After a few months of voting and judging Red Bull’s high profile photographic competition Illume has finally drawn to a close with 24 year old Chris Burkard’s photo of Peter Mendria riding waves on Chile’s West Coast winning the Overall award in what is the world’s biggest action and adventure sports photography competition. Chris’ overall win was out of 22,764 photos submitted to the contest by nearly 5000 photographers. You can check out the category winners on the Red Bull Illume site here. Spoke contributor and Wanaka Local Camilla Stoddart made the final 50 (which you can check out here).
Best trail and best trail name. Five minutes from my house but always in the back of my mind.
So even though Crankworx is all wrapped up for another year and everyone has moved on to new pastures, I’ve just been reunited with my camera which contained my poor attempt at going behind the scenes of the world’s biggest MTB show.
This first photo is of the first trail I showed some of my house guests during a one-hour pre-work power ride. It sort of set the tone for the week. Here’s some more halfwit’s attempt at wit. READ MORE
Where: Velo Espresso – Garden Place, Hamilton
When: Sat 28th Aug 7pm
Cost: $10 – includes movie, coffee & cheesecake
BYO beers/wine – private function
This sweet little premiere is going down the evening prior to the New Zealand Cyclocross Champs in Hamilton; trailer above looks good, details after the jump….. READ MORE
A few months back the Gravity team (Boyko, Porter and Smutok) headed to Spain for their second trip with BMX superstar Ruben Alcantara. This is part 1 of 2 web edits from the trip.
So I went to France at the end of last month to check out GT Bikes’ 2011 offerings and their revised brand direction. It was a trip that held a few firsts for me. My first time in Europe, my first time at an actual bike company’s official press camp, and it would turn out to be the first time I’ve ever ridden a GT that actually fit me. So I had these grand plans about shooting a whole bunch of photos and dropping some pretty exclusive content from the launch, but that didn’t happen. Well, because riding for five days straight aboard brand new GTs on some pretty cool French trails takes its toll on you, as does eating breakfast, lunch and dinner in fancy restaurants. The fact that GT also had two full time photographers on hand to capture everything kinda added to my lack of shooting as well. And it’s not often that I get to ride without a camera bag and when I do get the chance to leave my gear in the hotel room I leap at it. Anyway that’s enough of that, you want to see bikes. Some of you have probably already seen them anyway on other websites so I’ll just give you a bit of a low down on my picks from the new range. READ MORE
All things start somewhere and many grow out of something else. Whether an idea sparks action, or circumstances lead you down a certain path, however something starts, the fact remains that sometime, somewhere, someone will have to do the hard graft to get it off the ground.
Rick Henderson is one of those guys who’s lived a varied life—and by his own admission, not always in the best way—and he’s put in lots of hard graft along the way. From the early days of his bike park ‘Krankin Park’ in Ngaruawahia, where he and his friends dug for endless hours shaping what was to become the first jump park in the country, to the launch of High Speed Cycles, Krankin Park’s on-site bike shop, and all the work that involves. I think it’s fair to say that Rick has carved himself a well earned place in New Zealand’s MTB history with lots of hard work and determination. READ MORE
Mike Montgomery had a GoPro camera strapped to his head when he laid down this run for 2nd place in the Slopestyle. Gives a pretty ‘real world’ perspective of the course!
Justin Leov hit the podium yet again on the weekend, this time at the Canadian Open. Amongst some super tight racing he took the 3rd post behind Gee Atherton and Lewis Buchanan. Trek breaks it down in their press release below. READ MORE
Enduro EVOlution, FOX DHX RC2 coil shock, Fox 36 170mm fork, and chain guide.
This year Specialized has introduced a strain of highly evolved bikes into its expert range of bikes. The Epic, Stumpjumper HT, the Stumpjumper FSR, and the Enduro all get the EVO tune which are designed to serve the evolving needs of certain riders. There are limited numbers of these bikes being produced but what it means is that Specialized can cater to sub species or niche markets of MTBers who want slightly more aggressive or faster builds. Some models lean towards more aggressive styles of riding (EVO), with wider bars, slacker angles, lower standover, more travel, meatier tyres etc, while other models (EVO R) are XC race-leaning thoroughbreds with ultra lightweight and efficient specs. Yes, that paragraph sounds like the press spiel I was fed last week, but honestly these bikes are very very exciting offerings because they are bikes that relate to me, you and the average Joe. Who has an above average income of course. READ MORE
