spring has finally sprung and places we should't ride maybe!

It looks like spring is here we have already had the first outdoor demo of the year and it's only a couple weeks to the first event of the season the Vert Jam at XBP and not forgetting Knockhill MBC opening for the summer this weekend. So if you are feeling like you have missed your centre-ey jibbey fix over the winter its well worth getting down there. If for no other reason to check Roger's latest creation in plywood (table top to 1/4 to spine to mini ramp)

It also looks like they have plenty of courses going on if want to improve your riding from a freestyle workshop in the second week in April to a mini ramp training sessions. And if you have friends who have a two wheeled habit they can come along as well. You never know it might be a good to make them see the light or at least life without breaks and become a boarder.

While out taking a stroll in the woods the other day I found this wicked looking track with natural berms on flowing 'S' bend. Running through some woods with loads of other potential lines and the odd drop thrown in for good measure. The only fly in ointment stopping this place being added to the list of places to ride in the Chilterns. Is the Stately home at the top and whole place was full of walkers during the week, so can't see it getting any less busy on the weekend.

Still with so many other sick places to ride in the area it doesn't matter to much to have give it a miss in the day light at least ;-)

British Leisure Show: field report teaser...

Witness the sickness

Last weekend saw the first demo of the spring courtesy of the MBS Europe demo crew, with the ATBA on try-out duties, at the British Leisure Show in Windsor, what what.

It mostly rained on 'em fridee & sarradee, but yesterday it went off, with laid-back sunny sessions & playful jibbing, then big air & caramelized pecans, finishing with the craziest rail progression on the planet with the creation of
The Deathtraption (TM) (above, starring future World Freestyle Champ Jamie the Shiz)


Expect the full ell-dee on Rem-oh ay-ess-ay-pee with some oh-em-jee photography. There'll be a video coming to ay-tee-see & emm-bee-yes Europe real soon too. kay?

yepppppppppp.

Fictional Places we wanna ride

Number 37

Mount Doom, Mordor (LotR)

Fictional Places we wanna ride

Number 23

White Horse Hill, from 'Biff, Chip & Kipper', Oxford Reading Tree (5-6 yr olds)

something old from the Nielegal crew and something new from knockhill

The Nielegal crew really did us proud when they sent us the gallery for the Master of the Hill comps. We not only got photo's from the last year but also 2008 and a ladies gallery as well. Which no doubt we be appearing on Rem soon. Unfortunately, I say "unfortunately" but really it's so good have to many sick photo's to choose from when putting a gallery together. This means the photo's from the 2008 comp didn't make it on to the gallery. That's OK for the first time Remolition Extra is going to do exactly what it says on the tin.

So here are the photo's from 2008, this year pro-rider cameo goes to Pete Tatham. Guessing he was there doing a spot of customer support.

Anyway here's some more Polish downhill action.

Also I spotted this today on vimeo

new toy at knockhill-mbc from Roger Thurston on Vimeo.

It looks like Roger and friends at Knockhill MBC have been busy over the winter creating things from plywood. They have ended with one of the most interesting looking features since Sam and the now de-funked SWMBC made his step-up to 1/4 with hips and rails. With talk already of them holding another Cream Tea's. It looks like are going to be in for another sesh where innovation is at the top of the menu. I can't wait.

One last thing if live in the south east and suck for people to freeriding with it's worth giving the Knockhill crew a call 07807 074732 They have got plenty of Dope spots to show you, some even have their own Druids.

LA and more news about Sill Woods

#

Most have seen this vid before, but it's good'en and worth digging out of youtube. If for no other reason than interview with Andy and Paul half way through. Also if you look carefully there isn't a single rider from Team Bad apart from maybe Andy with his northerner moved to Bristol status. Still, it was a good day out and featured in Rem's very first field report. It's just a shame the report it's self has got lost when we moved sites.

Anyway cruising the internet through this up of the CTC website about the current situation at Sill Woods, which we all know as Team Bad's training ground L.A

We've now met up with the Bristol University and it appears there will be a future for riding at Still, although the woods aren't going to reopen immediately.

In the wake of the closure a lot of work is scheduled for the site, including forestry, improvements to access and an ecological survey. The work is going to continue throughout 2010.

We've been invited to go back to the University once this is completed and discuss terms for using the woods. Things are probably going to start small at first but it's possible that it could be built up into a proper riding venue over time.

Much of the site work that is planned this year is essential before any future trail building can start. By conducting the work itself, the University is taking on tasks that we would otherwise have to do ourselves.
Needless to say, we’d ask that everyone continue to respect the current ban on riding and building, and also any temporary closures of the wood which need to take place due to forestry and ground works.

We'll be keeping in touch with the University and once the current round of work is completed in a few months' time we'll let you know what the score is. Thanks again for all your support!

Looks like by the sound of things there isn't going to be much riding going on there till 2011 :(

Back in black

As JFK once said "Ask not what your country con do for you; ask what you can do for country" And the same can be said for mountainboarding.

If it's your sole goal in life to spend as much time as you can out riding and want to see the sport grow. To where there is crew of boarders in most towns, bits on TV and you don't spend time describing what a mountainboard is. This last point thankfuly is becoming less frequent and it's been a while since someone asked me if I made my board in my garage. So it does show lots of people's hard work is paying off and the public at large are at least got an idea what a mountainboard looks like.

It's all about promotion and shouting about it when ever you get the chance and not just leaving up to the different national associations. In other words the louder and more notice able we are the more people are going to catch the bug.

So what can you do? Well you look to further than what Roger S pulled off last night on the Simon Mayo show on Radio 2. Every Friday they give someone the chance to pick the last track of the show and at the same time talk about their favourite sport. And this is what Roger went for by choosing a classic piece of rock from AC/DC, while at the same capitalising on all the interest generated by the ski X at the Winter Olympics. This meant the Artful Roger got 5 minutes of prime time radio to tell the world about mountainboarding.

Find it for the next few days here at about 1.44. (show: 05/03/10)

"Well done, mate grab youself a diet coke"

This is what it is all about, you don't have to do big things like this. There are lots of other things you can do as well like hitting up your local papers after they are always looking interesting and varied content. In fact you don't have go as far as sorting out your article, it is the best approach but there other ways. Keep an look out for stuff which relates to mountainboarding were they might be a group getting together for the press. Be a bit cheeky and turn to talk about mountainboarding, this is after all what our own Wilz did. When snowboarders surrounding the burnt out and derelict Wycombe Summit got together to complain about the Snow Dome and the council struggling to get the freezer project off the ground.

But you don't even need to go that far, just been seen out riding does a lot of good. Why not head to a local park with a hill for a ride once in while. Just be happy, friendly and don't piss anyone off. At the end of the day it's all about planting seeds which will one day turn into other mountainboarders. Why not meet there once a week during the the summer for an evenings carving and jibbing. After all this was part of the reason why LARD was so good at attracting members during the hight of it's powers. One last point before I stop and thank you for reading this far, I'm almost finished. Why not go ride where there are lots of mountain bikers. You might not convert some straight away but you might start one or two of them thinking. After they are the same kind of person as us and enjoy going for a ride round the woods for all the same reasons as us. Or if your aren't into your freeriding go to the skate park, you never know a skater might want to try something different.

If want to see mountainboarding grow it's all about getting out there. No matter what you do it will have some effect even if you don't see it at the time.

Recce Report

Second post of the day, the first was a bit of an accident it just fell out of my head. Really I should be either looking for work (I'm if anyone from the jobcentre is reading this) or putting togehter an article from Poland.

Right what I was really going to write about was before you have a field report you must have a recce report. A couple weeks ago now Roger and me what for a long over due walk round Aston Hill mountain bike park.

Mostly to have a look a the 4x but also to see what other ride-able stuff is there for us four wheelers. Boarders in the Chilterns have been riding this couse for a while it was one of the first place's Wilz visited and noSno held their downhill challenge on it back in the 90's. Even back in the days of WX Fayjay and Beezer were in the habit of shredding it. In fact I have seen video of Carl having a go at the road gap and Jack reckons he can nail it. This is quite a statement since it's the road 2/3's of the way down which makes this track so notorious amongst the mountain bike community, 'cause it's pretty gap to a berm which is not really that big. Which much sums up most the track like most mountainboard 4 man tracks the racing line isn't that wide. Except with the Aston Hill 4x it was one of the first so at least it has a good excuse and mountain bike 4x's have now evolved to be wider. The good thing about Aston's 4x is in the middle there is a couple of other lines, plus if the FC and CTC didn't mind there other lines you could add coming out of.

As for the rest of the place if your a mountain biker there are some pretty gnarly downhill tracks

and a good cross country one. For us some sections of these tracks look do able, others look to tight and 'S' bendy. When we were there pretty much all the tracks had been tracked out by the bikers riding hard in the wet and digging trench's by braking hard.

Between the tracks though, the whole place is like a blank canvas. With so much potential not just riding your own line but for linking up different tracks. Also because the riding area is spread out a long the ridge line of Haddington Hill. There is a good mixture of riding from first time woodland riders could take on to regular woodland warriors would be happy testing there skills on.

The only thing is I'm not sure now happy the owners would for us riding off trails. Since mountain bikers don't seam to do it and not sure that's because it's frowned on or they just aren't in the habit.

While I'm talking about owners and riding, here in the south there are lots of places were you pay to go freeriding. Free in this case must refer to riding where you wont and not the just parking up and going for a shred. After being closed for a while the area is now owned and run by cooperative between the Forestry Commission and CTC. There is a £6 charge for riding which is more than over the road but then there is purpose built tracks and the knowledge there will no family pushing a push chair round the next corner. You can get tickets from their website or from the forestry commission office just outside Wendover.

So this sunday it looks like a group of us are handing there to see if it really worth the £6 and if its I'm sure we have got some interesting ideas knocking about ;-)

interhistory

Things have changed a lot since we started this blog in fact the whole mountainboard on-line world is a different place to one which Remolition was born into. Back when I started riding there was a couple of forums ATBsports and LARDass amoungest a few others. There was a couple of crews writing sticking up photo's of what they had been up. Then there was the Foot In Mouth which pretty much shut the countryside. Which seamed to have not only killed every four legged cloven hooved animals in this green and pleasant lend but the early mountainboard web crews as well.

Still there wasn't much in the way of written content out there and then there was the mission to get hold of a copy of atbmag if you wanted to read or look at dope pics of peeps on their all terrain boards(foot note here is you couldn't use the mountainboard widely because MBS were trying to copyright it) There of cause has always been the company websites selling boards or telling you about their mountainboard centre. Apart from a couple of articles on ATBsports there really wasn't anything.

So winding the clock forward a couple of years some other forms had come and gone and atboarders and shown the world what you could do with some hardwork and a couple of video cameras. What was also strange at this point and what must have been a world first in media. Was the north of England was becoming the media centre of the mountainboard world with Scuzz and ATBoarders both based up there. For those outside the media bubble pretty much everything in the media world originates from an area just east of the city of london (we are talking the square mile here actual size of the city of ldn)

Anyway I'm getting off topic then Mountainboard mag, with their boarder myspace and the promise of an on-line mag came and went. Which was very sad seeing as they had done so much with Scuzz to then see the next logical step fail wasn't what anyone wanted.

So then Jack and me get drunk and spend a long journey back from Cornwall chatting about this crazy idea for some kind of online web mag come gallery. Before talking to Wilz, Dirtymonkeys and Fajay, which to the creation of Rem'. Now a couple of years on there is new forum is on the scene called Surfing Dirt pulling in riders from all over the world. Loads of blogs from riders all over the world typing about their weekend shredings. So despite the lack of a mag you can read on the shiter or maybe with a nice cuppa there is loads out there on the interweb. So maybe the sport which was largely spawned on the global-super-highway. It's only right it should have all it's media out there as well. And while you may not fancy taking your computer to the loo you still get your mountainboard-ey fix with a coffee at home or work when the boss isn't looking. Just don't spill it on your keyboard 'hey Wilz'.