This years event was big time, the show must go on type of big and that came with a lot of carnage on the riders as the winds picked up.
So it was anyone's game and our riders threw down in front of a crowd of 50,000.
Starting with Casey Groves who is full factory Straitline, he had a hell of a day finding out a family member just passed away but threw it down a ride dedicated to his cousin.
3rd place winner McCaul stole the show with our Hydro and had some squirrely landings that sent him into the Teva booth or RedBull icon making the crowd roar:
Jack Fogelquist, riding our Defacto pedals took some big falls due to winds. He was killing it but washed out on the dry surface ending his runs, he was bummed for sure after winning an invite
This opening shot in qualification shows his crash at 1:15, he still qualified and shook it off for the next days showdown.
I saw Edge Factors Chilean episode when I walked in on the guys glued to the screen in awe of this new concept tv show. I emailed Jeremy with a joke slid in on how I will kill myself on Youtube if they cover a cheese factory instead of us and I guess it worked because he called the next day.
I talk a lot of Sh*t but this is biking and it is fun so we have fun but I’ll shut up and show you the teaser now…
So I hear the weather sucks ***** at the Claymore challenge and it may be as late as this Sunday that they can compete, maybe even at night with lights, what ever it takes to beat out this weather.
Good news is they have time to jam in the indoor park and hit the foam pits and resi ramps while they wait it out.
Mike and Cam both have their Straitline Gryros installed and Seminuk just put his on a few days ago so we have 3 top guns helping us refine the system.
The first proto is great and we will make a secondary proto with apposing technology inside and see which one we wish to refine after the contest season wraps up.
All three (and soon Casey Groves once he gets his forks in) will be our feedback team and hitting all the comps with the Gryo installed, then off to production for the masses.
Check out the VITAL video update and watch the guys spin and flip… if you watch closely, Mike sever a testical on the backflip Superman to semi no footer landing.
There was a full crew of Straitline riders at the first Jump Ship. Mike Montgomery flew up from San Diego to help test the first Straitline Hydro Gyro, film for a TV show, win best trick and come second in a close battle with Brandon Semenuk. Jack Fogelquist made the drive up from Scotts Valley, Eric Lawrenuk and Casey Groves hopped the ferry over from the main land and even Alan Hepburn took a break from his busy rollerblading vert career to ride some bikes.
A trick Alan picked up over the winter (his summer).
Camp of Champions was on hand with their Air Bag and there was a 20 minute wait for riders of all ages and skill levels to session the bag. It was great to see the progression of the riders over the weekend and it was great to see how many youngsters wanted signatures from the riders who were lining up to ride with them.
Mike flips his bike on dirt (above) and he flips Aaron's road bike onto the bag (below).
The complete Straitline staff was on hand for the event and looked to be enjoying the show. Straitline's all around genius Dennis Paulson even managed to injure himself while learning to back flip into the air bag. Eric Lawrenuk also went down in qualifying and separated his shoulder again. I wish them both a speedy recover so we can get some Straitline A-Line Trains going this summer.
Dennis working on his back flip, put himself out of commission for a couple weeks.
Enough talk, enjoy the pictures and for more Jump Ship news see below ...
Mike wins best trick with a 720 ...
A lot of people came out to see the final.
Separated shoulder, hope Eric is back on his bike soon.
Mike and Casey on the podium.
Casey signing autographs while waiting to hit the air bag.
Mike training for a bike to bike transfer ...
While leaving the venue there was a lot of talk about next year, let's hope this becomes an annual event.
Keep Riding,
Rob Dunnet
P.S. when someone asks you "Do you want to put this gorilla suit on and hit the air bag?" the answer should always be yes!
Second off, if that is even a word, I was out building the booter ramps with Jordie and Laroque last Thursday with power tools and beer!
This weekend totally for free is Jumpship, where a massive 180ft barge loaded with jumps floats into town and the worlds top freestyle riders will compete for 1st place.
The Camp of Champions air bag will be on site and totally for free to ride, so you better show up and hit it.
Straitline also has a tv crew from www.edgefactor.com in town to capture our robotic cnc in action then film Casey Groves and Mike Montgomery fro ma Helicopter as thy battle it out. So show your support and come on out, face book the hell out of this please!
So, Mike also just took the TEVA games and is the man to beat so its going to go off!
Here is the official release for Jumpship:
Things are shaping up for this weekends first ever Jumpship Dirt Jump Invitational in beautiful downtown Victoria, BC. The world's elite slope riders will ride a floating course built upon a 180 foot barge. Tomorrow our barge moves into place for construction of the course and we'll keep you in the loop as it comes together. Get to Victoria this weekend to witness the FMB elite go head to head. Jumpship is a free event and brought to you by the Dockside Mountain Bike Society. Here is Jump Ship's rider list: 1: Brandon Semenuk 2: Tyler Maccaul 3: Eric Lawrenuk 4: Geoff Gullevich 5: Sam Dueck 6: Mitch Chuby 7: Anthony Messere 8: Jamie Goldman 9: Casey Groves 10: Andrew Taylor 11: Graham Aggasiz 12: Luke Fulton 13: Jarrett Moore 14: Christian Wright 15: Jack Fogelquist 16: Mike Montgomery 17: Kurt Sorge 18: Reece Wallace 19: Evan Mccurrie 20: Justin Wyper 21: Scott Grant 22: Jordie Lunn 23: Mark Matthews For more details on Jump Ship check out www.JumpShipContest.com or for most up to date news check out our facebook page at facebook.com/jumpshipcontest
Our pedals can open a beer bottle but their may be dirt or poop in the webbing. Here Casey Demonstrates how to solve the no beer bottle opener scenario and avoid poop inside that cold bevy!
All my crew in one spot and in today's VOD on Pinkbike. Got to love this, Alan Hepburn, Ryan Berrecloth, Mike Montgomery, Casey Groves, Jack Fogelquist, Gareth Dyer and Camp of Champions friends all in a VOD for Ryans #4 of Stoke you out. http://www.pinkbike.com/video/171799/
Bammmmm boyyyy!- I just watched Flavor Flav house of love so it’s my new saying.
Mike twisted his ankle after throwing down a solid run in the finals at AT’s Showdown in California this Saturday. Casey Groves landed 4th with Watts taking the win. We had Jack FogelQuist throwing down as well but he smacked his mellow pretty hard in Practice and decided to play safe and just have fun.
Slow mo 720 inside…
This course was built by riders and it obviously is the preferred way to do it. The Crankworxs course sucks, is dangerous and everyone agrees it needs a change. Watch Mike take second on his Banshee Amp hardtail and you can see the difference in course layouts.
Casey Groves, Greg Watts and AT have been slaving by the looks of it, to make the AT showdown become a FMBA tour event. Casey is 8th in the world this season an I applaud this new point system in place like the DH world. Jack Fogelquist and Mike Montgomery are on hand too to throw down, this must become a FMBA tour with the names in attendance showing up just ride and have fun.
Check the full story over at Pinkbike it has lots of pictures for the illiterate peeps out there.
Casey Groves, Straitline’s Factory pilot and friends in the Okanogan at Dreamland. I saw this a while back but was too busy to remember to post it. I am sure it has gotten around but today was my first 5 minutes to watch it front to back.
VOD on Pinkbike today is of Justin on his blackmarket killswitch filming out in Kamloops and Kelowna BC. If anyone reading this is ever coming to BC look at your airport on the map, most likely Vancouver international, and plan a road trip to the Okanogan. It’s not all about Whistler, the valley has 2 lift access hills Silverstar/Vernon and SunPeaks/Kamloops. This video shows only the Kamloops bike park on Rose hill but the terrain is diverse and fast, you’ll be in awe if you go and you can still squeeze in Whistler if you backtrack through Pemberton to Whistler on the back roads.
Casey Groves has discovered Pilsner in this video, by next year he will be either killing it on the bike or that guy hanging in the park with his shades on. Nah he’ll be killing it as usual.
We were quite proud to see 2 of our 3 riders podium at this years event. Jack Fogelquist had a run of bad luck leaving the doors open for Casey Groves to take second and Mike Montogmery 2nd with Mr Zink making his comeback!
The Pinkbike Crew popped up a touching Casey story where he defends his Virginity
Casey is at the Rampage raking and building as we speak and is pumped on life. He emailed me on FB and told me how awesome he is -
“Yeah that's why I haven't emailed you haha you've been gonzo for a month. I got an invite a week after crankworx. Pretty stoked. I'm running Ti Grey Pedals and a 50mm pinch clamp stem in black. My bike is P.I.M.P.! Its a Redbull event so they don't have you fill out forms for sponsors listings and stuff. Ridiculous I know! I have been stepping up to the plate in slopestyle events all year around dude. I'm 8th in the world right now on FMBA and I came podium in every event but Goatstyle, which isn't major.”
Check out his new digs.
Click this link and check out what he has to say about being invited to the Rampage after earning his invite with his Krankworks podium!
I finally figured out how to set my post dates… I am amazed at how Dumb I am at blogging sometimes…
While you reading this I am on a deck, up in Whistler, beer in hand… watching the Slopestyle quali unfold right in front of us. I’’ll be with Lenosky and friends and those ever annoying Giant guys on the balcony to our right. So excuse me for pre-writing all this out but it’s not like I would be the news breaker on who won what anyways, you can scour the hot spots for it all. I will be super stoked if Straitlines very own Casey Groves and Jack Folgelquist do well though. I’d actually shit my pants if they podium’d, so cheers to that!
Enjoy this video I carefully selected for you until I am back on Monday, it may have been VOD but it is new to me and worth a second watch!
I found this shot on the web and I cannot believe the ingenuity and progression displayed before me. All jokes aside this is is an epic display of what can be done when you put your mind to it.!
And lots of progression this Canada Long weekend weekend on the bike as well! I spent Canada day up in Whistler at the Camp of Champions and was in awe at what I saw. Montgomery pulled a 360 body varial he dubbed the California roll and now everyone who wasn’t there is debating if it was the first but rest assure it is the first on a 26.
Here was my angle of it all…
I wish that I caught it on film but Greg was hitting the jumps with his hands backwards on the bars… wrist out. When I asked him why he is riding like that he just said “I’m bored”! He went through most of his tricks like that and landed everyone
This film is by Eric Peterson of Faultline, he is getting all the camp footage and carnage as it happens.
I’ll caption this shot for everyone… “My name is Mike and I just did a California Roll, WTF have you done?”
Camp coach and Straitline factory rider Alan Hepburn
Alan again but this time he’s spicing it up on his Unicycle.
Camp coach and Straitline Factory rider Jack Folgelquist was right behind Alan throwing tricks.
Jack smiles a lot and if you watch him mid air he is perma grin.
Watts, Hepburn, Montgomery, Dyer, Cho Cho and Ryan Berrecloth somewhere out of frame. Mr Groves had to leave for Goatstyle, in fact everyone is heading to Goatstyle next week to earn a spot at Crankworks.
The man behind it all Ken Achenbach. He owns a backcountry cat skiing firm and runs a SKI/BOARD/BIKE camp in the summer aka my new BFF.
Found this thread and Kens response to player haters after viewing the video below. Sums it up pretty good.
“It's pretty classic how every thinks you get "Sent" to COC. Kids actually beg all year to come to camp and when they get here they ride from sun up to sun down because it's their dream to come to camp. It's why we work so hard to make every day absolutely insane. Coming from a single parent family without two cents to rub together I know how hard everyone works for the money that camp costs, whether you are rich or poor. It's my dream to enable people to ride in an amazing place, ride amazing bikes and meet amazing people and make friends with them. Give them the opportunity that I never had. So I can understand the "F that 2 grand" I can also understand the "I want that and I will do whatever I have to do to come to camp." I collected bottles, shoveled snow, and mowed lawns to get the things I wanted. Things taste the best when you work for it and 99% of the kids that come to camp work for it. Be it getting good grades, doing chores or slaving as a dishpig. That's why camp is so fun. Everyone here wants to be here. I'd kill myself if I ran a camp where people get "Sent" We teach riders to Send It! Bored kids go to the mall. Smart kids go biking. Ken”
