tomorrow, tomorrow,

I love you tomorrow, you're ooooonly a day awaaaaay(screamed at the top of my lungs). I can't wait for tomorrow! The only thing I HAVE to do is get lots of video footage and photos. My buddy Pat and I (as well as a crew of groms) will be making our way around Quesnel hitting up everything and anything that sends us airborne. I've got a couple locations in mind that have a large potential for accumulating airmiles. Yipeeeeee! I'm just checking the weather now, sunny and 13degrees, perfect. It's only Quesnel riding, which is nothing spectacular, but I'll be able to get some great footage regardless. Plus, I found a nifty way to mount my little digicam onto my handlebars (as seen here and here) so we'll see how that works. I did some testing on the handlebar mount today and it held up surprisingly well with minimal bouncing and moving around. Alrightythen.. I'm off to prime my bike for the beating it's gonna receive tomorrow.

video camera shopping

My only means for capturing photos and video is the little Sony I mentioned in my previous blog entry, so I'm going shopping for a new camera. This summer I will be shooting lots of helmet cam video, as well as experimenting with different and unique ways to capture the spirit of park riding on film. My old camera just isn't up to the task. I will be posting frequent video on this site so I want the video segments to be higher quality for everyone's enjoyment. If anybody has a recommendation on what video camera would best suit my needs, please send an e-mail to whistler-rider@hotmail.com Anyone have experience with this model? This is my current choice because it looks most up to the task. Here's a larger photo of the camera

first real ride of the year

Up until now the only riding I've done has been commuting to school on my obese demo9. But today a posse of up-and-comers and I did a little bit of trail riding around the Quesnel area. Got some video footage of it (posted at bottom of page). It was a beautiful 16 degree sunny Saturday, so in celebration of summer's arrival I wore my Whistler staff issue hawaiian t-shirt. I love this shirt! But I still can't wait to get back to Whistler; it's only 16 sleeps away. :) Oh yeah, and while biking around we witnessed a sweet fist-fight, midday, downtown Quesnel (typical Quesnel behavior). But I couldn't get my camera out in time or I would have posted that too. As a side note, I should mention that all video was captured by my buddy Pat Mayhew, who did a great job with my little Sony camera

new trails

I grew up in a small town of less than 500 people. Of all those people I was one of the few who liked to aggressively ride a mountain bike. So naturally, I didn't see much point in building my own trails if I was gonna be the only one riding them. That, and I had no idea how to properly build a trail. Instead I would setup makeshift jumps made from broken pallets and salvaged plywood. I didn't care how well they worked as long as they somehow got me airborn.

In one way things have changed. Now there's a whole bunch of grom's cruising around on frankenstein hardtails with no trails to ride, using pallets and plywood just like I did. By frankenstein hardtail I mean a beat-up frame with a christmas-present-suspension-fork, a disc brake in the front, v-brake in the back, littered with random stickers, different model crank arms on either side, and - well, you get the point. The thing about it though is that these kids love to ride. Only they lack the trails and proper wooden structures needed to develop their skills. Since I build trails for a living, I feel I owe them some properly built trails and stunts. I've already begun construction on the new mini-network of trails that will have a variance of difficulty levels (green, blue, black diamond - but mostly green and blue), and some basic man-made wooden features. So here's to the new generation of riders.

...and what a crazy 6 days it was!

Before we even arrived in Whistler, we crashed by buddy's pickup on the winding Duffy Lake highway. We were super lucky though, the truck got totalled in the crash and the three of us managed to walk away unscathed. I'll post some pictures in a couple days, as well as some video clips. I happened to be filming with my digicam while it all happened, so I've got some amazing footage (which can be found at the bottom of the page). It's some pretty gnarly footage and I'm quite proud to have it on video. Wait, let me rephrase that. I'm not proud of it, because we were driving like idiots, but it's cool to have it all on tape none-the-less. This is the third major accident I've been able to walk away from without a scratch, so at least I have one of them on video. This being my third accident has sure made me think about life though. But aside from the minor delay in getting to Whistler, the rest of the week was awesome (as Whistler usually is). Late nights partying, beautiful women, the mountains, the scenery, the beautiful women, the late nights partying, and all the other amazing stuff Whistler has to offer. I've come to realize that life would suck without this place.

6 days in Whistler!...

Today in Quesnel it was -12 degrees celsius. Tomorrow it's going to be.... drum roll.......... -12 celcius (cold shudders). If I knew old-man-winter I'd break his hip right now. But there's a light at the end of the tunnel. This is winter's last bite (knock on wood) and summer will soon be here. But I can't wait to go back to Whistler; like an itch beneath the skin I just can't scratch it. Seeing as Easter weekend is coming up, and I'll already have friday off school, I'm skipping class for the rest of the week. I'm leaving for Whistler tomorrow, and I'm not coming back until Sunday night. 6 days in Whistler, yay me! (pats self on the back).I don't know what I'm gonna do for 6 days but I'm sure I'll find ways to occupy my time. For example, my mega babe of a friend Brittiny (aka Boozy) has a big bottle of jagermeister waiting for my arrival. So I'm gonna bring a case of redbull and see what kind of madness we can stir up. Jagerbombs for everyone! For those of you that don't know what a jagerbomb is, it's a glass 2/3 filled with redbull, with a shot of jagermeister that you drop in it and drink. In other words it's liquid energy. Lookout Whistler here I come!