Hey everyone !

Sorry I haven't blogged in such a long time. I've only had an iPhone the last 9 months, and it wont let me do things like this.
For a re-cap I have been riding bikes lots, working lots, and having a blast living life ! I placed 4th at kicking horse last season with a couple crashes... Ended up being fourth overall for the bc cup standings in my last year in junior only having attended four bc cup races ! I must say I was pretty happy with how everything turned out last season. From getting on Team Lama, to breaking my collar bone early in the season, to placing fourth at Panorama Canada Cup and being fourth overall in Bc !

In late December I had quit my job at the local mill and went up to Grande Prairie Alberta to work for Nabors Production Services on a service rig as a "Roughneck". Average day ended up being around 12 hours, but ranged from 10-16 hrs a day. Living in the middle of nowhere and flat land I didn't get to do much on biking training at all. Lucky for me I was living out of hotels, and they nearly all had decent gyms ! So 4 days a week I hit the gym after work to keep my cardio and strength up to par for the race season.

When I got home from the 'ole 'berta I really needed to get back on the bike ! First thing I did was put my hardtail to use and hit up the local pump track :) I got my brother out there a whole bunch with me for training. What a workout I tell you! Near puked a few times....

Next on the menu was a local BMX race in Squamish to help support my good friend Nick Geddes who had recently just been diagnosed with cancer. I hooked up with a friend of mine from Magic Moments to make a whole bunch of stickers that said "NICK FTW" ( nick for the win ). Miranda Miller was raffling off products donated and every person that stopped by I gave them a sticker to put on their bike or helmet !

So my first race of the season was Mount Tremblant in Quebec. It was a good time to re-deem myself for last years incident ( broken collar bone ). I arrived with Team Bc wednesday and got my new Morewood Makulu from Lama Cycles the following day along with a bunch of new gear ! Super excited to get on a new bike and tear it up we walked the course friday morning. Practice on the weekend felt really good. Took a bit to get used to the new bike and break it in, but all went well thanks to my two mechanics JP and Alex !

Sunday was going very well for me. Had to do two runs before the race, which I didn't want to do really but went for it. First run fealt really good. Hit every line and felt dialed on the track. Second run, I was at the top of the course getting ready to drop in. I looked at a team mate and said I was going to do this run glove-less. Well unfortunetly for me not 30 seconds I flipped over the bars and smashed my hands up real good. This sadly put me out of the race and ended up spectating. yet another year of not racing Tremblant :(

To Take 'er easy and make sure my hands were going to heal correctly so I could get right back to shredding, I decided to partner up with Lauren Rosser and her parents Ron and Sherry and we volunteered for the Squamish Triathlon. We were directing traffic  away from the race, not letting people who weren't "on the list" to go up to the race and cheer on the racers ! I had a Decline cowbell and was screaming at every rider that went by. It was a blast !

Next on the agenda was the Bear Mountain Challenge in Mission Bc. Lauren and I drove up on friday and did a lap and a half that evening. Course was sooooo mint. Super dry, nice and flowy, just groomed perfectly. Couldnt have asked for a better bear mtn course. Then Saturday came along and the rain decided to jump on in and make the course a river ! I won't lie, I really like racing in the mud, but this was definetly not a course I wanted to race in that condition. It was super fun still, but the mud was like butter. Try and pedal and you would just spin. No traction whatsoever. I over drifted a corner and slipped off the bike and slid 15 feet into the next jump !
Sunday was no different, still super mucky. I prepared for it with extra tear-offs and a rain coat. 2 hours before my race I sat in the car with the heat cranked drying out my helmet and clothes and warming myself back up. I was super nervous at the top being I still had a hand injury and had another bad start to my season. I ended finishing 15th in elite with no crashes. Couple mis-haps and not a dialed race, but I was very happy with my result !

The most hyped up two weeks we had all been waiting for all season. The two races at Panorama Mountain Village ! I had been at Canmore XC Nationals the week before cheering on Lauren Rosser and the rest of the Cycling Bc cross country team for their races. We ended up leaving the following monday and getting to Pano that night. I urgently bought my seasons pass and shredded a few laps of the mountain to get a feel for it. Cycling Bc downhill team was showing up that wednesday for the next week and a half. We all had walked the course atleast once by Friday evening and most of us had got a few laps in already. The course hadn't changed from the year before which was actually a really good thing. We didn't really have to memorize anything new, most of it was all from memory. Our seeding runs were on saturday. I had been clean all week with no crashes and was planning on keeping it that way for me seeding run. "Just gunna take it chill". Right out of the gate there was a slight right hander with a pole sticking out of the ground. I smoked the pole with my pedal while shifting and ended up backwards. I wasn't to impressed with the crash but put it behind me and gained all my speed back within seconds. By the time I had reached the bottom I had crashed 4 times and wasn't pleased at all. I ended up qualifying 3rd to last in elite with just over 4 minutes. Luckily for me I had said on my 4th crash, " Well, there's number 4" right in front of Cycling Bc coach Dave Hord. He talked to me after my seeding at gave me a few pointers about putting them behind me and focusing on the next section ahead.I went out about an hour later and did a couple more laps of the course to get back in the groove.
Sunday came quick, didn't even feel like race day. I ended up doing two runs in the morning and felt real good on course again and had cleared my head of any crashing. The whole night before all I could think about was riding my lines dialed and clean on course. I even drempt about it ! With coaching tips, Mark Bunyan at the top to get us prepared for our race and total mind control I put a clean run together and had the hot seat for a little bit ! Was the best moment of my whole season being at the bottom of my race run thinking, " I didn't crash, my run was real good, I have the hot seat, and I'm in one piece !!". I ended up placing 15th in elite.

Throughout the week I hung out and took it easy. Rode the mountain a few times, but nothing crazy. Panorama made a different course for the Canada cup course. At first glance I hated it. But then rode it a few times and ended up loving it ! It was so much fun. Definetly not what I was expecting. All my practice laps felt extremely good and I was really pumped on the course. Even some other riders and marshalls were impressed with my riding, which was a huge confidence booster for me since I havn't exactly been having the best season of my career ! Sunday came just like the weekend before. Prepared, game face, ready to shred and open up the gas !!! I ended up having a killer good start to my race and then got through a majour rock garden into some high speed chatter and "straight corners". Unfortunetly one of the corners I was straighting had had a rut created deeper than I thought it was going to get and I got re-routed into a tree. I tried to put the crash behind me, but I knew I had hit that tree hard. I ended up coasting the last half of the course and taking it super easy. I remember going over some "triples" so slow in the race I almost didn't know where to ride because I hadn't gone through at that pace all weekend. Being a ex flow-rider I had to please the crowd at the end of the course no matter how bad my body had felt. So I pinned through the last wide open section. Unfortunetly I dropped off the bike after the finish line and kind of layed on the ground. My finger had been smashed so hard my glove was covered in blood and had dripped onto my race plate and I had damaged my shoulder area really bad. I got it checked out by first aid and was put into a sling. I was very depressed at the end because of my crash, but eventually let it go and accepted the fact. My run ended up being 3:41 and the winning time was 3:24.


I got it x-rayed and I just badly damaged some muscle in my shoulder. Here are some pics from through the two panorama races !!

Shout outs to;
Lama Cycles and all the boys!
Cycling Bc and the coaches
Ozzies Cycle
Tantalus Bike Shop
And Ron and Sherry Rosser for taking me in this summer and putting up with all my stuff !

just some really old videos of me riding bikes

vid 1

vid 2

Panorama had Nationals and a Canada Cup back to back weekends. I ended up staying with Cycling Bc in a condo for two weeks. The track was the same as always. Super fast and super dry.  For the Nationals, they included the rocks of insanity which was a pretty gnarly rock face with some sketchy lines, but so much fun.

During the week we all went up to kicking horse and rode the trails up there. Did I mention that they are sick? So much alpine single track and huge rock faces. Chad Hendren, Dave Hord, and I also got up at 5am and went and did a photoshoot up the mountain durring the middle of the week.

Finally the Canada Cup rolled around. I tried not to over kill my body throughout the week for the race. It's just so hard when you're staying at a lift access resort, all you want to do is ride. I managed though ! The fridge became my new friend. Between 3 guys, and 2 weeks, we spent over $900 in food.

Sunday morning I was first in line to get on the lift. I was actually so early I had to run off the lift at the top and grab my own bike because there was no one there to do it for me. I did my one full run, then headed right back to condo to go through a perfect run, and make sure my hands weren't going to be tired during my race run. I kept it up right the whole race. A little sketchy and slow in a couple sections, but my man goal was to not crash like I had at nationals. All worked out good for me, managed to get the hot seat, and then finished 4th by the time my category finished. Stoked !