A few people have been asking where I’m calling ‘home’ these days, so I figured I should update this to let everyone know what’s up.

I’m currently still at my home in Maine while the Canadian Feds look over my immigration paperwork and decide whether I’m fit to move on up. For anyone who’s moved to a foreign country before, you probably know what a headache it is – endless paperwork for you and your employer, all to prove that you’ll be a worthy resident and you’re not stealing someone else’s job. Seeing as how this is a brand new position at Race Face and I’ve got a pretty unique resume, it would seem to be a slam dunk. Not so. We’ve finally completed all our paperwork, and with the help of uber-immigration consultant, Andy Osborne, we should have everything cleared shortly.

In the meantime, I’m putting in the hours here at my home office, with plans on moving out to the north shore during that first week of January. Ultimately, I think I’m more productive working from home, but while I learn the ropes at Race Face and get to understand all our systems, it will really help to be in the office on a regular basis.

I’ll need lots of help getting settled and finding good trails in BC, so PLEASE hit me up if you’re local to the area and down for taking a hack like me out on a ride.

See you all soon,

John P.

*tap* *tap* *tap*  Is this thing on??

Hello, blog-i-verse.  This is my first transmission, and it’s great to be here.  I’m the ‘new guy’ at Race Face, and I’ve been brought on board to help with marketing and to manage our line of protection.  My official title is “Components/Protection Marketing Communications and Product Manager,” but you can call me by my self-appointed acronym: CPM-Squared.

If you look through my bio, you’ll see that I’ve been knocking around the bike industry for quite a while.  I was an original co-founder of Evil Bikes/e.thirteen components, and I’ve been racing 26″ wheels steadily for 20 years now (with the notable and embarrassing  exception of a season in the late 90′s when I ran some sweet 24×3.0′s).  Holy smokes, does that make me feel old.

“Irregardless” of my advancing age and receding hairline, I’m still as passionate about bikes and racing as I’ve ever been.  It’s great to be on board here at Race Face.  I hope to make my co-workers, the brand, and most of all, you the customers proud over the coming months and years.

See you out on the trails!

–John P.

A few months ago I showed people how to build a large booter when there was little to NO dirt in the area but never showed the photo of when I hit it. These 2 were shot by my good friend Ryan Flett and have totaled over 70,000 views on pinkbike.com

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I know that it’s a bit late, but the past few weeks have been pretty busy with getting the bike all tuned up again after a long 2 weeks of abuse from the bike park. As well as unpacking and packing to head back up to whistler for some end of season training and riding time in the bike park before school starts again. Crankworx 2010 was an awesome time lots of friends lots of amazing riding and even better racing. But definitely taxing on the body, with countless laps in 30 degree plus heat you feel like your done riding even after just a few days. First up was the Garbanzo DH I had raced it in the previous year so I knew what I was in for, this is the toughest race I have yet to do as it in from the very top of the Garbanzo lift all the way down to the village. I came into this race hoping to do fairly well and top 20 was my goal for the event, on the Friday before the event I worked on the course with my coach Mark Bunyan from Mad March Racing. After that I was stoked on the race and couldn’t wait until race day, and was just hoping the weather would hold up for the event. Race day came and the course was running good but very slick due to rain from the previous night, I ended up having a decent race run which I myself was happy with. In the top section I nailed all my lines and pedaled every where I could, even ended up having to throw my goggles due to the rain and mud. Everything was going as planned until I entered Duffman, the wooden bridges on that trail were so slippery and I should have entered there slower I ended up losing my bike off the side of the bridges multiple times. With that behind me I was able to sprint my hardest to the finish and ended up with 20th out of 66 riders.

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Early Monday morning, as the dust was still settling from Crankworx, I found myself flying into the remote Coastal Mountains for one the most amazing bike trips of my life.

I was joining Chris Winter from Big Mountain Bike Adventures as a Tail Guide for an ultimate Bike Trip/Product Launch.   He was flying  7 media publications, 2 heads from Specialized Product & Marketing and renown photographer  Sterling Lorence deep into the South Chilcotins for one unbelievable Big Mountain experience that I was stoked and honoured to be apart of.   No one knew of a product launch so epic, and the best part was…it was all girls!!  (Well besides Chris and Sterling.)
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So, with all the coaching I have been doing this summer, Summer Gravity Camps, Sacred Rides, Silver Star Privates, etc.  It’s kinda cool that I get the 1.5 page SWEET Gap shot in “Mountain Biking, The Manual” by Chris Ball

This book looks amazing and might just be what the coaching/riding world has been waiting for.

Check out Dirt Mountain Bike Magazine’s link for more information on the Author and his in depth cast of contributors.

http://dirt.mpora.com/news/mountain-biking-manual.html

Big thanks to Sven Martin for taking the Image.

The Camp of Champions with help from GoPro has spent the last month filming every trail in The Whistler Bike Park in HD from two angles. The footage was then synced and tagged with a GPS point. Set up in a split screen format, you can ride with / follow COC coaches Alan Hepburn, Xavier Raventos, Brett Tippie and friends Andrew Baker, Kyle McDonald and others through the Whistler Bike Park. See the lines the pros take. Be safer by knowing what to expect. Learn new lines and get a better idea of what a trail looks like, use it to get rid of your intimidation of a certain trail, or just wish you were riding Whistler with us. (continue reading…)

Hey Guys,

Lone Wolf Productions.ca has gone online, and on the same day was featured on the pinkbike.com’s main page:

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/lone-wolf-productions-section-1-2010.html

For those of you that don’t know what Lone Wolf Productions is all about, it is a website has been created to put riders back in charge, and follows some of your favorite athletes while they create their own segments for you to watch.  Each rider is given a set of camera gear and some time to work with, in order to bring you their segment. Some may chose to shoot with friends, some may take a road trip, while others might want to show you their newest insane lines. Either way, in the end you see what they want you to see.  Our team is made up of 4 individuals.  Aaron LaRocque, Tam Forde, Karl Heldt, and myself (Matt Brooks).  Between us we hold a wealth of rider ability and editor creativity that should assist in helping the riders create what they are looking for in a section.  We will be posting new videos/photos all the time; some will be full rider sections and some will simply be clips.  We hope we can entertain you, and welcome everyone’s support.

Lots of props to Race Face of course for being a site sponsor. We are also available on the Lone Wolf Productions blog, our facebook page and twitter now so follow as there as well:

http://lonewolfproductions.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=128040877218809
http://twitter.com/LoneWolfTeam

Hope you all have a second to check it out.

Matt Brooks

When I made my first trip to Kamloops a few years back the first rider I met was Matt Brooks. I could tell right from the get go that he was on his own page and didn’t really care what other people were doing. He just wanted to shred everyday. If it weren’t for Matt I may not have gotten to see so many different trails on my first trip here, and who knows if I would have been stoked enough to come back again. Luckily I ended up moving here shortly after that visit and continued to ride with Matt quite often.

Matt has been busy working on a pretty cool project lately. Lone Wolf Productions is a new website designed and directed by Matt Brooks with a few pretty cool Ideas behind it. The basic concept is to put riders in full control. Any rider who gets a segment is not only the rider, but also the filmer and director. Matt has a few cameras and a ton of mounting hardware so almost anything is possible. I am excited to be on board because I have a lot of weird ideas of how certain things could be filmed and I’m on a mission to make something really interesting to watch.  I am also pretty stoked that I got a banner shot for almost every page on the website. Another rider on the list is Garrett Buehler. Garrett is in the loops at the moment filming for his Barred For Life 2 segment. The night before his film crew showed up we went for a shred together to test out some of his new jumps and finish off his Lone Wolf segment. Our German exchange rider was kind enough to give me a few photos he shot during our session. Check them out!
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Today Rebecca, KJ and I hiked the park to see how things were shaping up.
We ran into lots of our legendary trail builders up there brain storming and working hard.

Aline looks pretty much perfect, maybe a bit loose in the shale section- but that’ll be packed in by mid day.
(The work those boys did on drainage sure payed off- no puddles!)
The burms look aaaammmazing, get ready for a best day ever this Saturday.

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