It was a somber and confusing time in the Tippie household.  We had a whole year of projects lined up and ready to go, and then on the 11th of March (which coincided with my big 4-0 birthday party), the curtain came crashing down on our beloved Raceface.

But the tide has turned, we are absolutely over the moon regarding the new ownership, and I’m just keeping this on the up and up, the positive and the upcoming season!

Here’s a picture of my blinging Rocky Mountain Flatline WC complete with Atlas Freeride Cranks, Stealth Bars and stem.  Presented to me by none other than Mr. Tippie himself (after a striptease clad in his 1990′s National team skinsuit from his World Cup Snowboarding days!) and fellow Fro, Wade Simmons!

 Well it’s been a supremely busy summer at Casa Chaos (otherwise known as the Tippie/Fenton household). Brett was busy announcing a bunch of MTB events, such as some BC Cup races, the Redbull 5000 down, doing daily webisodes for Crankworx, doing over 50 (!) interviews at the World Championships at Mt. St. Anne. Not to mention other events such as Rocky Mountain days at Mt. Washington etc etc. The best on a professional and personal level was his induction into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame during Interbike this year, along with his fellow Fro-riders, Wade Simmons and Richie Schley. It was a funny, emotional, and very proud moment for us.

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I haven’t posted in a while as I’ve been busy………..riding!  The last weekend in June we went to Peachland to catch up with legendary duo Barb Haley and Johnny Smoke, Kranked alumni, North Shore old schoolers, and proprieters of www.bushpilotbiking.com .  Now Johnny and I go waaaaay back to the ’80′s as we went to high school together in Deep Cove, and our little girls are the same age so we always have a grand old time riding, catching up on Cove gossip, and drinking on his amazing balcony overlooking the lake.  He’s also part of the Rocky Mountain family now, rocking a sweet Rocky Mountain Flatline World Cup.  Barb was out there killing it on her hardtail, going bigger than most dare to do on a fully rigged beefy bike.  Uber photographer Ian Hylands and his wife Nicole, who also have a junior ripper, Kainoa came along for some fun too!  I think he was happy to actually get some riding time in, as this is shooting season.   Tippie tried to drift hard at the bottom of one run, and scraped off the top two layers of his forearm, which as much as I hate to admit it, is my fault, as I was hurrying him up to leave on our journey, and when he couldn’t find one armpad, I uttered the classic “you’ll be fine, don’t worry about it”.  Sorry Tippie!  The two days of riding incorporated thousands of vertical, beaches, lakes and even riding through a vineyard!  I’ll keep it short and sweet as Brett will be doing a more in depth dissection of our annual trip to Bush Pilot HQ!

Last weekend Tippie and I packed up our bikes, baby girl and headed to Brett’s hometown of Kamloops, which is also home to some legendary riding, thanks in part to the legendary……Tippie!  We started with some magic velcro soil rips down Harper with Jake, Brett’s younger brother (who launches straight into/onto/over anything, even though he’s only a sporadic MTB’er, he is a natural), then the next day, went back for more, this time with teammate Andrew Baker, and Matt Hunter’s pretty lady, Nikki, showing us even some more some sweet bermy trail, with a bit of woodwork thrown in for good measure. 
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Last weekend was so fantastic I don’t even have any riding pics as no one wanted to stop or get off their bike!  It started with a last minute jaunt to Squamish to check out the new Half Nelson trail that Big Red Ted & Co. built.  We decided to drop into the 19th Hole, a double diamond steep descent of goodness into the the new trail, which was a virtual playland of fun!  Two laps later I was tuckered.  The next day we got a phone call from fellow teammate Dan Gronross at a rather offensive 7:20am on a weekend to tell us to get on the SSC ferry.  We initially were hesitant as the Rat Race was going down, but thanks to locals Curtis Robinson and Dylan Dunkerton, we were shuttled way out of the way of any crowds and high into the loamy goodness that is Roberts Creek.  Fast fun loamloamloamloam……….Dan even kissed a tree at full speed with a bucket lid and now is left with a severe concussion – and he still thinks it was worth it!!!!!!! 

(Zoolander posing in our RF gear is the only shot we got – sorry)  This weekend Tippie and I are off to Whistler Bike Park for opening weekend, to shred some trail with our fellow freaky freeriders….see ya on the trails!

Ahhhh my first blog….and a little tidbit that was forwarded to me by Dan Barham, uber MTB photographer extrordinaire! My first cover, from a picture a few years back on CBC for IMBA Magazine.  

I don’t really have too much to post at this point, but I have been steadily (ok sporadically) riding throughout the winter due to the outrageously mild weather the West Coast received this year.  I don’t think I encountered frost even once!  Tippie and I will be basically parking lot gypsies with our truck, camper, bikes and our baby girl once the bike parks open, (check out this picture – she’s a future ripper for sure – 18 months old and she put my helmet and RF gloves on by herself!  

I am gearing up for what I hope to be the best season yet (it was a year ago this weekend I tore my UCL (surgery) and smashed my hand on an innocent enough looking piece of singletrack.  We have a pretty action-packed schedule already, so the race is on between Brett and I who gets to blog about it first – and Tippie loves a good race…..stay tuned!