Whistler is closed… lets reminisce!

 

I was talking to Eric Peterson of Faultine today and checked out his website where I saw a refreshing video from this summer in Whistler of the Spaniard, Xavier Raventos or “CHO CHO” for short!

 

This kid is REDONKULOUSLY fast and he uses our Straitline levers and pedals for what they were designed for… Whistler runs!

 

 

The rest of these videos are from Eric as well, I had him send me all his summer links from Camp of Champions since he documented the entire summer up on the slopes who else can supply proper “Ode to Whistler” vids in a pinch!

Camp A

 

Camp B

Camp C

Camp D

 

Gereth Dyer - Air Dome

 

Casey Groves - Snakes the Boneyard weeks before Crankworxs

 

And possibly the most important video Faultine has and will ever make… The Straitline Bear Bell Public Service announcement!

Not shot in Whistler at all I just look for excuses to tie this video in, it was done on a very generous budget of $60 dollars in Guerillabear suits and Eric worked for Break Levers and world wide fame!

Straitline Bear Bell Technology from Eric Peterson on Vimeo.

 

For all of you who just hear about BC and our beautiful surroundings check out this guys photo blog I found on BC and a bit of Alaska- close enough!  And after visiting Europe where they have cut all the trees and eaten all the animals I can understand why people get so excited seeing a whale or a bear, BC is pretty sick place to live and ride but not the best, plenty of places in the Alps that will make your jaw drop!

http://www.my-photo-blog.com/2009/07 

 

Know a little plug for our little know Bike park www.freeridebc.blogspot.com we have been hiding it until it has fully completed so that people see it and go WTF? We just secured a fund raising grant from The Rotary club along with a few municipal awards for bridging community health with such a ambitious project!  So we will make a announcement in the Spring inviting all levels from Pro DJ riders to Olympic XC hopefulls to coem and ride it for free!

And…  We have deer!

Werd!

Bike park is Open!

We actually just had a site meeting and decided this is it! The Freeride BC Bike park is officially open so get in and enjoy it!
10180 Littlewood RD North Saanich BC!


UCI Track Builder Kyle Michell signing the forms legalising the park!

Freeride BC Park is open in all phases- soon!

This is all you get for the teaser but rest assured we have a full budget all the machines we need and the skills to pay the bills.

Enjoy the serenity!

Freeride BC bike park in the news!

On the weekend SHAW Cable news swung by the park for a long awaited 5 year update for the parks Public Launching.

None of us bothered to prepare to be the one to talk live on camera, we all hoped the other guy would do it but all of us had to do a interview one by one.

First The TV Crew started interviewing one of Freeride BC's original founders, and soon to be Banshee Bikes Athlete, Mark Mathews!

The "tonight at 6" money shot! The wholesome family dog was a last minute bonus.


It has been a long project and I can talk about it all day fluently, but put a camera in my face I stutter! All I can say is that my interview was a beauty, full of gap outs and stunned looks towards the camera.

My interview was no word of a lie - just like this...


Luckily I couldn't video tape my own interview to show you how bad it was, so lets just watch Drew Mitchells interview instead!

Okay now lets look at Drew's stellar performance testing the track for the camera crew.


So we hope to be fundraising enough money to finish the rest of the phases by late spring so show some love, we are doing this for you.

Randoms of the day!



This is Kyle Marshall PinkBike's new top gun on the DH circuit. Yes that's how he looks all the time, poor kid.

Drew Mitchel/ Cove Bikes, WINS Canadian Nationals!

Drew Mitchell wins 08 Canadian Nationals!!

Sicklines has the full story on Drews win, so please check it out Here

Just a week after placing fifth at 5th Red Bull Mt. 7 Psychosis, seconds behind Sam Hill, Drew flew to the east coast and dominated the series!




For those of you not in the know, Drew has been the key player in the North Saanich Freeride park, The day after he got back from the worlds in Italy he called me up to see if we can work in the park. Drew is a motivated guy, stoked for him.

Be sure to catch the full report on SICKLINES.com and check it out!

Fluidride Cup & Freeride Park updates!

Decline posted on their website a mini blurb on the Fluidride race where Drew won second place last weekend. Second isn't bad since Drew slaved in the North Saanich Freeride Park for three days straight, him and I quit at 8 pm on Friday dehydrated and out of fuel for the bobcat.

Drew's our park Bitch as long as we let him play with a shovel and a bobcat he doesn't talk back too much.

Visit Virtual Descent.com for a run down of the course!

Results:

Pro Men:
1. Lars Sternberg- Fluidride/Fox suspension
2. Andrew Mitchell- Cove Bikes
3. Bart McDaniel- Center Cycle
4. Richard Mukai- Rotec Cycles
5. Sean McClendon- Decline Griz America

Now keep in mind we are building a modern freeride park here in North Saanich and Drew is our key guy along with Kyle Michell -no relation- Since Kyle is in China building the worlds BMX track, Drew and I have been focusing on setting up the pump track area and planning layouts until Kyles return.
Check out Kyles Jumps in his front yard for a taste of whats to come.

Kyles work in Madrid...

Finished sketch....

And Kyles work in California...


So hopefully this park -free at anytime for anyone- will set a standard for park designs in other communities and we can start training athletes for our sports both BMX and MTB. Keep an eye on the blog for updates!

North Saanich Freeride Park update

So what I have learned is this... winter building sucks!

This was two weeks ago, after days of sunshine it decided to snow on the park on a build day. So... building was off but I decided to keep the machine in action and at least chew up some material because that is just fun.


This past weekend I had cove-shocker Drew Mitchell of Cove Bikes swing over to help connect the large pump track but again it decided to rain. No luck. But we took the time to use a Wheel Loader and design the little kids track and form some berms with base material.

Everthing is wet so until the sun gods stop punishing me for hanging out with Drew, building cannot happen.

Big Props to Gordy Martman Excavating for consistantly backing us up with machinery, it is making other parks jealous at how good we have it.

North Saanich bike park update!

Building in winter weather sucks but finally the sun has come out so it is go time. I took a few quick videos after we pushed the old park over and had a few extra truck loads of material dropped off by Gord Martman Excavating AKA raddest firm alive! Check it out.



Another vid...


And this is for all of those who desperatley pump their arms for a horn when the see a semi... dump truck porn.

Bike park in full swing!

Straitline Components is neck deep in developing a modern bike park here in our backyard in Sidney BC. We have been collaborating with many local business owners to make this thing a success. It has been a year of bi monthly meetings and scheming to get to this point and we are blown away at what has been happening.

To build a local park it would cost around a $100,000 no biggy but we decided what if we build a modern park, junk all previous ideas of how a park should be built call it a fitness park and do it for free!

Pretty much impossible but we have pulled it off with the help of no less than 3 excavation firms stepping up to the plate to help out.

Kyle Michell is our park design and construction guru, he is currently in Switzerland building a BMX worlds track and back here this week.

This park is going to be FREE! What a concept build it for free and let you ride it for free. Please check out www.freeridebc.com and keep an eye on it. I am running two blogs so i get behind at times but most info will be posted there.

Worlds raddest bike park!

We got approval and we are making the park!!
Phase 1, nuke the park! www.freeridebc.com this is our temporary blog for the park and I have no idea why my hotlink won't work, lol!

Last Saturday we broke ground on the FreeRide Park we are building with the Municipality North Saanich - hands down the raddest forward thinking crew- and Gord Martman of Gord Martman Excavating showed up with a little gift for us...
So not only did Gord hook us up with his machine he also left his top operator who threw us the keys and lets us drive it too. We were blown away with these guys and to top it off the machine is ours to use for the whole project.


The Excavator is kinda essential because Drew only brought one shovel!

And Kyle is hiding something off camera...

White shoes! Good news is Kyle flies around the world for UCI building tracks.

The crew, Lindsay/Engineer, Kyle Michell Course designer/builder, Drew Mitchell -no relation- Designer/ course layout, professional consultant.

Here is the goal: Build a modern park that will have little kids section intermediate and a pro section with out compromising design for fear of safety.

Now this is going to be a fitness park riddled with intermediate pump tracks to triple diamond pro sections, all well though out and designed for flow and safety. All levels will be clearly marked and segregated by access roads. There is no way in hell anyone will be riding out of their own ability, Whistler Blackcomb has donated their signage files so that we can use the blue and diamond method for our signs.

Phase 1: Beginner/everyone flowy pump tracks and jumps for all levels to play on.
Phase 2: Intermediate/Expert flowy table tops progressing to gaps and a creek jump.
Phase 3: Pro Section will be an absolute free for all that ends in a perimeter pump track jump line that brings you back to the beginning if need be.

The design inspires flow, cleverly thought out keeping safety a top priority and isolating those into the areas they belong until skill levels increase.
I took a quick video to briefly explain the size of this park and what is currently there.

The excavator scrubbing the soil and fluffing up the pump track zone.




This is Cliff Halliday bragging about something. Cliff is North Saanich's top guy for the parks division, he has been crucial in making this park happen.


Drew and Kyle dreaming up the pump track start point.

Drew and I plotting the pump track design out, notice the beautiful natural stump he accidentally toasted in the background. Thanks for coming out Drew, good game.

This is what makes Drew one of Coves and Canada's fastest racer... he is full of rage! He was concern about me and my loosing an eye phobia so he punished everything in our path.




Some natural sections that we will be designing through.


I will come back and clean this posting up. I have to run off to the airport and pick up my girlfriend from a flight, a flight I cancelled on 3 hours before because of this park! So everyone better be stoked on this park when we are done!!
Greg

North Saanich Freeride Park.

It has been a hush hush event for some time as we dialed in all the details for this park. Below is a Ariel shot of the land, lots of trees and dirt.

We have just set up a blog for the park, excuse its lack of beauty but it works for now. http://www.freeridebc.blogspot.com/ Not much going on for content but we will get that sorted soon.

This park is from a lot of peoples efforts and hundreds of hours of work. Municipality of North Sannich, Sidney Waterfront Inn, AJ Finlayson Architects and us at Straitline Comp & Mark and George Mathews the founders, got our buts in gear to make this happen.

Now we are ready to break ground with the help of John Plant Excavating and Kyle Michell the designer of the 07 BMX worlds course.
Kyle just flew in last night from Spain where he was building a UCI course and soon back off to Europe then Asia to build more. Stoked to have him help us out.
Drew Mitchell member of Cove Bikes DH team is lending his small little hands and also helping in course designs with his big heart!

Bounce over to the truly ghetto blog here and please bookmark it and keep an eye on this site. We are going to go big, this not another generic park, with in 2 years we will be enclosing it and best of all this is a free public park.

Pumps tracks, double downs, double diamond advanced jumps, tree riding and of course every level and style of jumps will be there. We even have a legion right down the strip!

Thanks to Whistler Blackcomb Sign Division for all the help!!

Cheers ,

Greg