Archive for the ‘Jay Hoots’ Category

The Capilano University, Mountain Bike Operations course has gone through some changes and now Jay Hoots is the lead instructor! What!!!!!
True story, this last semester saw yours truly set down the assistant instructor role and step up into a position of responsibility!

Dan Scott from IMBA Canada and past student in the MBO program is my assistant instructor and with his help we have transformed the traditional course into a Dreaded jam packed Giv’R sorta gig that serves to give real experience and provide a huge range of skills…

The program now going into its 5th year continues to grow in so many cool ways. Great feedback from students and the open minded attitude of the school means that the program is getting better…

2010 is the first year a municipal partner has come on board to offer a large land area to be developed for future school trail building projects, Sechelt rocks!

The advanced trail building course runs for the month of April and it is ‘full on’ with multiple projects, massive amounts of information and of course project design and construction in the field. The students all rose to the occasion and designed and built “Brown Sugar” a multi level bike trail that is soo much fun. It was great to work with all the students and I appreciate the time spent in and out of class with such a wide variety of characters.

During the month I lived on the coast and in between marking exams and assignments I did manage to get some solid riding in both on moto and mountain bike.

That’s it for now huge stuff for May!!! Hope the weather continues to hold…

Ride ON!

Hoots

The past few weeks have been a little on the busy side for members of the Norco Team. From racing to demos, teaching to event hosting there has been a little bit of everything from the team’s diverse members.

The Canadian race crew has  been showing what they are made on the national circuit where two weeks back in Mt Tremblant at, Catherine Vipond took the win for the Elite Women while Andrew Watson was 2nd for the Men. Coming out of XC#3 in Hardwood Ontario, both Catherine and Andrew are wearing the leader’s jerseys for the both Pro XC categories. On the gravity side of the race circuit, junior Norco rider Nick Geddes had a near flawless race in  Tremblant finishing second for the junior men with an overall top ten finish for the day. Heading back to Whistler for the First Fluidride Cup, Nick took home the Junior win with the second fastest time of the day.

Trials sensation Ryan Leech is well into his Cross-Canada Trials of Life Tour. having passed through nearly every province it is now nearly time to head up north to Whitehorse for some riding, yoga and well deserved relaxation. If you want to spend some time relaxing with Ryan and riding with Boreal Mountain Biking check out borealmountainnbiking.com

Jay Hoots, or should I say Dr. Hoots has finished up teaching the Mountain Bike Operations Certificate program with Capilano University and is now back building bike parts across Canada. Dylan Korba, our resident economist has found time before heading back for his Master’s Degree to meet up with some friends at Decline Magazine, and get out riding his all new 2010 bikes. Darcy is busy preparing for her event this summer at Silverstar resort called “See Jane Jump” and Mislav has been busy winning competitions in Europe such as the recent “Bike Days” in Switzerland.

On the road side of things Team H&R Block competed in the BC Championships this past weekend in Victoria BC. Norco was out to support the team for Sunday’s Bastion Square Grand Prix where riders Justin Kerr and Jacob Schwingboth took second and third place after a grueling 75 lap race. Check out some photos of the race at flickr.com

The Dirt Norco Race Team has been touring around at the First World Cup in Maribor Slovenia where Ben Reid through the intense slop to finish a respectable 26th place. The Norco Dirt Team is currently sitting in 18th place on the World Cup Circuit. Check out a video from the race here. With Fort William coming up on this weekend The race will be as tight as ever. We should see Ben doing his best to climb the ranks while teammate Dan Stanbridge should be recovered from injury and back to racing. Check the blog next week for an update on the Dirt Team’s weekend of racing.

The Norco World Team was back in North America racing the US Open in New York this weekend where Fionn Griffiths again fought through the elements to finish with a time quick enough for 6th place. Along side the Norco Dirt Team, Fionn and Bernard will be heading over to Scotland for this coming weekend’s World Cup in Fort William. Results from the weekend will be posted as soon as they come available.

The Team is off to quite the season, for updates as they happen on the whole team check out the Norco Blog at http://norco.com/blog

Hmm lets see, March, that was a little while ago but the update is still worthy! Here’s the Lowdown!

Wow! Olympics! The impact of the Olympics in February hit me in March! Man was that cool… Can’t believe I was such a wiener! I tried to ditch town in order to cruise through the whole Olympic affair and ended up right in the thick of it! Thank goodness, what an amazing experience! Heck I even got to see some of the coolest events rocking!

Got the fever so I even tried it out…

Had a wicked Birthday in March and went for a week to Death Valley with the boys to grow another year older with a bunch of motor heads that are many years wiser : )

I did get some great pre-season bike riding in. The proto type bike is still railing and I can’t wait to see what happens for production.

Along the way I convinced Ash and Aaron (aka the Powder Chef) help dig out a sk8 park from snow so I could catch some concrete waves

Waiting with baited breath for my Mace gear… 2010 promises to have some sic stuff….. Check back next week too for the April Update, We will catch up soon!

Hoots

The Sprockids program is a youth mountain bike club that offers kids the opportunity to experience Mountain biking. Now 20 years in and spanning the globe, Sprockids is one of the largest cycling clubs out there. Norco has been supporting the club since nearly its beginning and continues to be a partner in the continued growth of the program.

This past weekend Norco caught the ferry over to the Sunshine Coast to give a day of skills training and mountain biking to the kids. Running through skills such as cornering, pumping, skinnies and jumping, Norco Factory Team riders Jay Hoots, Dylan Korba and Sam Dueck Showed the ropes to all the kids. Keen Norco staff and riders also came to give a hand.

After the skills session it was time for a quick lunch and demonstration from the team. As the crowd mowed down on their dogs, Jay, Dylan and Sam put on a bit of a show. Finishing off with a mountain bike ride, the crew head out for the remainder of the afternoon. It is days like this that make me think back to what it was like being new to the sport and what it was that made me love my bike as much as I do!

Check out a few photos from the day’s events.

Well, 2010 is now in full effect!

Winter Olympics in my Home town, no snow to speak of and a blanket of people about converging on Vancouver, Lower mainland all the way up to Whistler…

I am out!

With the amount I travel I do in so many cool places combined with how awesome my job is I figured that I could sail through life at full charge, ready to handle all the daily nuances without issue…  Apparently this is not true and I found myself pretty burned out after an incredibly successful 2009 season went down… hmm what to do??

Surf trip to Costa Rica! Yeeeha!

Almost 3 weeks of traveling around Costa checking it out, holing up in cool places surfing on sand break,  busting beach time Frisbee in hand and checking out the local medical system after my Sting Ray encounter… Wow! Sweet mother earth thru sand and surf!  Man I could feel the layers of stress peeling off, almost as fast as my sun burn, YIKES!

Sunset blessings!

Of course no trip is as fun as when you can recreationally ride mountain bike and that’s just what went down!  While in Las Vegas for the Bike Show I met young gun Philippe who ‘sent it’ lap after lap in Boulder Canyon.  It turned out ‘big P’ was from Costa Rica and when I let him know I was considering the possibility of visiting his country he offered to meet up and show his favourite trails.  Enter stress relief trip.

A 4×4 road to the middle of ‘no where’ 10,000 feet up ended up ‘somewhere’ in a town called Providencia where the village welcomed us with open arms!  Providencia embraces bouldering and Mountain bike and they have a 10km downhill trail including several other trail options, most of which are very advanced steep ass trail, GNAR!!!!  Two days of riding and I still wanted more!

Tica (local) riders Cristhian and Philippe tearing it

As luck would have it there was a bouldering competition so I got to check that out as well, man how cool… There is no major hotels or restaurants, however comfortable sleeping arrangements and GREAT food from the local bar (both breakfasts and dinners) were easily arranged.  We met Great people in Providencia and it was very accommodating to mountain bikers, they were stoked to have us ride their trails!

Grrrrr gnarly trail alert! Wish I could scream ‘WICKED’ in Spanish!

I was offered the lead instructor job position for the trail building component of the Mountain Bike Operations Course at Capilano University.  After a lot of consideration I have accepted the position and am now hitting the books trying to get my teach on so I can kick butt on information delivery for the students!

MTB ops group

April will be the advanced trail building section of the course so I will be on the Sunshine Coast working and SHREDDING all month!!!! Sweet!!!  Stoked to hit dirt with the Coastal Crew while there, the coast is just so cool..

I continue to put mileage and wear on my Prototype ‘all mountain’ bike and my Mace gear which both are equally loving it!

This Top secret ripper will twist your nipples raw!!!

New updated rear stays on the bike have got it nailed and the last round of feedback on the gear has got me stoked that Norco and Mace development departments are listening!  SIC!   I love my job!

I love my job!

Hoots