howies®

Joe Barnes just sent us this video from a recent trip round Europe with some mates.

Thanks, Joe. As if living in the shadow of Ben Nevis with some of the UK’s best trails on your doorstep wasn’t enough to make us all jealous, you’ve gone and made things even worse with this!

I’m just kidding. There’s some beautiful stuff in episode 1 of their trip.

Part 2 to follow!

The sports that we’re into aren’t team sports…they are sort of solitary really.  But if you ask anyone about their best days riding, they will always say a day when they’ve been out with an awesome group of mates who inspire them.  There are certain friends who push me more to ride faster and try something new.

I just stumbled upon this edit of an interview with a snowboarder called Jess Kimura.  It’s from an all girl’s production Peep Show, which was released this winter.  Anyway she sums up that feeling of riding with your mates perfectly.  It’s a really sweet video, so check it out…

Ah yes…the sun is shinning, all eyes forward to summer.  But not quite yet for me.  I have managed to sqeeze in a snowboarding trip right at the end of the season.  Four days to go, and I am seriously getting excited now!!!

So spring riding isn’t as snow sure (although lucky for me France had a bit of a dump last week), but I’ve always had fun whatever…just got to make the most of it!

Been watching some snowboard movies on my lunch break (as if I wasn’t stoked enough already!)  I will leave you with this…enjoy…

This film festival on Saturday sounds great fun, wish it was in Bristol…..

The first ever Adventurists Film Festival

For six glorious, mayhem-filled years The Adventurists’ teams have been filming their mischievous, daring and often downright shocking exploits.

The first ever Film Festival will be a showcase of the very finest of these films made while thundering across continents in ridiculously unsuitable vehicles. There’ll be talks from adventurers and film makers and an exclusive screening of a documentary about the Rickshaw Run and Mongol Rally. Plus of course the winning film will be announced by the judging panel and the prizes awarded and backs slapped heartily.

The mac daddy of adventure films, Benedict Allen, is giving a talk at 2.45pm. As the pioneer of filming authentic journeys for television he has made 6 TV series for the BBC, written 10 books and been described as “part of television history” by the Director General of the BBC. A proper legend of adventure.

27th March 11:30 – 6pm at Coronet Cinema, 103 Notting Hill Gate, London W11 3LB

The BBC have gotten themselves a bit of a bad rep lately.

However, they do have a website that tells you what free, fun, adventurous things you can do in your area. Bristol has scuba diving, snorkelling and indoor climbing. When I get around to trying them, i’ll let you know how I get on.

For the thrillseekers out there…..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/thrillseeker/

A friend of ours, Mark, and a few of his mates have headed to Japan on a snowboarding trip, stopping by a few places along the way. He’s just set up a blog where he’s done his first entry. It looks like they’re going all out on this one and will be documenting as much as possible (i recall him mentioning headcams) so it should be pretty sick.

Check it out here and keep your eye on it, should be epic.

http://yoshiyoshi-snowblog.blogspot.com/

been a bit slow with this one seein as thought theres only a couple of screenings left, but one of those screenings does happen to be in Cardigan tomorrow night, i also just realised tims already posted about this but a little reminder never hurt anyone…

The Banff Mountain Film Festival is uprooting from the mothership festival in the Canadian Rockies and will shortly be heading for the UK to tour to a location near you.

As well as climbing flicks, there will be a selection of other brilliant mountain based films featuring mountain biking, skiing/snowboarding, whitewater kayaking and speed flying (a cross between paragliding and skiing including some incredible aerial footage as they descend Mont Blanc). Full details of the film programme at each venue, as well as more information and how to buy tickets can be found at http://www.banff-uk.com

As well as seeing some great films, you can also win some great nightly prizes as well as go in the draw to win a 7 day Mont Blanc trek. A bar will be open at all screenings before the films and during intermission.

Heart in mouth watching the men’s Halfpipe qualifications!

Ben Kilner is currently ranked 6th…if you aren’t watching check out the live footage here.

He had a beautiful second run…lets hope he can keep it up!

The opening ceremony was on at 2.am. this morning.  I couldn’t face staying up that late to watch it…but I have watched some cheesy montage footage of it on Youtube.  I thought I would spare you the cheese, and just post up this awesome animation from the BBC.

You can follow all events from the Vancouver 2010 Olympics live.

So the winter X-Games are over, and the British snowboarding team have done amazingly well.  I’d been watching little snippets over the weekend, here and there.  It’s amazing to see how far we have come on the world circuit!

Jenny Jones came away with her 2nd X-Games gold medal and Ben Kilner (who’s article Why I Ride featured in our winter catalogue) won his first ever FIS Podium place!

This puts us in great stead for the Olympics.  Only 2 weeks away now…

Check out some footage of Miss Jones in action…