My friend Jason Headley and I went out for a quick shoot last night. Our timing was off with the amount of daylight we had left so we only had time to set up and take a couple runs through the jumps. This was the 3rd and last run through the jumps but it turned out all right I think. Anyway this is the result of that little mission.

I hit up the Sunshine Coast yesterday with STRAND…my new Race Face teammate - along with Mantlepiece and Mr. Stevens. It was pretty sweet. I just can’t get over how much I love corners! I am loving Whistler right now but definetly looking forward to getting loose in California in the near future.

Twelve months, twelve short documentaries on a long way to success. Trainings. Races. Travelling. Life. This is TWELVE - a new project of pro fourcross rider and BMXer Michal Prokop.

Not only by its coarse visual interpretation TWELVE picks up the threads of michal.prokop.09 calendar, however it uses a wider potential of video technologies. Rob Trnka’s camera takes the past month of Michal, just as he has actually spent it. Without any adornments and planning. It doesn’t aim to celebrate the leading actor; it wants to capture by its sincereness. TWELVE doesn’t create dramatic situations, but it catches them if they arise.

In first days of the following month you can always find out what were the last four weeks of Michal. Interesting? Boring? Tiring? Cheerful? Successful…? As every real calendar also TWELVE starts in January. Tons of iron, hours in fitness centre and snow and freeze all around. This way Michal’s year 2010 started, a season dedicated to fourcross, in which BMX already starts to come through strongly, with qualification for 2012 Olympic Games.

Episodes of TWELVE can be found at www.redbull.cz.  Here’s the first edition:

(continue reading…)

     November was so crazy at work that I didn’t  ride much at all, with the exception of the odd street session on my way home from work.  October had been a great month of riding!   Started out  with a trip out to Bowen Island with my buddy Dave McInnes  to ride with  the rest of the Flowrider team, Dangerous Dan Cowan, and Mike Laudrum.  Dave and I made our way to Horseshoe Bay where Mike who is one of the Captins of the Sea taxi, picked us up for a fast rip over to the island from the main land.  When we got to Bowen Danger meet up with us and we headed straight up the mountain and dropped in!  As per usual it was an epic day of super steep GNARLY lines and thats just what is between all the man built stunts or features on the trails out that way. (continue reading…)

I never seem to get any shots of me riding, which I swear that I do. I will work hard on that in the coming weeks…

But here are a few shots from some recent rides.

The first two were from a early morning dawn patrol to celebrate the final weekend we were allowed to ride Cypress without the being tazered or shot by the military.

Wade looks way too chipper for a ride this early in the am. Photo Phil Mowat

I have been a busy little bee lately! I finished school in December and headed straight for the US of A…literally, like directly after my exam I was on the road! ha. I spent a couple of days with my mom in Seattle doing mother daughter/bonding kinds of things like  cooking, eating lots of food, shopping and watching movies! After a couple of days in Seattle I headed South to Santa Cruz to hang with the boys. I love California…so much that I might actually spend the entire 2010-2011 winter down there…we will see when the time comes though! California is so rad!  We rode tons of XC and moto and flexed it up in Golds Gym Santa Cruz! I am kind of obsessed with moto right now…I am still so new to it but I love every minute of it!!!

I went to Mexico with the lover boy (aka. boyfriend) during the first week of January which was loads of fun. We surfed, hung by the beach/pool, ate a lot of food and even went for a mountain bike ride in the jungle. Pretty sweet.

Now I am back in Whistler. It is madness right now…the Olympics start in 6 days!!!

I will be here till the end of the month and then back to California it is…the season is coming up on pretty fast here!!! My first race of the season is 9 weeks from today…Pan Ams in Guatemala!!! Whoop Whoop! Can’t wait to get loose.

Here are some pics on the new ride without the aid of a photographer. It pretty much rained all weekend so I ended up riding a wet hip at the PNE skatepark and Leeside for a bit. The clouds made the lighting terrible, haha. I’ll post more pics soon! (continue reading…)

Anyway im pumped on the publish as its my first overseas magazine coverage.

decline

decline

Sandstorm? Attacks? Head to the bike room.

I think I might actually miss the stale air and dust in my trainer room. Some time in the not so distant future I’ll pack up, mail my bike home in a box made of mostly duct tape and jump on a crowded military aircraft for a short but loud trip home. Being in the bike room helped me forget just for a few moments that I was in Iraq.

Two friends and I scouted out the room in an old Iraqi aircraft shelter when we first got here. We could tell right away the place had potential. Last time I was here I got one of the smaller side rooms–still pretty safe but I didn’t have air conditioning, so I had to limit my time in there because of the blistering Iraqi summer time temps.

It took a while to clean the months of sand, dust and mud that had seeped through the old ventilation system, but after we got everything set up it worked out pretty well. The air conditioner worked fantastically and we scored a projector so we could take in some movies while pedaling. The room was large enough for three bikes on trainers and a few old folding tables to put random stuff and empty bottles on.  Motar and rocket attacks are still pretty common, but being surrounded by six feet or more of concrete on every side really made the attacks a non-issue…until it was time to walk back to the room.

The bunker bike room was without a doubt the safest place on base. Being in there pedaling away, watching Lance kick ass on mountain roads in France and not worrying about anything but having to step out for water really was a great feeling.

The racing season in Germany is kicking off a few days after I get back with a Poison Cup race in late February.  The pictures I’ve seen all show riders bundled up trying to keep warm, plowing through thick mud and and sliding on snow.  I’m looking forward to getting back and jumping into the 2010 season and I think our super-secure attack-proof bunker room riding time really helped. I’ll find out soon  just how much.

-Hector

Living and playing outdoors on Vancouver Island during the winter months means dealing with one thing more than anything else, rain. The winter’s grip transforms the terrain into something familiar, yet unpredictable. Rock faces glisten and dare you to descend them as green growth slowly erases the tracks of former tires. Corners you would carve in dry conditions appear solid, but yield unexpectedly as rubber knobs slice though muddy layers. You navigate off camber sections knowing there’s an even chance you’ll cruise through, or be tossed recklessly into the undergrowth. Wet feet, soaked gloves, squealing brakes, and mud encrusted eyes becomes strangely…tolerable. It’s never bothered me. I always think about how, soon enough, the seemingly endless overcast and damp days give way to renewed growth, sunshine, and dusty trails. Then paradoxically we’re left wishing for a good rain ride.