Epic bike park

Braden cranks a lookback well past the clicking point

Lot's going on in Ottawa now. The biking community froths at the mouth. Everyone has heard about it and seen the sneakpeaks on facebook. The CTV did a spot on tv. Now everyone has a raging boner that won't go away. I have been lucky enough to be inside. You won't be dissapointed. It's a high class facility that has something for everyone. My hat is off to Lin and her crew for making this happen. See you at the park.

Winter Dirtbiking

first carve

I do hate winter. But every year as a teenager I rode my dirtbike in the winter. I never had any documentation of such behaviour, none that existed past the careless stage of those years. The conditions were perfect this day, much like a good day at the hill. I was lucky enough to have my better half handy and able to take such great photos. Fresh powder. Under the right circumstances, is a lot like fresh sand. If you are careful you can certainly have some fun much in the same way. What will you do different this winter?

adventure man!

this buds for you turtle

Some more random photos. Some of last winter, some from the summer. Winter is officially here and it sucks. But here is a great shot of Josh last summer from the Jam. Jeff photo bombs the moment. Have fun in Australia Josh!

bring summer back edit

Summer/fall clips thrown together with a bit of hope of winning a drone with camera from Royal Distributing. I don't have Facebook but attempted to post this on their page from Brenna's account for the contest entry. So I guess go to Royal Distributing and vote for me or something!? They give a drone a month for the next while. Pretty cool. Thanks to Jaime and Jeff for getting in on the filming here.

I do have a bunch more go pro footage that I filmed in a different resolution. I will try and do something with that shortly. This has been way over due as it is. Enjoy.

iphone offload 2014

a giant snapping turtle being removed from the side of the road where she tried to lay eggs

Sometimes it's handy to have the phone after all.

X-Town

I got comfy on this big table, it was about 60ft or so. It certainly wasn't the biggest jump there though

Jeff came down for the a full weekend to ride in the dirt. We had a blast, but ended up filming more than taking photos. Well more than anything actually, we just rode as much as we could. We hit up X-Town motocross track in Mirabel, QC. Really great tracks, yes plural. Something for everyone there. I had some nice photos of Jeff, but they along with a nice photo of a hawk eating a dove in my yard, accidentally got deleted. So this is a really quick update. Just getting time to work on some video stuff now. I will offload some phone photos from the year first though. Thanks to Jeff for his keen eye behind the lens.

Limerick Forest ride

when it runs, it runs amazing

We hit Limerick Forest in the late afternoon one day last week. We never seem to get a full day riding because we are consistently dealing with engine gremlins on Derek's bike. When the thing runs, it produces nice shots like these. Fresh sand is a lot like fresh powder at a ski hill. And getting the shots early in the session is key. These are all slightly touched up, mostly washed out colours and some sharpened. My old Tamron 18-280 is no longer as sharp as it once was, which causes it's focus to slow down too. We did pretty ok snapping shots of each other regardless. And Derek even got some air on a drop off. Make sure to check these out full screen to see the beauty of the fresh sand. Hope you are all getting in your final summer plans as fall is upon us in a hurry.

first race ever

warmup first corner

 This was a fun experience. I raced in the Vet Junior class at MX101 (Sadn Del Lee) in Richmond, Ontario. A lot went wrong that day for me, namely missing the practice. I only got one race due to weather complications. So I had one single practice lap before my race. That really stressed me out. I knew my arms wouldn't last with no practice or warmup. And I was right. I had a really good first lap, and then the arm pump came. Not too many photos with other riders in them, because I was at the back of the pack within 2 laps. I did have a blast though. I felt really out of place, like first day of high school. But at the end I felt like a cool kid. Thanks to everyone coming out to watch and Ginger for snapping these photos of me. And an extra thanks to my un-named race crew that took care of me all day and put my mind at ease. I always said I wanted to try it, so I am really proud of myself for getting it done at 32, finally. Hopefully next year I am better prepared though. Thanks again for everyone's support.

gopro pov

fresh sand is the equivalent of fresh powder

 I will have to stop borrowing Chris and Jay's go pro and just buy one of my own. Here are some random photos from the last few weeks. These are from the "chesty" mounted angled. Also borrowed from Steve haha. This really gives the best perspective from behind the bars. Like a first person video game. These go pro 3 models are really great and come through quite well even in poorly lit situations. Thanks again guys.

Sudbury dirt bike trip 2014

Jeff gets the cover shot on his XR400

I trailered my bike down to the big nickel on a Thursday night. Met up with Jeff, Kyle, and Zach and stayed up late usual, listening to Slater and downing my ciders. Friday was great weather and we had a sweet day exploring about 11 pits. I felt like I was in heaven. So much stuff good stuff to ride. Bigger and better than anything I have ever ridden. I have ridden some great places before, but always either undocumented or only a few times at best because spots get shut down easily. Knowing I had more days to ride the same stuff put my mind at ease. It's comparable to going to 11 skateparks in one day. It never happens, so it's hard to imagine. Kyle had a good and proper party that night and we were up until sundown catching up, shooting the shit, and laughing it up.

We dilly dallied the next as per the norm, but then got screwed with rain in the afternoon. We hit up Royal Distributing to kill some time and Jeff found a beauty new helmet for his noggin. The rain never broke, but we said screw it once it slowed down around 6pm. We headed out with Kyle on the big quad going through all the insane water holes that had come to be from the rain on the trails. The rain actually stopped and we rode into dark and then b-lined it home. We a great sessions despite the conditions, and Kyle rode his first dirtbike. He did really well in the limited time and light. We partied again Sat night, but I couldn't hang with the big boys and had to sleep around 3am haha. 

Sunday appeared as though it was going to be a bust as it was pissing rain again, and Saturday night was a total storm. As I packed up, it started to clear. Jeff packed his bike and follow me out in case it looked good enough to ride. We caught a break and decided to take a ride. So glad we did, because we found so much more. So many more pits and amazing spots. Each spot had something unique. One would be hills, another would be jumps and humps. We found tracks, trails, washed out canyons, and everything in between. Hell, we even found a bowl berm, basically a curved wall ride. We went super far and just hit so much stuff, having the time of my life at least. Soaking it all up. The SLR camera went dead right away, the video camera went dead right after, and I didn't bring the go pro because I didn't think I would need. I also left all the charged batteries in the car. Bah, won't need those. We said screw it and just kept riding, relying on our memory to document the thrills and scenery. Jeff did a huge hill climb and caught air out of the top. He had no idea how much air he would get but randomly threw a no footer and landed perfectly. This caused a ton of laughs. Just think about all the variables. Jeff is a natural. We were super far away and I ran out of gas. We got creative and I made Jeff got to higher ground and lean his bike over to dump fuel into mine. We disconnected his carb line, then used his gas cap breather hose to make an extension. It was wacky, but it worked. I used the google map app, and found the fastest way out. Typically we went around every water hole and tried to stay dry, but time was of the essence, and daylight was fading fast. We went down a trail that was basically a total enduro style of water and rocks. We plower through it all with some luck, and yeah I do call this lucky still, I ran out of gas only half a km from our vehicles. I walked my bike back and enjoyed every step, because I knew I just finished the best riding of my life with my buddy.

Thanks to Jeff and his family for the hospitality, and Kyle for hosting us and driving us around too. Both guys got behind the camera for me which I never take for granted. Thanks guys. Can't wait to go back. Click the title to see some more photos of us. More updates to come, some go pro footage too.