, and just how gnarly they can get once the majority of the dirt is gone leaving just rock and crazy roots. My speed arrived with me before my full focus did, and being that I was on new trails the results involved three pretty heavy crashes. On one I was leading, putting down a solid pace, and just after I thought to myself that I was pushing pretty hard I came around a corner and there was a downed tree sticking off the side of the trail on my line at ankle height. I cut hard to avoid the tree but my pedal caught it and I was sent over hard. These sorts of things just don’t seem to happen in Kamloops where you can look further ahead and be fairly confident that there aren’t going to be rogue dead heads unheeded around the next bend. Or maybe I should just slow the pace until my I have my full focus on new trails…
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Seymour Gnardeath
Did a few lesser known trails that seriously pushed my idea of what was rideable on a bike. Like trying corner on wet offcamber rock with cliffs below you to wallride across steep waterfalls around trees and over their wet roots to hip drop into a gnarly creekbed runout. Unreal. When your mind isn't used to percieving something as rideable, even in the absense of fear it is interesting trying to figure out what to do. And riding everything blind at speed doesn't help either. A few lines I had to stop to try and comprehend how I was going to proceed, and luckily on one of them that I actually thought wasn't rideable I was out with Mr. Bryson who showed me how they do it in North Van. There is so much rock and so many roots down there, everything is at some stage of creekbed, and there are no off-trail runout options anywhere if you screw up. Despite how un-Kamloops it may sound the trails were super fun. I love challenge, variety and having the opportunity to learn, so with those things in mind North Van served up the perfect new kind of meal. I am back now and trying to let the poor body recover, but for next week I am planning another trip down, so hopefully there will be plenty more trails and a bit less carnage, coming soon.
Much love.
J
Much love.
J
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Good Day
So we are counting inventory at the store this week. Its lots and lots of counting, definitely not the most exciting task. Just when we were feeling blue, local movie star and shred rat Matt Hunter came in looking for a bike box so that he could mail a frame away to a friend. We had just the right size box Matty was looking for and he was stoked! He even stopped to talk for a minute and tell us about the progress he has been making on building his very own cabin! Pretty cool!
Sunday, October 25, 2009
What's Next? Seggy
Aaron Larock's movie "What's Next?" is now available on the internet for free at www.pinkbike.com. Watch the full film or check out my segment below.
shortie
matt and ian came down today and me and matt got in a little less than an hour of shooting..hopefully a follow up with some shock biking will happen before the snow comes..here it is
lukebeers from Matt Miles on Vimeo.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Sun Peaks Promotional Shooting
You can probably guess that Sun Peaks Resort is my favourite place to ride since my blog posts are always talking about the place. I have been scrounging the west coast for a few years and still haven't found another place where I can get in so many different styles of riding in one day, so easily, and it's so damn close to home! Not to mention the killer scene around the resort. It gets me filled up but I always want more. As a result of how much time I spend there I get the oppourtunity to participate in a lot of cool media projects. One of the more fun projects this summer was spending a day shooting with Adam Stein. Adam runs a photo bizz with the resort, pumping out images for the resort to use for various promotional purposes such as their website, posters, billboards etc. I was stoked to bag a few solid color-filled summertime shred photos with Adam back in early August. Take a gander at some of the photos they have been kind enough to pass along to me!
All photos Adam Stien, Sun Peaks Resort, B.C. Canada.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Vancouver Shredtastic
Last weekend was a delicious feast for the soul. I have been trying for a while to get down to the coast to do some riding but last weekend I was finally able to coerce the schedule into allowing for such a trip, and I dragged the empty bank account along for the ride. This meant an absolutely survivalist budget, but I managed to get a fair bit of riding in and had a blast in the process.
I got down there on Saturday and the weather was decidedly fair, being about 15 degrees and sunny when I arrived which was a bit of a surprise, coming from -2 and cloudy in Kamloops. Once I dropped my bags we proceeded directly to Seymour to sample the local goods. The first trail we hit was CBC, and it was an intriguing little monster indeed. For those who haven't ridden it, it is like riding a raised bridge made completely of rocks... like a mini roman cobblestone road, only for bikes. Strange indeed, but it was nice to have my wheels rolling under me anyways. I was a little tentative about the flat drops on the wrist, but after a little testing I concluded it was good to pin it, so pin it I did. From CBC we headed to Ned's, and it was a blast. I had some pent up not riding aggression to get out, and despite not having ridden the trail before hit it at pretty much full speed. Such fun. Ned’s was fast and pretty tech so I was in my element, and a smile didn’t leave my face. When we got to the bottom we decided to go sample some dirt jumps just up the mountain and they were equally delicious. After a few partial runs through the slightly uneven main 10 pack I felt pretty good and happy to be in the air, finding my dj flow again on my dh. I love dirt jumping.
Sunday we decided to go hit the Woodlot and it was even better than Seymour. The push up was a bit interesting over pretty much a rocky creek bed but it was definitely worth the effort for the long ride down. We met up with a random crew of locals once we got to the top and decided to use their local knowledge to find the best lines. I can’t remember the names of all the trails we hit but they were so much fun it was ridiculous. The trails were tacky, super flowing and tech with tons of corners, so I was pretty much in heaven and got a little rowdy in my excitement. I had a bunch of close calls diving blind into corners with random stumps hiding behind ferns until finally punched a tree hard enough to mangle my knuckles on one side. Ah well. One of the bottom trails had a sweet little line with two opposing hips before a pump turn and a big gap over a fallen tree, with a nice tight corner just after the landing. The first time I overshot by a fair bit and had to pull out a nice slash save into the corner, but after that we sessioned it for a while, getting it super dialed and it was quite amusing. When we got to the bottom we all had perma-grins on our faces and the reggae beat helped us keep the vibe all the way home.
For bang for the buck, my trip last weekend takes it hands down. Despite riding 2 days in a row, eating like a king and going out 1 night, I managed to spend less than 20 bucks the whole weekend and got to spend a lot of quality time with friends and family. Tomorrow I am heading back with 14 bucks to my name, but luckily have a pay cheque on direct deposit for Friday so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Pack up the cooler, another excellent adventure awaits.
Peace, love and respect.
J
I got down there on Saturday and the weather was decidedly fair, being about 15 degrees and sunny when I arrived which was a bit of a surprise, coming from -2 and cloudy in Kamloops. Once I dropped my bags we proceeded directly to Seymour to sample the local goods. The first trail we hit was CBC, and it was an intriguing little monster indeed. For those who haven't ridden it, it is like riding a raised bridge made completely of rocks... like a mini roman cobblestone road, only for bikes. Strange indeed, but it was nice to have my wheels rolling under me anyways. I was a little tentative about the flat drops on the wrist, but after a little testing I concluded it was good to pin it, so pin it I did. From CBC we headed to Ned's, and it was a blast. I had some pent up not riding aggression to get out, and despite not having ridden the trail before hit it at pretty much full speed. Such fun. Ned’s was fast and pretty tech so I was in my element, and a smile didn’t leave my face. When we got to the bottom we decided to go sample some dirt jumps just up the mountain and they were equally delicious. After a few partial runs through the slightly uneven main 10 pack I felt pretty good and happy to be in the air, finding my dj flow again on my dh. I love dirt jumping.
Sunday we decided to go hit the Woodlot and it was even better than Seymour. The push up was a bit interesting over pretty much a rocky creek bed but it was definitely worth the effort for the long ride down. We met up with a random crew of locals once we got to the top and decided to use their local knowledge to find the best lines. I can’t remember the names of all the trails we hit but they were so much fun it was ridiculous. The trails were tacky, super flowing and tech with tons of corners, so I was pretty much in heaven and got a little rowdy in my excitement. I had a bunch of close calls diving blind into corners with random stumps hiding behind ferns until finally punched a tree hard enough to mangle my knuckles on one side. Ah well. One of the bottom trails had a sweet little line with two opposing hips before a pump turn and a big gap over a fallen tree, with a nice tight corner just after the landing. The first time I overshot by a fair bit and had to pull out a nice slash save into the corner, but after that we sessioned it for a while, getting it super dialed and it was quite amusing. When we got to the bottom we all had perma-grins on our faces and the reggae beat helped us keep the vibe all the way home.
For bang for the buck, my trip last weekend takes it hands down. Despite riding 2 days in a row, eating like a king and going out 1 night, I managed to spend less than 20 bucks the whole weekend and got to spend a lot of quality time with friends and family. Tomorrow I am heading back with 14 bucks to my name, but luckily have a pay cheque on direct deposit for Friday so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Pack up the cooler, another excellent adventure awaits.
Peace, love and respect.
J
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Strawberries
Sun Peaks is all closed up for the winter now. I wanted to have some nice memories to keep me warm this winter so Karl and I spent the last two weekends at Sun Peaks getting this nugget all dialled in. Enjoy!
Untitled from karl heldt on Vimeo.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
pictures!!
It's been a while since I've had anything to post on here but last weekend Brock Anderson and the ginger kid Wylie Easton came into town. Karl Heldt met up with us and we all went and got some video and pictures. I don't have any video to show off right now but I can assure you it will be amazing! I do however have a couple pictures that I liked.
The last dumped 3 you'll see for a while. promise.
sickass b-hump
random dusty corner
Wylie and I on rio!
Poor brock seems to get hurt every time he comes to kamloops. This time he faceplanted and stuck his tooth into his lip.
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