Some time ago, mabye a year mabye two or even three I’m not really sure armagedan A’J told us he was trying to sort out a mobile demo ramp like the one in the states, my first thought was; yeah sure mate dont you know how much that sort of thing will cost, but no Aj’s the man and a month later there she was in all here glory the shiny new mbs europe demo ramp.
Aa few small tweeks, a lot of love and a spot of polishing she was ready for here first outing, and what a good one it was, joe caught something from someone (haa) he wont admit it though, Aj met the lovely Linsey and the rest of us pissed about on the aray of outdoor activities they had to offer, also Alex Downie was still on the team which made it oooo sooooo much better but hey no point crying over spilt milk.
After a huge drive to silverstone, we got there to find it was absolutely pissing it down with rain, and none of the organisers had any idea who we were or what we were doing there. Eventually, we got started setting up the ramp when the rain stopped. The “security” were picked up from the side of the road or a nearby ghetto, so joe thought they stole his wallet which made him a grumpier chap than usual, and he proceeded to remind everyone of how much money they owed him so he could have some for the weekend. That weekend it was fricking hot, most the people there were pretty darn posh, we looked just as pikey as usual, and even though we were event staff they wouldn’t let us in the free drink and food area! the camping was quite far away from the racetrack, you had to walk through some woods then across a field. people weren’t impressed with tom read’s “vomiting”. but then we weren’t impressed with them massively either. we caught the end of calvin harris’ set, then started the most epic rave which was quality, ready bum was going for it, probably sweated more doing that than riding to be honest. as for the rest of the weekend, well tuai worked his magic with the girls running the kids play area, some epic games of table football went down, and i found i can’t climb for sh*t. the shows were at their usual standard, although i forgot how to 360 by the last demo on the first day. tell you what though, i never want to see another bastard mini ever again.
O.G, John Morton puts on a comp each year at his block at Loch. Every October we make the hike out from Melbz to hit up his lovely Mountainboard Park. I organised sat morning for everyone to meet up at mine and like always Andy Milenkovic was at least 5 hours late (slight exaggeration) but apparently he was trying to burn more Base hunter and Michael Jackson CD’s for the road trip. Anyway after a few games of pool he rocks up with my ramp already packed in the car. We finally head off with the cars packed, Jack Massuger, Jimmy Reynolds, G-money, Eddy and Cal followed us down. One stop for Andy to buy pink Zink cream for his face (we all doubt his sexuality) we finally arrived at Loch. We pulled up and were greeted by John, Mosses and Tom who had beaten us there.
We finally throw some pads on and hit up the boarder X. John had kept the track looking rad since we’ve last been there. We did some practise runs on the track, just tricking the jumps and shit. 1 o ‘clock came and the boarder X started. We did time trials first Jimmy Reynolds holding the fastest time the majority of the day, I got in front a few times but he had his eyes on da prize. Out of nowhere Callan Harris throws down an impressive 17.86 seconds to be leading the under 18’s and having the fastest time of the day. The results went like this;
Open (over 18′s)
1st Jimmy Reynolds 18.1 secs
2nd Dylan Warren 18.34 secs
3rd Tom Sullivan 18.66 secs
After lunch we headed back over to the track for the 2 up boarder X event. John matched up the slowest with the fastest to start off with, and then somehow he matched up the others? Everyone was riding hard as which was good to see. I popped my tire in the first race but was good to see everyone else having fun take on the death burn at the bottom of the hill. Anyway so everyone raced against each other and the last two riders standing where Cal and Jimmy. Jimmy had a rad start and kept it all the way to win the race, repping FTH with mad steeze. Results are;
1st Jimmy Reynolds
2nd Callan Harris
We chilled a bit after that, talked some shit then had a nice rail jam. Loch has 3 dope rails and a few nice little jumps you can muck around on. Andy owned the flat bar getting tech with just about every trick; front boards, switch fs boards, half cab back to boards you name it he was doing it. I was loving the flat down rail; I got gap over the flat to 5050 on the down, 5050 on the flat to Boardslide on the down and FS Lip slide on the down. Jimmy was hitting up my kicker busting out some nice laid out flips and stomped a dope BS cork 5.
When we should of been setting up our tents we headed down to Loch Skate Park. It’s a cool little skate park with a mini ramp and a few banks and a flat bar. We seshed it for an hour or so, threw down some hammers and went back to camp to find Ryan Slater. Few new things about Slater I noticed is his horrible new English accent and his nice new shiny Trampa board. After catching up after a few drinks we started to play some drinking games. I won’t go in to much detail but people were shot with fireworks and shit got rowdy, haha.
After a good sleep I woke up to find Andy running around the campsite full of energy. He had already set my ramp up and was ready to ride. After breakfast, Joel Lee rocked up and we were ready to hit the ramp. After warming up Jimmy started throwing down some backflips and it was on. Slater did just about every grab possible, with some rad ghetto shake downs and a switch frontflip attempt! Cal and eddy where throwing down some nice 3s and 5 attempts for the under 18’s. Jimmy got some real nice BS cork 5s down and Joel took a massive stack on the flat down rail breaking his arm. I did a few tricks and then snapped my truck in half on a 5.
After the session everyone voted on their favourite trick and Ryan Slater took first with his switch frontflip attempt. We had a serious product toss from Joel @ MBS and Slater and I obviously being the manliest pushed our way through the crowd to get the prize which was an MBS t-shirt. After that everyone packed up and headed home. Me and Andy decided to hit up the flat bar a few more times and made this video:
Everyone had a great time and I bet everyone was stoked to get home and sleep haha. Thanks again to John Morton, Dirt Theorey, Frameworkx and MBS for a great weekend!
We arrived in rainy Newcastle after some sort of drive, this was the first demo we’d ever done without good old Aj and it showed, it took us twice as long to set up the ramp, half because everyone thought they were the boss and half because of the area we’d been given, it was like setting up on a boarderX track. Next to us was a circus tent filled with skate ramps and a stage, as soon as the security and organisers had left for the evening it was all ours so we spent a while playing on the vert much to the delight of Mr Tom Read.
I woke up the next morning to Ollie trying to lick my toes in his sleep, that lads got problems I tell you. It had stopped raining for long enough for the ramp to dry so we did our first demo to a pretty small crowd of northerners, Read was still asleep at this point, Joe wasn’t up for it and Jamie was so young he couldn’t make it to the kicker, that left me Ollie and Tuai to fill 20 minutes with far out antics and that we did. It started raining soon after the first show but we kept on with the hire and ride until it was too wet, then we went to the pub, had a lovely meal and got smashed. Our attention soon turned to the pool table lurking in the corner, and the games begun, my money was on Tuai, but no, me and Jonnie b won every game, Tuai, Cownie and Joe would probably disagree but they lie all the time anyway. By the time we left the salutation inn for our long walk back I had been called gorgeous, Joe had got a motor boat and Pume lost the ability to walk.
We decided to take the beach back which turned out to be less of a beach that expected and more of a rock climb, good fun though, when we finally made it to the sand we went for a spot of skinny dipping, great fun, but it meant the rest of the walk involved some sandy leg chafing and a severe case of small pecker syndrome. All the while Shizz and Read had been back at the ramp honing there vert skills and by the time we got back they were on fire, read was 50-50ing across the ramp and Shizz was bustin some epic airs, still they didn’t know what they had missed. We all rode on Sunday and it went down a treat, it seemed as though they had never seen Mountainboarding in those parts, the pack down was silky smooth and we had left before dark.
Good fun had by all; ah yeah, if you get a chance to check out one of the MBS demos, come along and give us some abuse.
Id been waiting months for this event, not, well I was looking forward to the film festival put on by atb junkies (I hope I got that right), and the first public showing of the chronicles of Indy along with an array of other wheelie delights, especially the ones with the super Mario soundtracks.
the real reason we were all there was to see Renny in one way or another burn himself in the fire, this week it was by balancing on a log over a bin of fire until either you set on fire or the log snapped and you fell into the fire. (you probably shouldn’t try this at home)
So yeah the films were cool and it was nice to have everyone in one place for the evening rather than all in their own little groups about the camp, it made for a cool atmosphere.
The riding that day was sweet to, the jumps where running to perfection and Renny was absolutely ripping them to pieces, the bigger you go the easier it is.
wrapped in my parker in the back of the space ship, I slept like a baby that night and didn’t move till the morning or maybe the afternoon I’m not really sure I was well up for a ride on the jumps, but seemed to be the only one so I did a bit of filming for AJ then gave up, it aint the same when your riding on your own. I went to piss about with Tuai an Jj on the rails but they wouldn’t let me join their gang so I spent the afternoon sulking in the corner.
The agm was riveting as you might expect, so we left and went to Paul’s to spend the evening drinking wine, reminiscing over some classic photos and abusing pume over the internet, wicked night. the next day we went back to an old spot from the days of atb-mag and shot some picks, check them out on pt’s facebook (woodbury)
The video of the weekend is well boring, sorry about that.