Whistler Crankworx

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'Hucking' is the gentle art of riding your mountain bike off a humungous great big drop, and doing a trick of 'twizzly steez' ("stylish spinning") at the same time, if you can. Generally hucking is considered somewhat passe by most mountain bikers and has got a bad name due principally to a guy called Josh Bender who definitely had more 'cajones' ("balls") than he did skill. Now Whistler is also famous for its 10 day-long Crankworx festival which features numerous different gravity events including several dh races (one to Gee, one to Sam), a slalom race (think Minnaar won it) and the infamous 'slopestyle' contest. This year's contest coincided with our stay and whilst we missed most of the action we did see the slopestyle contest, which was an awesome show (De Gorski is embarrassed to admit this). Slopestyle is essentially a monster huck-fest, with a ridiculous, 90 second or so long course of drops, skinnies, double jumps and gaps running down into the area where the lifts take riders up. Riders are judged by a panel of experts who score their run just like olympic gymnastics and diving, on difficulty and style. This year it was sponsored by long term Samhill backers and rivals of Red Bull, Monster Energy. If you were a Monster-sponsored rider, their brolly dollies accompanied you for your post-run interview. Monster also kindly provided two mahoosive screens so you could catch all the action from anywhere on the course, and plenty of free drinks.
Highlights were the unfortunately surnamed local 17 year-old Brandon Semenuk, who clearly spends a lot of time in the bike park, taking 3rd. In 2nd was a guy called Lance McDermott, who was McThommo's favourite. The last jump was a step-up onto a 'satellite dish' (concave section) to a 30-odd foot downslope. He back-flipped onto it and front-flipped off it, fair dues. We were "freakin' stoked dude" (extra-impressed) when we found out he was from Manchester. In first place was super-chunk Spaniard Andreu Lacondeguy who had binned a double flip on the first double on both his qualifiers but pulled it on his final run. Showmanship for sure but he knocked out plenty of other tricks for a deserved win. Basically it was a mint few hours on the hill early evening (so you could ride before), and there was a crowd of 40 thousand in attendance by the end. DH is a non-event in comparison.
Footnote 1) Americans are the harshest hecklers ever. They gave anyone and everyone a load of grief.
Footnote 2) SRAM had a stand with some Hammerschmidt stuff on. It was Hammerheavy.
Footnote 3) Monster drinks are slightly more pleasant than Red Bull.

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Photos

First Double
Ere mate, you're upside-down

The course
Running down the side of it is easily the world's greatest dual-slalom track, it must be a couple of miles long and full of berms, jumps and pump sections.

Satellite action
If you look carefully you can see someone upside-down on a bike to the right of the dish. Steez!