NSMB.com Team

Ride Guide Colorado

Posted by Eamonn Duignan on 2009-07-03

Thanks to Ride Guide, fellow team member Ian Nelson and I are on our way to an epic, 12 day all-mountain adventure to capture some of Colorado’s best riding locations on film.  It is an ambitious shoot schedule with locations that include Breckenridge, Durango, Salida, and Crested Butte. As such, there will be no shortage of epic landscapes or monstrous climbs!

With some rad side trips in the works, like a visit to the MTB Hall of Fame (sounds promising), or  the 13th Annual Brewers Rendezvous (sounds even more promising), or the 11, 940 foot Altman Pass (sounds not so promising), Ian and I may be in for a world of hurt?

You would have to call me a lair if I were to say that I wasn’t super pumped about this trip...I’m snapping right now, and I simply can’t wait. We will be posting from the road, so untill next time, when Ian and I are somewhere in the Colorado backcountry.

A map of the ‘Centennial State,’ as it is known. Did you know that Colorado lays claim to be the only state in US history to turn down the Olympics?  Such reasons as the cost, pollution and population boom were used as justification...humm? 2010 here we come. Photo: www.maps.com

I really need to learn some French!

Posted by on 2009-07-03

Chatel Mountain Style was our Adventure, Chatel France was the destination.

Saturday June 27th Kyle Norbraten and myself hopped on a float plane from Sechelt and 25 minutes later we were at YVR Air Port in Vancouver. We were a little later and had about an hour to catch our flight, because of that we missed out on the $200 bike fee.......Saweet! We met Brendan Howey who had been patiently waiting for us to show up. We were ready for a nice long day...or two of traveling!


10 hours later we dropped into Germany, our flight was late and we just managed to slide onto the next plane, hoping our luggage was transferred onto the plane! a few more hours and we were in Geneva Switzerland, where our buddy Nico was awaiting our arrival. All our luggage was there and we were on our way through Geneva too Chatel France!


We spent a day hangin out and resting, feeling out the Jet lag.
Day 2 we woke up late and went trail riding at Chatel with Ben Walker, we went up a couple chairlifts and shredded down. All of the sudden we were in Switzerland, talk about unreal! such easy access its mind blowing. I ended up taking a very abrupt slam at full speed. It was a good thing I had my Dakine bag on so it helped cushion the fall. Hardest slam I've had in years, so I was stoked I was able to get back up and finish the run. After a day of riding we were pooped and went back to our pimpin Chalet to shower, eat dinner, hit the internet and some sip beers with the team.




Day 3 we hopped into Ben's Dijon bus and motored our way to Monte Tamaro resort in Switzerland right near the Italian boarder. On our way through Switzerland we had the choice of driving up and around some major mountains, OR drive ONTO a train and tunnel our way through the mountains..... What do you think our decision was? After the train we drove through some really cool towns and some crazy roads. We made it to the resort where we met up with Dylan and Bjorn Enga. We hopped on the Gondola to check out an awesome DH track and jump park that Ben built that we had a total blast on! We had a day to ride  and practice at the park and DH Track, because the resort was doing a grand opening for the new park the next day with a few photographers and an Italian TV film crew. It had to be 38 degrees and we were pumping laps dripping with sweat, on the verge of heat stroke. But we had to keep the crew entertained. After we were done we ran for shade and water!







After 3 days at Monte Tamaro we made our way back to Chatel for practice on Friday. The course is rough and rocky, lots of fun and a few close calls. Everyone was out dialing in there lines for Saturdays Qualifier. Saturday morning we had Practice from 9am-1pm, it was sweet. I think everyone was starting to have a lot of fun and getting lines dialed, with great conditions. We went for lunch and everyone was ready to head to the top of the course to do our 2 Qualifier runs. As we got to the lift we all noticed a major cloud starting to cover the nice blue bird sky we had during practice. We got off the lift and got to the top of the course and the weather turned to absolute crap! windy with lots of rain, puddles formed in a matter of minutes. The Qualifiers were canceled!

Sunday we have 2 final runs in the AM, hoping the weather holds and we can have some fun on our bikes!

Stay tuned for finals and the rest of my trip in Euro Land.

I will leave you with some more photos from the first week, so take a look.








Finals still to come! will the show go on, or will it be a wet mess? find out later.

Curtis

Weekend Report - WBP

Posted by on 2009-07-01

Last weekend, my wife delivered a wedding cake to Pemberton (www.sweettoothcakery.ca) and we decided to stay the weekend up in Whistler and ride bicycles. The plan was to ride "Extended Play" on Saturday and a full day on Sunday. Friday night we went to the art exhibit "Flow" and the weather looked fantastic the whole weekend. A group of us was going to meet up on Saturday for some air miles.

On Saturday it was bright skies in North Vancouver and the videocam at Whistler looked good. We delivered the cake, drove to Whistler and met with the crew at 3:30 at the gondola. We got the odd sprinkle but didn't think much of it but could see the skies darken up in the south. Some were waffling, some were anxious. We went to ride and it started to rain pretty much right away and it didn't stop. We had the hood over us from the chair to keep us somewhat dry. It was decided no warm up laps were needed so we purchased some dirt from the "Dirt Merchant". We were pretty much soaked after the first lap but no one wanted to quit. Lap 2, another lap of the best trail on WBP. Everyone still wanted to ride. We thought a lap down "Crank It Up" would be fun. We did 3 laps,  called it quits then proceeded to wash our bikes and ourselves off... it was Miller time.



The crew not looking so clean


The team jacket from Helly Hansen kept me dry up top but I was soaked everywhere else.

It quit raining sometime during the night and it was sunshine out when we woke up. I was stoked. After a big breakfast at "Gone" we headed to the park and rode all day on perfect tacky conditions. We even got a couple of Garbanzo laps in as well.

Great weekend at WBP again !

Cheers,

JW

Flow: The Progression of Freeride Mountain Biking on the North Shore

Posted by on 2009-06-28

Last week, I had the honour of being involved in the creation of an art exhibition about mountain biking now on display at Presentation House Gallery, here in North Vancouver. Ian Verchere, curator of the exhibition, asked me to help advise and build the physical exhibit inside the gallery. I thought the idea of building indoors might be novel and fun.

The exhibition incorporates a rideable environment in the gallery with photographs by Sterling
Lorence, old school mountain biking footage from Digger and a recent video by Jamie Houssain of The Collective.

What we started with

We had 3 days to build the features we wanted but because one of the days was my wife's birthday I had to cut my involvement down to 2 days...oh the scarifices I make. It was amazing how quickly we got things built. If this had been a typical build in the forest it would have taken a month or so to construct. I suppose having the building materials ready to go and an ample supply of beer and pizza, makes one work much more efficiently.

Wednesday:

Digger and Ian working it out

On Tuesday, I went to the gallery after work and met up with Ian for the first time. We took a walk around the entire exhibit and came up with an ambitious game plan. Spiral staircase to roll down and then wall ride to moveable tranny.

Getting there...

The first day we started on the east side of the gallery. The wallride was going to be the most
technical to construct so I wanted to get that out of the way and leave the easiest part for last.


A thing of beauty if I say so myself and not bad for 5 hrs of hard labour.

Thursday:

Thanks to Jeremy Powers, he saved us a tonne of time by donating these massive timbers


Finished product after 9ish hours of more hard labour

A nice surprise at the exhibition was remnants of Danger Dan's trail "The Reaper". One of the
hardest trails on the Shore of yester year. The exhibit opening marks 10 years since the City of West Vancouver destroyed Reaper and other trails on Cypress (known as the "Chainsaw Massacre"). Ian hiked the remnants out of the bush by himself. I think I saw a tear in Dan's eye when he first say it at the show and it was a surprise.


Remnants of Dangerous Dan's building on Cypress - destroyed by West Van Parks employees in 1999.

After finishing the stunts on Thursday night, I was the guinea pig and hit everything to make
sure everything flowed nice and will be ready for opening night in less than 24 hours.

Friday:

Friday rolled around and the grand opening was insight. Ian made sure that word got out via the NSMB Bulletin Boards and Facebook. It was a huge success with over a hundred people showing up including a few mtb celebrities.


From left to right: Player 1, Curator and North Shore Vet Ian Verchere, Ryan Leech, Karen Leech.

A fantastic turnout for the grand opening. This photo doesn't show it but the place was packed.

The highlight of the show in my opinion was fellow NSMB team member Ian Nelson riding what we built - and riding it like a rockstar.

Ian Nelson!

Ian getting stoked "The Ian Show"

Ian "High Marking" the wall for the crowd.

The exhibit rocks and if you were unable to attend the opening, it's open to the public till August 2nd so go check it out and support mountain biking on the North Shore - the best riding on the planet.

There will be a panel discussion at the gallery on July 18th at 4 pm. The discussion will be hosted and moderated by our very own Cam McRae and panelists include Sterling Lorence and Dangerous Dan Cowan. Come on by, drink a beer or two and join us for a lively discussion.

A huge shout out to Ian for taking on this huge project and all the people that made it possible.

Cheers,

JW

More photos of Ian shredding indoors here...

And a thread about the exhibit here...

Flow on Facebook is here...

For more on Flow click here...

North Shore through a Lens

Posted by Eamonn Duignan on 2009-06-20

Shortly after receiving my new FLATLINE PRO from Rocky Mountain, I anxiously called up photo genius, and all around nice guy Connor Stefanison to capture some action shots of my new ride.

We decided to hit Cypress, which is one of our local mountains here on the North Shore of BC, and ride a trail whose kinsmen are synonymous with frightening prophecies and the end of days. If that little allusion isn’t enough for ya, you can be rest assured that the trail is super fun, steep and an ultra fast roller coaster of a ride. One of my personal favourites on the Shore to be sure!

Considering the ultra sunny conditions of the day, and the fact that Connor didn’t bring a remote flash, we were still able to acquire some bangers. 

So without any further delay, here is a unique view through Connors lens, and a little taste of what we captured that day. Be sure to check out Connors web site also.