Journey to Middle Earth ... by Rowan Aish

Hi guys

Here's the run down of the Kiwi's first contest for the year in Europe, the Vendee Pro. Mostly its an elaborate description of how we got there and hopefully you can get a feel for traveling half way around the world between contests.

Journey to Middle Earth

Its 3pm on Friday the 3rd and the time has come. The necessary pilgrimage to Europe looms ahead like some treacherous journey to Mordor. But like Frodo and the Ring... this was a journey bigger than both of us. So after loading the gear in (or mostly on) the hire car, we head to the fabled Margaret River one last time to pick up Ricardo Christie before tackling phase one… 4-hours of cornerless - if not characterless - highway to Perth.

Being Ricardo’s first journey to the far North you could smell, among other, more tangible smells, the excitement in the car. He was also noticeably excited when an old friend from Mahia, now working the mines in Perth, decides to take us out for full night of good clean fun, before dropping us at the airport for the 6am flight to Dubai.

It sounded good on paper… stay up all night, sleep all the way to Europe, no jet lag… But come 3am, wading through the mass of inebriated Australian youth, I’m struggling to locate and hustle the boys out of the smoky sweat pit and into the car. I finally spot Rick loitering on the balcony and together we locate Nick’s mass of blond hair bobbing somewhere between the ‘Pole’ and the ‘Disco Ball’. 20 minutes later we’re at the airport and ready to check in… sort of… the Boys are a mess! Concerned with whether we’d even be allowed on the plane we were on our best behavior. We even managed to flash big smiles of appreciation when the check out lady informed Rick of a $700 Excess baggage charge!

It was now time for Nick and I to flaunt our knowledge as second year campaigners on a budget, and educate our young friend in the mystical packing process of turning 120kg of gear into 60.

So there we were, in the middle of Perth international airport, wearing every item of clothing in our bags, pockets full of anything not sharp or explosive, wearing leashes and electrical chargers as jewelry and swaying like seamen at port. The next 24 hours promised to be a sweaty journey of hung-over purgatory, but we saved hundreds of superior Aussie dollars and for that, we celebrated... with an ill advised $50 bottle of red (13 hours later the regret was unanimous).

After half a nights sleep in Paris (nothing glamorous, B&B, sushi for dinner) we picked a couple of Aussie stragglers up from the airport and tackled the six hour drive to Brettignolles.

Such a journey takes its toll. The big three… body, mind and soul… have each been bruised at various stages of the journey and time is needed for healing. But with the contest starting the following day the boys had to push on. Luckily though for this entourage of southern men, the Vendee Pro is designed for those who like to take advantage of being young, free and surrounded by exotic beauty… In short things never get going before 1pm and everyone’s happy.

This event was always going to be more about the money than the points, being a 4* WQS the points aren’t worth getting excited over short of winning, but being seeded into the round of 64 as we all were, means walking away with at least $800 U.S. in pocket.

The waves were fun, not pumping but a good 3-4 foot swell pulsed for the duration of the event. By some terrible stroke of misfortune Nick and I ended up in the same heat and it wasn’t a good feeling keeping him off a score with minutes to go, finishing second in front of my faithful companion. He more than got his own back but that’s another day’s tale.

I went on to lose in the round of 32, unable to hold Joan Duru off a low score in the dying seconds of the heat. (as some consolation Joan went on to pull the same trick in the final, winning the event)

So once again it was Ricardo Christie flying the kiwi flag. Rick was looking strong from the beginning, confidently posting eights and nines throughout the event. It was the infamous Joan Duru (aka kiwi slayer) who finally put a stop to things in the semi’s, but Rick earned himself the third place trophy and more importantly… a podium finish! That bastard could have hand picked half the girls in Vendee if he wanted!

With the comp wrapped up and the waves turning ugly, we spent the next few days growing very fond of the local disco-tech, before setting out on the long journey south to my personal favorite… Lisbon.

More adventures coming soon.

Rowan Aish

PRESS RELEASE: DC AND SE RACING LAUNCH THE PK RIPPER FIXED GEAR BIKE PROJECT

DC is proud to introduce the PK Ripper Fixed Gear, the third installment in a series of limited edition bike projects from DC and SE Racing, all designed to embrace the heritage of the brand and the sport. A collector’s item, the PK Ripper Fixed Gear bike production will be limited to only 2,500 bikes worldwide.

The Fixed Gear collaboration mixes a touch of 1970’s bike nostalgia with modern bike performance features. Inspirations for the PK Ripper Fixed Gear bike‘s design aesthetic stem directly from the original DC x SE Racing PK Ripper collaboration. The new fixed gear bike design details are directly inspired from the classic PK Ripper BMX bike, complete with Floval tubing, Landing Gear fork and Looptail rear end. This blend of old school BMX and a modern fixed gear bike not only takes its cues from the PK Ripper BMX construction but also its colorways—Matte Black and Ball Burnished Silver.

DC and SE Racing first joined together in 2007 for their exclusive limited edition project “30 Years of Radness.” The project honored 30-plus years of BMX history, and DC and SE Racing celebrated with a re-release of the PK Ripper bike in its original aesthetic for an exclusive limited edition quantity. In 2008, DC and SE Racing joined forces once again with the release of the DC x SE Racing 24” Quadangle. The Quadangle, or the Quad Looptail as it was known, was a 1980’s freestyle classic, and for the second collaboration DC and SE Racing re-released the BMX bike in for the first time ever, in a 24” version the same classic frame.

The DC PK Ripper Fixed Gear bike’s Matte Black and Ball Burnished Silver colorways will both be limited to only 1,250 each worldwide.

DC International guys on Twitter

If you're a Twitterer. The real Rob Dyrdek is @robdyrdek and snowboarder am-team rider Ryan Tiene is @ryantiene

Rowan drinks beer

Rowan Aish writes:

There's a guy working out of London who has been filming allot of the WQS guys and making profiles for his website. We caught up with him in London, and he gave me a handycam to go shoot some footage so I can send him back the tapes, and get a kind of video blog going on.

Check it out.

http://www.loosefilms.com/surfing_films.html

In episode 1, Rowan discusses Beer vs Maori Bay.

Luke Burkhart USA Diary Part 1

Hello to everyone back home and abroad,

It has now been just over a week since we arrived in America and so far it has been amazing. We arrived on a Saturday and spent the weekend in Los Angeles checking out all the tourist spots. We went to Hollywood, Beverly Hills and spent a day at Six Flags Magic Mountain theme park. It was good fun to check out but definitely not the sort of place I could handle living.

Sunday night we headed south to where we are now based in Murrieta which is an hour or so from LA. Bilkos house is in a gated neighbourhood and it’s pretty nice and new. We spent the first few days of the week driving around organising everything needed to start riding, I am borrowing Cam Sinclairs Dodge Ram while I’m here and it’s perfect for going riding. My first day on the bike was at a track called Starwest, I went out there with Bilko and Cam Sinclair and a few other riders they hang out with. It was a fun track to run in my new practice bike and get into the groove again, loads of jumps and berms but basically smooth as.

My next day and my first real day of hammering it out and riding hard was at Glen Helen for Thursday practice. There were hundreds of riders out on the track the whole time which made it a bit sketchy at times, they basically let anyone go for it whenever they like all day long. Apart from that it is really well organised and the track is consistently watered, the dirt is a lot like Taupo just with huge steep hills and big jumps. There were a few top pros there like Villopoto and Broc Hepler, I felt better and better all day and by the end of it I was about one to two seconds a lap off Villopoto.

We went and picked up Justin McDonald from the airport the next day and helped him get a few things sorted out. The next morning we woke up super early and got on the road out to Las Vegas to spend a night and Watch the final round of the AMA Supercross series. We met up with a few kiwis guys up there and Shayne King hooked us up with VIP passes which was sick, we basically cruised around wherever we liked all day. It was the first supercross race ive seen over there and it was impressive, the top guys ride with so much confidence and intensity. James Stewart was crazy to watch and regularly did things that you wouldn’t think possible on a bike. The lites race was particularly good to watch with Pourcel, Dungey and Canard going at it for the whole race.
The next day we took some time to check out the sights of Vegas and take loads of photos, we drove back to Murrieta that night and started planning for a big week of riding ahead.

As I write this we have just come back from another day out at Glen Helen. I am getting a lot of help over here from Craig Behl who normally works for Ben Townley, he has helped me with loads of parts and things that definitely help keep the costs down. He invited us out to come ride with the Factory Honda team as they had hired out the whole track for the day, it was basically just Millsaps, Short, Tedesco, Justin McDonald and me out there riding all day. It is crazy how beneficial it is for me to be out riding with those guys and I already feel like I have picked up speed from them. By the end of the day we were all out doing a moto and I was consistently within half a second a lap of Tedesco and Millsaps. I know that when racing starts its going to be different and the intensity will go up another level but it has really helped my confidence for the upcoming races.

For the rest of the week we will be riding every day at different tracks around Southern California and hopefully have many more days ahead like today.
It’s now two and a half weeks until round one and I feel like I am on track and getting faster.

I have attached a few photos for you to check out of a bit of what we have been up to so far.

Over and out from California

Burga

Progression TVC

DC PROGRESSION SINCE 1994 - watch more skate, snow, surf, and moto videos