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| Steep Rock in the Rain |
2010 has been a super exciting year on all fronts and there is so much to share, but I will try to keep it short and to the point…
To start the season off right I went on a moto ride in “Death Valley” with six solid pals to celebrate my birthday. None of the guys knew it was my special day until it rolled around on the trip however we celebrated that particular day by riding 200km in wicked sand dunes and trails with an estimated 1700’ of elevation gain. Over all we ended up doing over 1000km in 5 days!
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| Canadian Moto in America! |
This year I was present at a few events that really tugged my Dreads and reminded me of how cool Mountain Biking is. Event list is as follows:
-Mach Chicken Trail Maintenance day (buff before the downhill race in Sunshine Coast)
-Ride clinics with Sutherland high school (North Vancouver) XC team
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Norco SPROCKIDS day -Volunteer days at 4 Bike Skills Parks
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| Great jumping Giffy over Jay |
-Dirt Jump Jam for Canmore XC Nationals
-Williams Lake Bike Park grand opening
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Norco Product Launch  |
| Climbing the walls! |
-Crankworx Whistler
-Inter Bike Outdoor Demo just around the corner
Of course in between all my gigs I still have to lay down some video footage and pictures that can be used for articles, brochures, interviews advertisements and of course Facebook!
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| Choose line set shot |
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| Result of shot planning |
Just to get a bank full of images to start the season and then post season takes about 10-15 days of solid shooting which of course doesn’t include all the build and prep time (which I love) Check out my latest vid here;
While the season may be busy, it is never too busy to go and shoot for my favourite TV show The RideGuide (http://www.rideguide.ca/bike_vids.aspx). This year marks the 6th season for me shooting with Ride Guide and after last year’s KILLER shows in Maui, BC Bike Parks, Norco Factory Team and Northern Alberta, I traveled and shot two new episodes during this season in Wales, UK (with Darcy Turenne) and Newfoundland Canada (with Ryan Leech).
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| High above Welsh farms |
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| Trail Riding with shredding Newfoundlanders |
Both trips were fricking amazing with about 2 weeks each to get as much footage as possible
click to see the blogs for the trips. Hold on to your remote these will be wicked episodes for sure.
My company Hoots Inc. and it’s dedicated, highly trained staff have developed 38 bike parks, 21 trails and 21 pump tracks over a 6 year period with the partnerships of municipalities, in kind donations, volunteers and sponsors. The aim of our parks has always been to get people into riding and offer a fun place to work on bike handling, providing the same type of professionalism in park design and construction that you would find in a baseball field or swimming pool. Hoots does not build gnar bike parks for advanced riders and rely on intimidation to monitor rider use, but rather builds sustainable parks that can handle heavy riding by people who don’t understand etiquette and maintenance just yet. Hoots Inc designs and builds parks using 10 years of experience riding professionally, YEARS of experience teaching and coaching both Mountain biking and Snow Boarding and using progression and sustainable techniques that can endure heavy weather and vandalism using the best of what municipalities can afford.
Highlight Hoots projects;
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| Hinton flowy single track |
– Mini jump park, pump track and 3 trails.
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| WL Botanio Bike Park |
– Mega Bike Park, one of the largest and most complex featuring over 40 jumps, drop zones, pump track, DH pump flow ride and technical feature rides.
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| Filthy Canmore Can |
Canmore – Rebuild of Dirt jumps (built previously by Hoots and locals, 5 years ago) into sweet senders of filthy dirt love
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| Whitehorse Skills Park phase 2 |
– Phase 2 construction of technical features area above the huge jump existing park built the year previous.
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| Loutette arrival |
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| Loutette finish |
North Vancouver – Revitalization and formalization of a unauthorized jump park. Negotiated to keep gap jumps and then built a roller/table jump line and diverted hiking trail away from park.
Hoots has also been involved with several project designs and has been active in design and consultation with several other parks including Aldergrove, BC which is slated to open no later than October.
For the last 4 years I have been working as an assistant instructor for Capilano University for the
Mountain Bike Operations Trail Building Course. Last semester before the “advanced building” course came up, lead instructor Mark Schmidt left the program to take on a full time position with Parks Canada. The lead instructor position came up and I took it. With full control of the course I managed with the help of my assistant to re-construct the curriculum and rebuild it into a kick butt program that I believe reflects the new age of our trade. This year’s class had to be patient while I worked out a couple of blips, but I know the volume and content delivered is what I would expect in a course like that.
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| MTBO Trail shot |
The entire month of April was dedicated to advanced trail building techniques and the results from the class were extraordinary! Excellent class and a great design/build of a sweet trail, so much so that they have inspired me to revamp the ‘Introduction to Trail Building” course coming up in November.
For seven years I have traveled to conferences and workshops (from Isreal to all over North America) teaching and sharing what I have learned about Bike Skills Parks, Trail Building, Kids on bikes, Clubs and the legalization of DIRT Jumps.. This year offered me with the Presentation of my career! Early this summer Parks Canada held an internal National Conference to discuss the possibility of Mountain Bikes in National Parks. Discussions ranged from environmental impacts to historical use of parks and then came 3 presentations that highlighted why Mountain bikes should be in National Parks. Lora from IMBA Canada spoke on XC trails, Rob from OGC spoke on Freeride and DH trails and I presented on Skills Parks, Dirt jumps, Pump tracks, Technical ride features like skinny’s, bridges, balance lines and the immense opportunity to implement low risk fun ride options next to parking lots, campgrounds and interpretive centers. Long and short, Parks Canada has agreed to start implementation of allowing Mountain Bikes in National Parks, each park will be evaluated individually and developed accordingly. We will have to wait until Parks get their policy’s changed but WOW! Dirt Jumps in National Parks means that they will have to have guidelines and a formalization of process. This may sound complicated, but at the end of the day if a National Park can figure out how to quantify jumps the trickle down effect to municipalities Canada wide will be tremendous, actual LEGAL DIRT JUMPS! The world’s eyes will be on us to understand how they can do it, I only hope to be there along the way.
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| Thanks for Reading mmm Yukon |
What an amazing season it has been and I am so very grateful for my family, friends, sponsors, the awesome guys I shoot with and everyone else who has helped get me through this season in one piece and still smiling!
Ride ON!
Jay Hoots
Norco Factory Team Hoots Inc.
