A Busy Start to 2008 for Fionn.

It is that time of year again. January 1st marked the beginning of pre-season training! Elke Brutsaert is back and you can be sure “coach Ellie” has formatted another wicked series of training programs to build Fionn up for the season. Back to hours at Welti Tennis and Leisure (Fionn’s hometown gym), long road rides and adrenaline filled days of DH. Since the end of last season Fionn has been doing her best to really take some downtime and clear her head.

A trip to Hawaii to put in some much needed hours of surfing and sun-bathing really gave Fee the R&R required to be fresh and hungry for the start of training. When asked about these next 3 grueling months and the coming World Cup Season, Fionn replied:

“I feel pretty good coming into this training season. Elke and I worked really hard last year to build a trust in one another and I have already been pushing myself harder and harder each day in the gym and on the bike. I am starting to get excited for season already, which is really good for me. I want to build on last year’s success and carry my momentum forward through 2008! I want my STRIPES!”

On the sponsorship front, things have been busy since the end of the last season. As always, Interbike was a huge success and it was there the dream of being a UCI Trade Team was catapulted into reality. With the success of Griffiths Racing in 2007 the majority of our generous team sponsors were keen to step back up to the plate. One sponsor in particular wanted to build on the previous year’s success and drive Fionn and Griffiths Racing forward into 2008.

Norco Performance Bikes will once again be the headlining team sponsor. With the combined efforts of both organizations we have created the “Norco World Team”, Norco/Griffiths Racing’s new UCI Trade Team. We will be racing the World Cup Series, World Championships and select international events.

Griffiths Racing and Norco will not be alone in their quest for gold. Kenda has assured Fionn that she will have the continued support of her favourite tires. This will now be her 5th season on the reliable tread and Fee is not planning to change anytime soon, having signed a 2-year contract. Zeal Optics are still Fionn’s eyewear of choice. Zeal and Fionn have been working together for the better part of her entire career and she would not trust her vision with anyone else. New to the team this year is Control Tech – makers of some seriously lightweight components. Fionn is excited to get her hands around a new set of their bars! Other confirmed 2008 sponsors are: E-13, THE, Fly Racing, Shimano, ODI, HALO Rims, Ice Toolz, and The Cycle Jersey.

Check out Fee's new home on the web. The site includes her blog, tons of photos, news, schedule, and much more . . .

GRIFFITHSRACING.NET

In the 1970s North Vancouver had one of the coolest BMX race tracks in North America featuring a over/underpass until development stepped up and a theatre and parking lot took precedent. In the late 1990’s a dedicated group of bmx enthusiasts worked tirelessly to try and convince the District of North Vancouver that a Nationals level BMX track would be an amazing opportunity and amenity for the community, it was a long time overdue. After many DNV staff and public consultations the years drifted by and so did the enthusiasm of the group. Proposed site after site was denied after neighbours opposed and rallied against family racing. Supporters and sponsors of the cause came and went and soon the drive for the track dwindled until 2004 when council finally agreed that a BMX track was a great idea and they had a multi use park site that could accommodate the track but it was too late the group had used all their resources and energy, everyone was tapped!

In 2002 I had co founded a non profit club called The DIRT Club for Youth as a way to create authorized Dirt jump parks. We had a successful pilot project in the ground at Myrtle Park in North Vancouver and we were supporting the BMX cause, in fact authorized Dirt jump parks were a perfect way to prove the need for a BMX race track.
On the evening that council gave the ‘go ahead’ to the BMX club, they frustratingly had to decline their position… Seeing the opportunity, The DIRT Club stepped up and took the challenge of creating a Skills Park *Megaplex* at the Inter River site.

THE FULL ARTICLE (and lots of pictures!)

In school I remember always having a certain dread for the 'How I Spent My Summer Vacation...' essay. I always knew it was only a matter of time till the teacher would pull that one out. I also knew that my summer of TV watching or summer camp would never measure up to the kids who spent three weeks touring Europe or surfing at a resort in Costa Rica.

However, even the rich kids would have trouble keeping up to Hoots. While most of us might have a few bragging rights from a busy summer, he's the only guy I know who travelled, rode his bike, AND managed to build a few skills parks along the way...

The city of Port Coquitlam asked staff in the mid 90’s to create a vision of the future and several employees combined resources to create a concept multi use non traditional park land space that incorporated bicycles. The city put resources away year after year until almost a decade later they had enough money set aside to ask staff to pursue a feasibility study for the envisioned park.
Hoots was contacted by the landscape architect (Paul Whitehead) who was contracted during the study and created 3 versions of ‘the vision’ to help define what possible bike parks would look like and how they could be incorporated into the green space.

After one year council and staff collectively created and approved provisioning for a temporary skills park in order to evaluate its effectiveness and public acceptance. Staff was very enthusiastic and again Hoots was called in to work in consultation with the architect to set the way for a design/build of the bike park within a prescribed budget.

Full public consultation on the park ensued and with feedback from open house meetings a final design was developed, materials list created and all levels of staff were prepped to deal with the imminent construction of The Skills Park.

For the full article and heaps of photos, check out: Hoots.ca

Or, check out this article about the park in the Tri-City News

After a year of chatting with pro photographer Haruki Noguchi (Harookz), we finally managed to get out for a shoot. We decided to go back to my chain line from Crux at night because Harookz had some great ideas for lighting.

I arrived at the shoot hoping to get far enough along the chain to get the photo, not really expecting to make it all the way up on to the jersey barrier at the other end; but after about 30 minutes of attempts, I managed to clean the line again, ahhhhh!

I wrote a little caption to go along with the photo for the magazines, here are those words:

"My fascination with riding the most questionable objects has been so enjoyable. Curiosity is an element, the romance of being 'the first' is an element, but primarily the euphoria felt when cleaning the envisioned line unbeatable."

The most difficult aspect of this line, and most others for that matter, is my mind. It has a habit of focusing on elements of the challenge and blowing them out of proportion. For instance, the fact that the first jersey barrier wasn't in line with the chain drove me crazy; and thinking that I'd end up on my face if my front tire didn't roll on to the chain just right spooked me to an unnecessary level. Working through those issues is enjoyable to me, and getting to that state where I can just let my body do what it needs to do is a fantastic experience.

Hope you're all well! - Ryan -

It is that time of year again when Christmas came and New Years hit like a snowball in the back of the neck thrown by your horrible big brother! Ok, maybe I am just a sneak over the top but this holiday season just didn’t seem to have the zestyness I usually feel, in fact other than relentless ads, horrible manners and millions of wasted kilo watts spent on Christmas lights I don’t think too many people around me really seemed to pull off the exhuberent Christmas cheer either.

By all right s my 2007 year was nothing short of absolute amazing! I am still a smidge bummed that I don’t have protective gear, but shifting from soft goods and struggling with day to day operations and margins to developing bike parks and trails, doing what I love ROCKS!!! Hoots managed to design and build bike parks in 9 different communities including some really fun trail… Dang! Not a day goes by I am not grateful!

After putting together a resume and working my tail off to get educated I got a job instructing Trail Building for the Mountain Bike Operations Program at Capilano College. It is absolutely crazy that there is now a college course for mountain bikers!!!!

I managed to take off 5 days during summer and during the labour day break I managed to get out on my moto and see 1300km of amazing BC over 4 days via logging road, trail and back road.

Read Hootie's full blog at: hoots.ca

Many of us are now settling in to the new year, back to school, back to work, back to routine, and for me, back to riding!! For one month I didn’t ride trials; snuck in a few mountain bike rides, but no trials! I’m just getting in to the groove again as I have a demo coming up next week, and so kicks off my 2008 season!!

I have had some time over the holidays to allow my intentions for the season to form, and one of the areas that I hope to continue developing is my Trials of Life program. The children of today will shape the future of tomorrow, and with a world that is changing so fast, it seems vital that we be sure children have the framework to make sure that change is toward a positive, sustainable world. This is a deep and complicated topic, but one I’m excited to explore.

My sponsorship roster for the year is solid; I’m excited to be on the Norco Factory Team for the 11th year in a row! Shimano has re-signed with me for another two seasons and Marzocchi is customizing some forks for me as we speak. This will also be my tenth season with Ryders Eyewear, and Mace Clothing polishes off the package. I am one fortunate dude to have so many great people to work with!!

I’m building up my new Fluid LT, just waiting for my forks and a package from Shimano, should be a pretty swank bike! This ride will travel with me all over the place, and I’m looking forward to many pedal powered adventures.

I have a new website being designed right now, and will have that live in a month or two. My blog/newsletter will be redesigned allowing me to include more photos, video, and writing topics from my travels. Talking about writing, keep an eye out in Mountain Biking magazine for my column on living a green mountain biking lifestyle.

Have an awesome year everyone!!
Ryan

We went to the Wailing Wall and then walked the path that Jesus carried his cross up to be crucified, visiting a crazy huge church that had a mini building inside it that housed Christ after his death. The church is said to be built on the land that Jesus was crucified on and there is crypts and prayer chambers all over.

The Art in the Church is fabulous and to be able to touch pillars that are 2000 years old is nothing short of amazing.

A full day resulted in some sweet local cuisine. We all did some interviews for the show and called it for the night. I am continuing to prep and modify my presentation. Man I can’t believe the telephone and communication here. Debate is everything and ‘over exploring’ conversation is the mainstay. Man it drives me crazy, however I am just a rider and I am just following my lead. Chaim our guide (pronounced HYME) has some very dry humour but is awesome and though Cory is frustrated with him I am learning SO much from him and am fascinated by his style of communication. This trip would not be as safe and well rounded without him.

Read about the rest of Hootie's adventure in Israel on: nsmb.com

After having ended a solid 07 season, I got the chance (early November) to kick it with the ‘Ride Guide’ for a super packed schedule in Israel. I have been trying to get to the holy land for bike park business for 3 years and now this opportunity opened up so I jumped at it like a frog on crack. This trip included Mislav (Rider), Darcy (Host/Rider), Cory (Filmer) and myself (Rider) hooking up with a Tourism Israel guide who would get us around safe and sound while in the holy land.

Jamie from Norco and Jay from John Henry pushed hard to get my 08 six ready and thursday morning I flew early out of Vancouver and met up with Cory and Darcy 5 hours later in Tdot (Toronto), only to jump a long haul flight (12 hours) to Tel Aviv that was so crammed my carry on had to be under the seat in front of me.

I have put a lot of thought into how I would write/edit this article and after some serious considerations I have decided to leave it loose edit, blog style in hopes of keeping context on how amazing this trip ended up. So without further ado the un spell checked daily blog of my Dreaded trip of a life time to Israel.

Read the rest of the article on: NSMB.com

When I cracked the champagne bottle last year I had high expectations for 2007...but my wildest dreams couldn't have prepared me for the adventures of this year.

It first started with a training trip to Spain to ride with my good friend Ruben who put me through the paces and worked my butt into the ground! Instead of learning the nasty tricks that I was hoping to learn, I was brought back to the basics - square one - bike handling for dummies, and was told to do the most repetitive, simple things on my bike over and over until I could do them blindfolded, backwards, and with my hands tied behind my back.

Training in Spain with Ruben

It was the best thing to happen to my riding. After Spain I was ready to take on any size double with a massively improved bunny hop!

Then I happened to check an old email account that hadn't been cleaned out for months, and who do I get an email from? Kevin Pennock, producer of Ride Guide asking me if I would apply for the position of the show's new host. I sent in my reel, got the job a week or so later, and was stoked.

What got me even more fired up is when Norco called and asked if I would like to be part of the Factory Team in addition to sponsoring the show.

Posing with Norco Factory teammate, Mislav Mironovic

Ummmm. . .to convey the full extent of my excitement I think I've got to go back a few years to tell you exactly how exciting of a deal this was for me. When I started downhill racing I was graciously picked up as a grassroots rider for Norco. I was 19 and would hang out with the Factory Team crew at races and thought that they were the luckiest people on the planet! They had all the support that I could ever dream of and were the objects of my idolization as long as I rode a Norco. I knew that someday I wanted to be in their shoes, but when that day came it just seemed surreal.



For the long version of my year in blog form, check out the Ride Guide website (they have my stories from each country we traveled to with the show), but in short I got to ride and visit Austria, Switzerland, France, Norway, Utah, and Israel with the show this summer while documenting the whole thing on video.

Camera-Master Cory


Suddenly doing massive ziplines through the alps, urban train shuttles in Oslo, doing a dirt jump demo at the Dead Sea, and street riding in Jerusalem were the norm for me this summer!!

Riding in Isreal

In addition to filming the show I had some GREAT times doing photo shoots and media tour stuff with my awesome friends at Oakley in LA, Montreal, and Toronto, and then doing more riding photo shoots in Hawaii, Whistler, Vancouver Island...and Spain for a second time.

Shooting in Hawaii with Oakley


The debauchery that went on during Crankworx, VPS-Fest and Interbike will be hard to top for 2008...but I'm sure I can step up to the plate.

Norco's '08 product launch at Crankworx

After all, the folks at Norco have been giving me lessons in "How to Party and Ride Extremely Hard the Next Day 101".

After my whirlwind year that still seems like a dream, my past month at home has felt really good. I've been soaking in just how incredible this ride has been, making plans for the next one, and making good friends with my kitchen because believe it or not, eating out all the time isn't as great as it seems!

If 2008 is anything like 2007 I am going to be one lucky and happy girl. Either way, the beauty of traveling (beyond the amazing experiences and stories) is that you appreciate home a lot more...so even if I stay in the country for more than 80 days next year I will be extremely happy because I can focus on my riding and checking off my trick list.

Thanks so much to everyone who has been responsible for making this year seem more fiction than real especially my sponsors: the Norco Factory Team, Oakley, Gravity, Dakine, and Etnies, and a huge thanks to all the filmers (especially Cory), managers, and photographers I worked with especially Harookz for working SOOOOOOO hard with me and teaching me how to put a shovel to the ground in a really productive way :)

Productive shovelling in Hawaii

Oh, and thanks to my family for putting up with me and collecting the magazine clippings along the way.

I wish all the best for everyone in the New Year - smooth jumps, tacky trails, no pinch flats, and empty skateparks. Can it get any better than that?

HAPPY 2008!!!

- Darcy Turenne -