North Shore Ripper #1

So the first North Shore ripper race of Four was this previous weekend. The forecast was rain, rain, and more rain. In the end it turned out to be a pretty nice day! This race was an uphill/downhill relay race, which you can also race solo in. Last year I raced solo, but this year I had an awesome uphill rider willing to climb for me...



. Alistair Hardy-Poirier, he's crazy fast! One of the top XC Skiers in BC right now, and is killing it on a mountain bicycle too. The start was havoc, and Al was not prepared for the surprise switch-up at the start line, where everybody was lined up facing up the hill, then had to immediatly turn DOWN the hill. I swear he would have been first to the top, or right behind Mike Hunter, Wade Simmons' climber if he hadn't been at the back of the pack climbing singletrack, trying to pass massive amounts of people. In the end Al was 2nd up the hill behind Mike Hunter, So it was now up to me to rip down the mountain. I was ripping on Jay Sinclair's Ironhorse Sunday, which proved to be a little too much bike for the surprise climb up the 6th switchback on the DH portion of the race...haha. Anyways, I blew it, Al had me set up in 2nd place and all i had to do was glide down the mountain, and I got passed by two shredders after I lost my energy on the climbs...oh well! The ripper isn't all serious business like people make it out to be on the interw33b, its more of a "gathering of bicyclists"...I heard someone say that, can't remember who. Two crazy guys raced on a tandem bike! It was pretty rad to see them riding some relatively technical stuff for a tandem, but to top it off, they dressed up as Batman and Robin. Dylan Dunkerton came to the race and made a ballin Ripper Video in less than 3 hours, on my editing program he'd never used! Pretty impressive vid for never using that program before. Trevor Hanson and Colin Miller raced solo on their duallies, and road together pactically the whole way from what I saw.

Here is Dylan's Video, please RIGHT CLICK SAVE AS. (quicktime/ipod)

here is the video uploaded on Broadband.

It turned out to be a pretty good day, I'm stoked for the Super-D

The Photos are by Jay Sinclair, Video by Dylan Dunkerton, and the one picture of Jay is by Jenny Lee Silver.

See you guys at the next ripper,

Dan