Happy gappy chappy

Remember this post from my first visit to the Filthy Trails in Belgium? The one with the photo below:

Well the weekend just gone I returned to the Filthy Trails for the Kona Comp 2008 and I nailed the gap in the above photo. Well I guess a more accurate statement would be that the gap nailed me!

I went along with the view to take more photos than actually ride the competition. But the conditions were fast yet grippy due to rain earlier and the week and I was stomping the 4th jump on the big line which previously scared me.

So I thought "Sod it" and went for the 5th jump - the road gap. I've read somewhere that the gap is 8m which I find hard to believe but looking back at the photos and video that I took it does look like it is 4 x bike lengths so maybe 8m is true!

I pedaled what I thought was like the clappers and sailed off the launch ramp. The rest was a bit of a blur but my interpretation of sailed was more like falling. Although I did land on the down ramp, I think I was still going too slow and my lardy arse pounded my rear wheel slightly flat.

But there was no kick from my shock, no pain in the ankles or wrists and gratefully no landing sideways so I was able to ride out to a stop. I knew something had happened to my bike cos it was loud but I was stoked and didn't care. I survived!

God knows how I managed to egg a DT Swiss 6.1 rim (the heaviest duty rim DT Swiss make) but I managed it and I didn't hit any of the bigger stuff again that day in fear of collapse. It also gave me a good excuse not to enter the competition ;-) So I managed to get some excellent photos instead:

The guy below was heel clicking the gap - big balls!

And no footing the top drop:

This custom green Kona was a sweet setup and I caught a sequence of him hitting some shore:

I landed about 3 feet behind where this guy landed so how come his wheel is still round?!

There was some nice style over the last jump:

It wasn't all big boys with big balls though. This kid was loving it and has great helmet taste ;-)

I tracked some of the guys dropping the large drop which blurred the background nicely:

This guy also had some sweet style:

The flash worked really well on the wall ride:

I was loving the use of the flash as the light through the trees was tricky. But if there are any photo geeks out there, then I would appreciated an answer to a flash question. My D40 camera would only take photos at 1/500th sec when using the built in flash. If I bought an external SB-200 would I be able to use a faster shutter setting or do I need a better flash or is it not possible with my camera?

I also created a short video clip of the day that shows the gap jump in all it's glory. I've registered with Pinkbike now for biking videos but you can also rate it on YouTube here.

Finally at the end of the day I spotted someone riding my new bike to be. I got chatting with the guy and found out it was a small which is the size I have ordered. I was previously only able to try a large so I jumped at the chance to ride a small with a 55mm stem (I'm getting a 50mm stem). I took a full run from the top including the drops and although the setup was a little stiff for my preference, the size was spot on. It's going to be a long 23 days until I'm on the plane to Canada!

In the meantime enjoy all my photos here or in slideshow format here.

Oh and I forgot to mention that Emma has bought me an awesome birthday present - a coaching session with Shaums March from MMR for when we are in Whistler - sweet! I wonder if I'll be gapping 8m in my sleep after that :-)

Are two planks better than one?

This winter was always going to be tough to repeat last years snowboarding efforts but I still managed a good couple of trips. 1st up was my yearly pilgrimage to catch up with Mr C and his entourage in Lech, Austria.

After a dry period we got lucky with some fresh snow during our stay. I'm sure it was only enough to prevent me from driving up the hill yet not substantial to host some epic deep turns. Never the less we had good fun and it was nice to also see Eva who I met in Whistler last year.

So with the lads warm up trip out the way it was time to get away with Emma and fellow Amsterdammers for a week on the edge of the Les Arcs resort in a place called Peisey Vallandry. We stayed in a very spacious chalet a little down the slopes and arrived to find no snow!

One morning I was up early enough to catch the sun coming up over the mountains where I took the following photos.

In particular, the photo below is one of the best I think I have ever taken most of which is right time right place.

But as the week progress we had 15cm one night that was enough to entertain me on the snowboard until the majority was tracked out. Can't complain at the rest of the weather though as it was glorious sunshine. Which leads me to the questions as the title of this post - are two planks better than one?

Emma ski's, so I took it on myself to also give it a go. When the suns out and the pistes are fast hard packed, I'll have to say the ski's are much more fun. I've have no style or technique but it's not too difficult to get some serious speed whilst remaining on the edge of control.

I was soon leading Emma on some off piste adventures and hitting some natural gullys and the odd jump here and there.

We made it to the top of the resort at over 3000m one day and the views were stunning.

It wasn't till the end of the holiday that we went further afield and found the larger park. Shame really cos the red jumps looked perfect and really well maintained. Even the greens were sizable and I would've been comfortable trying rotations on them. I was on the ski's that day so thought I'd see how hard it could be? No daffys or helicopters from me but I nailed the green line of 4 kickers a total of 3 times with no stacks. We'll have to work on Emma's videography for future trips though ;-)

Now before my friends all rip me, I'll be the first to admit that I will never get the same feeling on ski's that I have experienced many a time on a snowboard. That freedom of expression through line choice would be I doubt I'll ever achieve on ski's. In the best snow conditions I am just not willing to put the time in on ski's - give me a board any day :-)

But it's just good fun to learn something new. Probably the same reasons why I bought that BMX a while ago that is still in someone's shed in Nottingham? So when I'm an old man and body parts don't work as well as they used to, I can see that I'll be skiing just like I can imagine I'll be golfing. Here's hoping I don't kill myself on a snowboard first!

All my photos can be viewed here or in slideshow format here

Redneck biking

In response to my recent post about going biking in Canada, maybe I don't need to travel as far to get my fix. Perhaps I could just build something locally like these rednecks:

Smooth riding

26'ers may be able to hit things faster but there's just something about the smoothness of a BMX that can't be beat and this guy is about as smooth as it gets

Homies from the hood

Way back in October the Beacon Road boys came over for the last leg in the Dutch Playboat Cup. Held at Dutch Water Dreams (DWD), this competition is the highlight of the series of 5 events and saved for the finale.

If you remember I helped judge the freestyle event at the opening of DWD but this year there was more time for a larger kayaking only event. So worthy of the trip from the UK, Mark, James and Kate flew over to see what was on offer.

I collected them from Schipol and we ate at a nice pancake house on route to DWD. My guests were easily impressed with the food which was a good thing cos as soon as we arrived and unpacked the car it became obvious I had left my tent behind - doh! So James and Kate took Marks tent whilst Mark and I setup a cosy dwelling together in the back of my car. There was no time for relaxing though as we got geared up and on the water for the late night practice session. I hardly paddle over here anymore, with just 1 other DWD and a couple of surfing sessions under my belt. So it was great to be with some friends paddling again.

However, after a few races down the course against Mark and James, I was quick to realise any previous paddling fitness I may have had has definitely been replaced by beer belly. Nevertheless, I could still hold my own in the competition hole and managed not to swim so met my most feared goal!

Mark and James entered me for both the Boatercross and the Freestyle with the amusing bib number 13. Boatercross I was looking forward to as it's a head to head race with 4 riders down the course making a couple of must moves to touch banners on the way down. It was the Freestyle I was not so keen on. I've been cheekily proud of my 100% freestyle competition record since winning the 2000 student championships and therefore not entering any other events ;-) But now I struggle to name all the new moves and combos the new kids on the block are performing today.

So being the performance athletes that we are, we all hit the sack nice and early on Friday to get a good nights sleep ready for the days competition on Saturday. Yeah right, as with any kayaking event anywhere in the world, we were staggering around a campsite carpark still drinking at 4am in the morning. Not such as bad thing if it wasn't for James setting his alarm clock an hour late. I exited our passion wagon about 8am busting for the loo. There I was standing in my boxers shaking the snake against a tree struggling to stand up without wobbling when Casper came running up yelling at me to get ready for our heats. Within 15 minutes all three of us were geared up, on the water and heading up the conveyor belt for our freestyle heats - messy :-(

But not knowing which way up was probably a good thing as in between gagging in the eddy, I managed to cartwheel my way a few points above Mark. Which I was stoked at and thoroughly enjoyed pointing out to Mark as often as I could. My favourite dig was that I think I have been paddling the same number of times this year as Mark normally does during a typical summer week! Ha ha, below is the results sheet showing my name clearly above Marks on a whole different sheet!

The freestyle heats were a great new method I have not seen in a kayaking event before. With 5 people in a heat for 15 mins, it was held like a Jam session, 30 second runs each and the best moves you performed in all of your runs counted. Perhaps this counted towards my success with my slightly more cannonball attitude than Mark. Although I did get 6 ends at one point which I think I can count on one hand the number of times I have done that in my life! Next up was a quick blast on the Flowaves which Mark was styling as shown below.

Even James in the pictures below was showing that Adam and I must've been even more hungover when we tried it last time.

The rest of the day was spent lazy about in the surprisingly warm October sun. Here's a favourite picture of a view of mine kicking back at the beach bar.

Later that day was the boatercross heats. I've never entered a boatercross event as what I have seen from the ones in the UK they rely heavily on fitness. However, the DWD course already flows at a fairly fast rate so I had a chance! I have never been so tired from kayaking before though. I was properly out of breath and coughing up my guts afterwards!

I made it through my heat which again I was chuffed at cos there was only us three and a couple of others in freestyle boats. 95% of paddlers were in big fast creek boats. So it was a nice feeling that I can still pick a good line and a better one than half of the paddlers there in faster boats.

Even more enjoyable was the fact that Mark failed to make it through his heat - see how far behind he is in the picture above! James and I had a field day ribbing Mark to the point that maybe we were a little to harsh on the old man ;-) Ha ha ha

James has come a long way since paddling like an aggressive obnoxious punk in his attak in the Loughborough EHB swimming pool. So he managed to get as far as the semis in both the freestyle and the boatercross. Possibly even deserving more support than the 30 seconds we gave him (the bar was much more cosy). I took a few snaps of the final but as it was dark it was difficult to get a good shot. However, some of the blurred shots really show the movement like the one below:

The Dutch awards ceremony lasted hours and probably contributed to our lack of commitment when it came to the crunch time of decided should we head to the dodgy local nightclub or not. The thought of scaling the 8 foot barbed wire fence to get back into the locked campsite didn't help either. So we had a relatively early night and made tracks to Amsterdam on the Sunday.

Sunday was a day of recovery with just a short blast at the funfair which was setup in the Trafalgar Square of Amsterdam. Cheers lads and Kate for a great weekend and I hope to see you here again soon. Credit to James and Kate for some of the photos of which you can view the full set here or in slideshow format here.

Speaking of photos, I have used Aperture for the first time with these photos. I've been highly impressed at the difference it has made adjusting the shadows and highlights of the photos with whitewater. The difference between the shades of white are much more noticeable after a little tweaking than with the original shot. For example the shot below:

One last thing before I go is to put a copy of the video that Teva, the main sponsors of the event, put together of the whole event. It's pretty impressive and shows what was missed to all those back in the UK who were too lazy to make it over - you know who you are!

A short biking clip

You may have seen some of these clips before but this short clip is a good combination of all the crazy shit that people are doing on bikes these days. This one short clip combines both my dreams and nightmares.

Sorry I've not been blogging much recently as I've been busy upgrading to Leopard amongst other things but watch this space for updates on the Teva Playboat Cup and Sam's 1st birthday. I'm not sure what is easier to take photos of, kayakers freestyling in the dark or kids running around a playground?!

Give the Po' man a break

No not the song by Fatboy Slim but we have a man down in Whistler. Jimbob is currently out of action with a busted leg.

To quote Number 2 from Austin Powers - He is "very badly burnt" but I've spoken to him on the phone and "he is still alive down there". He's gotta be pretty gutted at the mo as he'd just bought a new bike and I imagine was really looking forward to spending the summer biking down the world famous tracks of Whistler.

I'm sure the nice Canadian nurses will be able to fix it for him better than Jim himself

STOP PRESS - I wrote the above in draft form a while back and not to be out done, Alex has also joined the man down frontier. No leg injury but his back instead - a fractured lower vertebra. That does sound serious but he's also up and about hobbling around so hopefully the both of them will be back on the bikes before the end of the summer.

It's not surprising Alex is down and out, his accident sounded like the reversal of this outstanding display of biking ability in Les Gets during the summer of 2004 ->