The Dreaded Season Hoots Report
Hoots Jay's Year
In great NSMB tradition I thought I should give a quick run down as to what has been happening in the world of Hoots over the 2008 season. 
Why you say? Is it all tradition? 
Is it that I have been so busy I haven’t kept up with my blog? 
Is it a way to update my mom without having to call? “You’ll never guess what I am doing mom!”
Hmm, maybe a bit of everything, but I thought before all the new product launches and trade shows I would ‘send it’ straight up with shameless self promotion! 
2008 was hands down one of the busiest and gnarliest years for me on all levels. The park building business has grown exponentially, my riding is still radically improving and this old dog is still learning new tricks!
My quality of life and ability to accept people and ever-changing situations has shifted and as the Jamaicans say ‘there are no problems only solutions’ and I have never believed it more.
‘Good friends always smooth the ripples’
My start to 08 was February in Jamaica with Ride Guide and Robbie Bourdon when we went down to meet the gang at the Fat Tire Festival. 
Work went down at Inter River and with the help of the NSBMX and NSMBA clubs the park got finished and dialed for riding! Finally done! Watch out for full on BMX racing in 2009!!
The Inter River Bike Park here in North Van.
With the Capilano College Mountain Bike Operations Course coming to end of second term, class projects were due and this year the students rebuilt the Sprockids park. Going to the volunteer day and seeing that community come together yet again was amazing! And we built some really fun stuff!
The Sprockids bike park on the Sunshine Coast here in B.C.
In between park designing and potential bike park site visits John Henry asked me to put a ‘show’ on for John Henry Days and we ended up with the Dreaded 150, a 150’ dual stunt course that was soo much fun we are slated to give it a go in 2009.
The Dreaded 150 Dual Stunt course at John Henry Bikes.
With my ears still echoing from the gate start crash I busted it to Rabbit Hill and got to work building their jump lines from top to bottom and then got ‘all crazy like’ and carved out another dual/dh pump track… man I love those
Mountain biking near Edmonton is looking much better thanks to Hootie's work at Rabbit Hill.
Great weather came into North Van just long enough for me to finish up the prep on this insane huge log that crossed a huge creek. I had put about 30 hours of night work on this log and I got to shoot it with Yorick Carroux which made the catalogue and is now my current poster. Alex came out and we got this AWESOME Norco Shore video out of it!! Yeah!
Attention soon turned to the Burnaby North Skills Park where all of our hours of design hit the ground and we built with the city one heck of a park! Truly the leading edge when it comes to parks and boy was there ever a grand opening!
Enter Norco VPS Fests, one at Blue mountain in Ontario and the other in Silverstar, yahoo fun. We gave away great stuff and at Silverstar we even gave away a whole bike!
After signing with Mace Gear Korba and myself took a cool trip with Alex and Derek to Blue River where we slayed trail both day and night… What a epic trip! 
Blue River looks like fun.
Here is the video from the trip
The 2008 World IMBA Conference was held in Park City Utah and I was invited down to do a presentation on bike parks again this year. I attended every seminar I could get into and tried not to miss any rides. Park City and IMBA deserve BIG UPS for being incredible models for modern riding culture. If you don’t currently support IMBA go do it now! I wrote a little something about the experience here.
My phone buzzed and the text message sent me on another Ride Guide episode, this time with Darcy Turrenne and Dylan Korba where we toured all of the BC Bike Parks!!! Wicked awesome, frickin frackin cool!
Hootie dodging detritus on the trail.
After breaking ribs in Kamloops I bolted on the last leg of the Ridge Guide shoot and headed to Fort St James where the community came together and we built one heck of a park, including the biggest flat wall we have ever built, a step up/down box and a river complex that we built a trail complex over. Remember the name Jason Bar, that dude is a super hero!
CRANKWORX calls and Hooty is answering! With the FSJ fresh on my mind and some tender bones I blasted down to Whistler for the Krunkdog. What an event. Crazy Bread busy! I got a chance to check out the trials comp, the dual and of course the slopestyle. Man biking has come a long way, it’s almost video game steeze.
Whapping the throttle out of Whistler I hit it out to Langley to help the Hoots crew out building a sick park. Jumps, wall rides, step box a huge long skinny course and one of the hardest pair of skinnies I have ever installed. The local rippers came out and helped just like they said they would! Chuck, Sean, Jordan, James and Soupy own that park yo! Mucho’s props boys.
Don't call me ghetto: building Langley style.
When Boyko called me to help build a gnar-steeze kinda line with the promise that it would be ‘big’ I headed out. After busting some serious hours the vision began to come to light, sure hope these never get found…
Boyko's jumps for NWD 9.
As I write this I am packing for build projects in Hinton, Canmore and of course my trip to InterBike. I feel good, my ribs are close to being pain free and I have enjoyed 8 days of early morning riding with no one but my dogs. I have enjoyed a successful season, but I wonder what’s possible if we had 40 day months and 15 months a year?
Huge thanks to my friends and family for being there when ever I get home and to everyone I got to ride, build and hang out with this year.
Big Up’s to my awesome sponsors for supporting me.
Norco, Mace Gear, Shimano, Marzocchi, Kenda, WTB, E.Thirteen, SixSixOne, ODI, Park Tools, Funn, Ryders
Ride ON!
Hoots!
