Petit détour par le Trail R pour fêter ses 10 ans. De la musique, de la bière et du ride pour marquer l'occasion!
It is common knowledge that Leandro Moreira is a ruler on his Caracas trails in Brasil. Some big named riders were invited for a contest at Leandro's trails and he managed to stand on top after being challenged.
Results Caracas Trails, Sao Paulo, Brasil:
1) Leandro Moreira Overall, BRA
2) Tobi Merz, AUT
3) Julian Felipe da Rocha, BRA
4) Alex Landeros, USA
With Dirt, Vert, Street and Park on the program at Nass, Sunday was the day to see the best riding. All NASS Invitational finals were held in Somerset and it all started off with DIRT at 11am. Pretty early for some, but it actually wasn’t the worst time of the day as the temperatures were only on the up afterwards. 12 riders made finals with Seth Murray just missing out which indicates the level as Mr. Murray is killing it. Qualification had two runs with the best run counting. The Dirt section consisted of a roll-in to double, double, to small step-up platform to quaterpipe to turn around followed by a small drop, little roller to small step-up as the last jump. The reason why the dirt jumps weren’t huge is that it gets windy at Shepton Mallet so even with a bit of wind, the riding could still happen. Qualification was done in n-time because the England – Sweden game was on an hour after Dirt qualification started. Needless to say, the qualifying job got done and people moved to the big screen on the main stage soon after.
Sunday’s final brought the riders back to the dirt jumps for 3 runs of which 2 would count towards a final score. Unfortunately Joe Baddely over rotated a double flip on the first set which ended his riding at NASS. A speedy recovery is wished from this side. Also Del Shepherd and Joe Ferguson did not have the best of luck but the Brits are hard as nails and always get back up. Lots of riders were doing double or even triple duty at Nass. Kaine Mitchell, and Kieran Reilly took part in pretty much everything including the Silverline ghetto ramp challenge. The top 3 also had a busy program ahead of
Big stylish tricks by the world's best BMX dirt riders such as Jake Leiva, David Godziek and Tom van den Bogaard at the Ride Further Tour stop at PULS Open Air music festival 2018.
The Flame Trails took some beating this winter so it was time for the spot to get some love. The annual Jam was set early this year (24 March) but that would mean the trails would be back up and running early also. Help finally came in on Saturday morning when Frits, Tobias and Philip also grabbed a shovel and lent a helping hand putting up the tents, flags and Frits' Sound system. The sun came out, we had tunes going and started off the day removing "de zut". Trail diggers know exactly what that is. For those who are not in the know, it's the shit that moves down to the bottom of the jumps and needs to be removed. When removed, you're back to the dry good soil. This is a necessity. If you skip on this process, you will have to deal with De Zut for a long time as it never packs. But removing de zut is a big process. Down the bottom of the starting hill close to 10 cm of zut needed to be removed. Once removed it creates a lower track so in case it rains, the water will stay there. Not ideal either but at least it was possible to ride wherever de zut was removed.
When building trails in The Netherlands you also need to have a plan for the water to go to. Trenches, holes, ditches, draining systems, you can't have enough of it. But for the jam the priority was to get around. The dirt was soggy so it was nice to work with. But when the soil drags the energy and speed out of you, riding isn't the best. Turns were re-shaped, jumps were put back in shape and the riders present gave their everything to clear the gaps and do a few laps. With Jari Roggeveen, Sem Kok and Niels van Maren we had a few riders who could actually do some tricks.
If I would have nothing to do all day, no work, no family, I'm sure the Flame Trails would look a whole lot better. The dirt spot that is just around the corner practically has everything; a container to keep the tools, good dirt, electricity for music, a water pump and even a big light for evening sessions. Many of you would die for a spot like that and for good reason. It's heaven for a dirt rider to have a designated spot where you can create what you want with a shovel in your hand. The lines, the gaps, the rollers, the tables and the doubles, you can just build whatever you can dream up. And if you get bored, you just build something extra, go bigger, dig deeper or add an extra berm.
You'd expect local BMX-ers to take over a place like this and keep building but the die-hard dirt riders
'Same Bloody Place' - Cam McCreadie | Intro - DIG TRAILS. The Villa Road fellas know a thing or two about dirt and the UK's Woodyard Trails are evidence of their dedication. Here's the intro section to their yearly mixtape along with Cam McCreadie's part courtesy of Matt Priest. Head over to DIG and enjoy the full 28 minute mix video from a year's worth of roasting. Big and floaty belters all round!
Unhitched - BMX by Porter Pro Media.
Been an awesome summer, met some rad friends had lots of laughs. Rode some sick spots over in the UK and France. Thanks to all the locals looking forward to next year already. Here's a few GoPro vids and clips from my phone that I put together in this little 3 min edit. Roll on 2018.