NZer Kelly McGazza at REDBULL RAMPAGE

Check out the latest from REDBULL RAMPAGE in Utah, USA at http://www.freecaster.tv/

Our own Kelly McGazza is the first Southern hampshire rider ever to compete in the notorious REDBULL event. You can see what Kelly gets up to via http://www.kellymcgazza.blogspot.com/

Inter Bike

Some highlights from inter bike 08:
- NWD9 premier!
- Sam Hills possible bike on show!
- Lance Armstrong back in the action!
- A lahr bike that looked very similar to the NZ lahar!

For those of you that aren't familiar with Inter bike, its a massive bike show held in Los Vegas, USA each year. Its a place for companies in the biking industry to do product launches, tests, but basically my interpretation of it was it seemed like the perfect excuse for everyone to get out of the office and play in Vegas!

From billion dollar sky scrapers to the outside escalator's to the poor old dude behind a slot machine gambling away dollar after dollar...My trip to Vegas was a trip to remember!

New World Disorder 9 premiered on Wednesday night. Once again the riding was incredible. NWD are the best in captioning the riding level being raised/pushed further than ever before! Oh yeah and Robbie lands his 360!So is it Sam's Demo? The rumour has been out for a while that Sam Hill could be riding for Specialize next season. There was plenty of talk about whether Specialized would come up with a new assault weapon for him or stick with what they know. Here is a Specialized Demo with world championship stripes. hint hint.Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong announced his return to professional road racing. However it may not just be road cycling Lance has in mind. Treks new Top Fuel bike isn’t even finished yet and Lance has already won a race on it...

Dan

Helmet Cam of Dan riding in Whistler Bike Park

Dirt Jumping In Canada

Here are some pics from a recent dirt jump session in Canada. The crew was myself, Jarrod Hepburn, Foster walder and Tom Hey. Trail location... spot X

First kiwi To Win World Cup

Wanganui’s Sam Blenkinsop has become the first New Zealander to win a Mountain Bike World Cup title!

Follow the link to watch the 19 year olds win during the final round of the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in Schladming, Austria.

http://freecaster.tv/1000006_1005837


Results:
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup, Schladming

1st Sam Blenkinsop (NZL) 4:10.16
2nd Sam Hill (AUS) 4:11.80
3rd Gee Atherton (GBR) 4:12.36
6th Justin Leov (NZL) 4:18.33

Keewee Road Trip To Kamloops

We have just arrived back into Whistler after a visit to Kamloops (3 ½hr drive East of Whistler). The Kiwi contingency on our road trip included myself, Rueben miller, Nathan Ryder, Hayden Mckay, Amanda Pearce and Harriet Harper.

We rode Sun Peaks mountain resort on Saturday. It was my first time here but for most of the team it was second time round. There are three mountains surrounding the small village and the town seems to be surrounded by golf courses!

So we were basically the first on the chair and the last off. After asking the lifty how many riders were expected for the day, we soon realized there was no need to rush for the chair lift. Just 17 people were expected….For a Saturday! We were stoked since all season we have been lining up in those famous Whistler bike Park queues that could last from 2 minutes to an hour!

The Riding at Sun Peaks is fast, rough and super enjoyable. There is a huge variety of trails from timber skinnies to open, quick down hill trails. I really liked the Freeride trails which had some cool features in them and a pretty cool trail that went directly under the chairlift called. There is a jump park near the bottom of the park too.

After reuniting with Ryder in the morning it was time to jump in the vans and head to kamloops to a place called Mt Harper. This is a ski field in the winter time, with a forest at the bottom of the ski runs filled with MTB trails. It was my third time here but I was excited to see any changes and new features from the last times.

The trails are easy to find and it wasn’t long till we had pumped out half a dozen runs. All our runs would include little sessions on the features we found on the trails like timber structures and dirt jumps. Our last run had to be the best with an epic flowing single track trail that weaved in and out of pine trees.

If you ever need more info on these places let me know….

Dan

Whistler Heli Biking With Jarrod Heprurn

Well finally got a heli trip organised or had it organised for me anyway!

Started off getting picked up by my friend Elly and driving out to the heli pad of Blackcomb Helicopters where we waited for the rest of our crew to turn up. Once everyone was there we took all our bikes over and got them ready for the pick up and got our safety instruction like dont jump in the rotors. By this stage i wasn't really listening as i had my camera out snapping photo's as being my first time in a heli i was pretty much kid in a candy store and had got the shotgun call.!

After our pilot had flicked a bunch of switches the blades started moving and it was go time and we slowly started to watch the ground disappear. As we got a little higher all the local mountains, lakes, glaciers and ski runs of Whistler appeared, truely a spectacular thing and everyone sat in silence for the whole trip up the mountain.

Finally we landed on a large piece of snow everyone hoped out and waited for the bikes to arrive. The heli was back up in no time with the bikes strapped to the bottom and everyone was thiniking if that rope snaps there's about $40 000 worth of bikes down the drain however all was good we got our bikes watched the heli fly away and all thought I want one.

Now it was time for the real deal, the track started off and it was pretty much straight into it no time for a warm up roll over the first little knoll and into some nice steep riding.The track had been rode quite a bit and a sizeable rutt was in play but easy enough to stay out of although some of didn't think of this and we had our first ragdoll. For most of the top this was how it went over a knoll into some steep chute or a nice grassy piece of hill where once you had made it down turned round and watched everyone else have their rip down. After a few more of these the trail moved into the trees and got a bit more flowy and fun and everyone was getting their groove on with a heads up of dont get it going to fast as it drops off pretty steep and you can get yourself into a bit of trouble.

With a range of different level of riders we would always wait catch our breath and play on a few rocks that were pretty fun with a few that where pretty tech. However Smokey a whistler local took up the challenge and got it done. The rest of the trail kept with the same theme steep with a few roots a bunch of nice rock rolls and lots of fun even for a freeride jump nut, before you know it you pop out onto a local flank trail with the option of a few down hill trails of all level depending how much you have left in the gas tank.

Over all an awesome trip, a ride in a helicopter which I will jump at every time I get the chance now with some of the most beautiful mountain scenery and an excellent trail ride down with some good friends. What more could you want apart from a cold beer sitting in the sun to top it off which we just had to do.