Another great season of shredding is coming to a close and there is fluffy white stuff falling in the Okanagan, thus ending the riding season for the most part. It has been another great year, a couple injuries here and there, but I still managed to get countless days on my bike and travel to a lot of new exciting places to ride.
The season started off great, I had a couple new sponsors to help support my addiction to riding and first and foremost I would like to thank them for making it all possible. Ns Bikes/Lama cycles for creating the wonderful pieces of machinery that I have been lucky enough to ride all season. Hygia for keeping my bikes up to spec with their full line of stopping power. Deity for keeping my bikes lightweight and looking sexy for yet another of the many seasons they have been helping me out. Spank for having a fantastic brand name and providing wheels that are bombproof and light as a feather. Fox for keeping my head safe and making sure I'm always looking stylish around Harrison's mom. Silverstar bike park for having the best lift access trails around and creating the slopestyle course through the trees known as pro star/walk the line. Rob at DeathGrip Racing for continuing to help me out in every aspect of my life and treating me like one of his own. Finally North shore billet for all the custom finishing touches that every bike should have. It's been another great year and I owe it all to them, my friends and my family for all the support they have given.
This year got off to a very quick start for me, snow decided to hang around Kelowna a bit longer than usual and the first competitions were right around the corner. I didn't race near as much as last year but I still made it out for the first race of the season in Kamloops. I brought my pyjama suit this year because I have heard it makes you much faster
I ended up placing 6th and quite a bit slower than last year so I'm not too sure what to think of the whole pj thing yet...haha
After the race there was a small jam going on over at our local bike park so I was sure to make it out for that. The timing was perfect because my new prototype ns soda had just arrived and I was dying to test it out. The jam was pretty fun, they had lots of mini competitions for the riders and each person could only win once so it gave everyone a chance to win something. I was set on taking home the trackstand competition but ended up putting my foot down pretty quick thanks to Nato (**cough** cheater** cough**). It was a devastating loss but I managed to bag the best boost competition so that lifted my spirits a bit. I really don't get out to the bike park enough, lots of fun jumps that are actually a decent size and it was a nice change from riding dreamland all the time.
A couple days later I got a phone call from none other than mountain biking's "Big Daddy" Jeremy Weiss asking if I wanted to go to Ranchstyle. I hadn't really planned on it but hey, the more competitions the better, so I packed my gear up and we got on the road. Ranchstyle got off to a rough start with Evan Guthrie of Kamloops going down hard in practice. He ended up in a coma for quite some time but being the trooper that he is he has now woken up and is making tons of progress towards recovery. His girlfriend Amanda has been nice enough to post regular updates regarding Evan's status on facebook. If you'd like to know more and support Evan in his recovery join the group. With Evan's crash in the back of everyone's mind getting riding again wasn't easy but unfortunately it's a part of the sport and something we all had to deal with. The course was a lot of fun with a couple different line choices and some sizeable jumps. I ended up coming in a couple places short of making it to finals but I was pretty stoked nonetheless because I had tried and landed my first tailwhip off a boner log.
When we arrived back home the sun was shining, the dirt was tacky and spring was in full swing. All winter Matt Butterworth, Eric Marciniak, Spencer Graf and I had been working our butts off to plan out our first attempt at full length film,
SHIFTED. We were out on our first shoot for the movie riding a 30 foot jump we built in 2010 that I have hit many times and I actually flipped last year.
As we all know freak accidents can happen to anyone and I guess this was my turn. I ended up coming into the jump just a bit too slow and I tagged the knuckle. I went for the classic over the bars dive but my tuck and roll wasn't up to par and I ended up with a separated shoulder. Not so bad of an injury, but it happened at a bad time and took a while to heal. This meant I was going to miss out on Teva mountain games and the Claymore Challenge. I was pretty disappointed but it gave me time to make sure I did all the right exercises, physio, and stretches to bring me back stronger than before.
My shoulder healed up good as new just in time for opening day at Silverstar. I decided to move up to the mountain this year so the trails were literally in my backyard and I got more riding in this summer than ever. I spent a lot of my time coaching private and group lessons up at the resort as well which has been very rewarding and I really look forward to doing it again next season. The trail crew had to shovel out most of the trails this year leaving 4 ft tall snowbanks on either side of the trail. With the unique conditions on the mountain there was no better time to kick start the first Silverstar video. We had no real game plan for this video, just a bunch of friends who were stoked to do some riding and have a good time! We all had a lot of fun making it and I think it really showed in the edit.
Silverstar Episode 2! My favorite project of the year by far. I teamed up with Bas Van Steenbergen for this video, Matt had a great idea to film contradicting riding styles and we both really liked the idea. Me and Bas made lists of all the things we could think of on the mountain we wanted to film. The lists started to get pretty ridiculous and we were super competitive to try and get the most banger shots for the video. In the end I don't know who had more all I know is there were a ton of killer shots and the edit turned out awesome.
After Silverstar closed we buckled down and started filming in full force for "Shifted". We still have a bit of filming left to do and a couple trips to make but I can't wait to see the finished product. Its something we have all been working really hard on and believe me when I say the teaser is nothing compared to how the full video is going to turn out. Make sure to
"Like" us on facebook if you haven't already!
In the midst of all the filming for the movie I managed to sneak off to Rossland for a weekend at the Rubberhead Festival. I was really impressed with this event and it was a lot of fun. Everyone there was down to earth and it was just like riding with a group of your friends. The jumps were a ton of fun and I'd like to go back sometime soon to just ride them some more. The competition was a 4 run format with your best 3 counting. I was really happy to get all 4 runs that I wanted and ended up winning best line and best trick. Check out the full event report on my
blog and mark off the dates on your calendar for next years event because its definitely worth the trip to Rossland!
The latest trip of the season was off to California for At's showdown. This is by far my favorite competition of the season and it only gets better every year. Side by side dialed jumps, big gaps and gnarly tricks going down all day; there is not much more a rider or spectator could ask for. Unfortunately my video camera decided to break so I lost all the footage from the actual competition but we still GoPro'd a couple things afterwards in Santa Cruz.
That pretty much wraps up my 2011, It seems like before you know it the season is over, but I guess that's just because of how much fun everyone was having. Thanks again to everyone for all their support and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again next season!
-Garrett Robertson-
Ns Bikes/
Lama CyclesHygia
Fox Head
Deity
Spank
SilverStar Bike Park
DeathGrip Racing
NSB
but not for long anywasy! here comes christmas
