GETTING WIDE OPEN
Posted by Lester on Wednesday, October 20th, 2010
The downhillers warm up on the Pump Track; Matt Scoles leads Brook MacDonald.
Caleb I have been chasing the Wide Open team around the Bay of Plenty today. First stop was Wide Open HQ out the back of Rotorua to meet up with the crew, then we shot through to Summer Hill in Tauranga. Here’s a gaggle of shots from the day….
The Summer Hill pump track is a sweet bit of fun. John Sanderson has been adding some of his finesse with a spade and making the place flow like water.
Southerner Conor MacFarlane does a bit of tweaking to his freshly piled lip. Killer shot on Caleb’s camera from this one!
Sheep and dirt farmer, Brett Frew. The Dirt Whisperer…?
Bikes and dirt.
Brook MacDonald, moustaching up the lip (of the jump).
Karl Cavenar (left) keeps an eye on the Summer Hill jumps. He fitted a new fence around the roll in area while we were sifting around.
Brett checks the roll in. Needless to say it was no dramas.
Whips on!
Conor was super dialled on the trails, good pop and super flow. His enthusiasm was rubbing off on everyone and getting them amped!
Caleb getting the shot!
Conor, dialled!
WIDE OPEN DAY 2
Posted by Lester on Thursday, October 21st, 2010
Paul’s place, well actually his parents place but this is what you see just before seeing the dirt setup.
Wow, what a hectic couple of days it’s been! After a midnight lights-out following an hour or so of banter and abuse dished around the Wide Open and Spoke crews, it was a 6:20am blaring alarm that got us dragging our carcasses out of bed and into action for the day.
Paul Langlands; whistle while you work. Paul broke his ankle a month or so ago and was fresh out of his ‘moon boot’ hobbling around tweaking his jumps. Then, he rode – more on that further down the post!
The plan was to head from our base in Rotorua over to Cambridge to session Paul Langland’s backyard trail spot. On the road by just after 7am we made an obligatory coffee stop and trucked on to C-town. Once on the Mamaku ranges we were confronted with dark clouds, grunty rain, and gale force winds. Not the ideal conditions if you’re planning on getting your bike off the ground!
After a couple of phone calls we decided to push on to Cambridge and see what we could do. Literally two minutes of driving after making this decision the skies cleared and the wind dropped a little. Once at the Langlands compound the boys donned their pads and hit the trails.
Matt Scoles whipped way out. He was hammering out heaps of these over the session.
We battled the elements with showers passing through and winds blustering, causing a little havoc with the riders but Caleb managed to squeeze out a couple of decent shots, Peiter got some solid footage and I threw my camera around snapping everything in sight.
Recent addition to the Wide Open squad, Conor MacFarlane was killing things with these shoulder barges. He also swung a few 360 X-ups but no decent photos were snapped of them.
Wide Open ‘old-timer’ Brett Frew threw out a bunch of spins over the hip. Caleb got the good shot, I didn’t!
Brett took a bit of a rodeo after landing the last jump and ended up tangled in the live electric fence. Shocking.
Brook MacDonald keeping things waayyy moto! One footed downside tables like the best of them.
BOOM. Conor rules.
As mentioned earlier, Paul Langlands is fresh off a broken ankle. He was itching to ride (although probably shouldn’t have been) so grabbed his bike and had a quick shred, absolutely killing it in the process.
The rain came in about half an hour before we were due to roll back to Rotorua (for the product launch where I’m sitting right now). After a hustle in the garage we loaded the troops and headed for base, just as the weather was clearing once again! Always the way.
WIDE OPEN DAY 3
Posted by Lester on Friday, October 22nd, 2010
The Demo day before it got busy. Plenty of bikes to try although many on the rack in the pic are dealers personal rides.
Day 2.5 and Day 3 of the Wide Open product launch were a little different. The end of day 2 (let’s call it Day 2.5) wrapped up with Wide Open throwing down dinner for their dealers, team and associated hanger-oners (that’s Caleb and me). Abracadabra was the spot, a decent Moroccan place with amazing Lamb shanks on Potato mash!The evening wrapped up with a few pints of Crouchers Pilsner, general banter and lot of smiles all round.
Matt Whittaker (left) is the kingpin of Wide Open, here he is preparing to tuck in to dinner. ‘Dog Boy’ was super busy over the last few days and can be proud of his effort!
Matt V from FSA (pretty obvious which person that is) and umbrella brands had flown out from the USA to give dealers the low down on their HUGE range of products.
Team Wide Open getting amongst the action.
Dog Boy mingles with some of his dealers (yes, that guy on the right owns a shop – Tim from T-Whites Bikes)
Brook MacDonald – Stoking.
Friday morning dawned (let’s call that day 3) at 7am. The team showered, Weet-Bixed and headed to the forest to to set up base camp for the day. With a complete fleet of demo bikes racked up for dealers to try and a clear blue sky, things were looking pretty good for the day!
Dealers rolled in and took each of the bikes for a thrash, either taking laps of the downhill track on the gravity machines, or looping a small section of trail to the side of the base on the trail and XC bikes. Lunch time came and dealers were fed and watered and set out to pasture for an hour or so, took a bit of a sit down and were back into it.
Matt V (FSA) getting amongst the action.
As the dealers headed for the hills we (the Spoke posse) rounded up the team for a bit of a pedal across the forest to shape and hit a couple of spots. Looking outside of the normal ‘gravity’ realm we hit the singletrack aboard everything from short travel jump bikes (Black Market Killswitch) and downhill bikes (Turners of course).
Matt Scoles mid corner. The ‘print’ shot from this spot is killer!
We bagged some shots, got some sun stroke, talked some mindless rubbish and were generally happy with the day! Until we had to ride back across the forest with heavy bags of cameras, flashes and tripods. But hey, that’s part of the job right?
Matt Scoles, flash check model.
Scolsey getting whipped on the DH rig.
Caleb, fearless Spoke editor getting a shot. Yeah, he forgot his riding kit so had to roll ‘skate-rat’ style.
Over the next few weeks we’ll be rolling out plenty of content from the Wide Open product launch, more photos and videos.
Keep an eye open in a future print edition of Spoke Magazine for a full article and all the good photos.
WideOpen Road Trip around North Island from firstfloor on Vimeo.