Video blog day 1 - Days of Thunder Norway

Norway Days of Thunder...

DAYS OF THUNDER!!!!

We sold our van to our friend in Holland and then he gave us a ride to the airport in Germany so we could head to Norway for the Days of Thunder competition.
I instantly liked the place as we strolled through customs without even speaking to any one or showing our passports (and without paying for 3 bikes with Norwegian air). We were picked up by one of the DOT boys and he drove us towards Hafjell Bike Park. We arrived at Tronds house at 2 am and every one was wide awake building signage for the event. At 2am it was still light! , the sun then started to rise at 3am ..haha this was a new experience for me!

Snus fridge at the Supermarket...
The next morning Sha and I built up our bikes and headed up the mountain to check out the Big lines at the top…Whoa there is a 17 meter gap on one of the jumps and I am super excited to hit these things! We also sampled the Hafjell trails and we weren’t disappointed, there are a load of really nice flowy trails up there and the 5spot ate them up. We have a whole week to ride so im sure we will be spending some more time shreddin up the mountain.
Every night since I’ve been here there is a session on the dirt jumps, which normally STARTS at 10pm and finishes at 1 am. a lot more of the riders are turning up today so It will be getting crazey at the DJ’s later this week I’m guessing!

Heading up the Hafjell bike park gondola:
View from the gondola back down the valley - grass roofed houses!:

So the Days of Thunder event is actually starting today so lookout for clips on the web of some MASSIVE jumps and I will put another post on my blog during the week. chur.

Dirt jumps at the bottom of the bike park:

Scotland!

My good mate Paul Smail (Pangus’s van mate who stayed with me in NZ and Canada) had been pestering me while I have been in Europe to come to Scotland and stay at the “chez smail” ,his house in Edinburgh . I was gutted because it just wasn’t really in the McGazza budget…..but then after I won some cash at the Scott on air competition it was now more feasible go to go to Scotland on an airplane.

So I packed up my trailking in a bag and headed to Edinburgh..paul picked me up from the air port and we headed back the the chez smail to fulfill my life goal of eating HAGGIS. I had heard a lot of stories about haggis , someone told me a haggis was a small furry animal that could only be found in the Scottish highlands , but we diddn’t seem to have any trouble finding it at the local supermarket. The haggis actually looked a lot more appetising than my preconceived conception of a huge cauldron full off severed stomach pieces floating in their own juices.
We cooked the haggis with the classic sides if “nips & tatees” (turnips and potatos) and I wasn’t disappointed.

With my life goal achieved it was on to riding bikes , we Hit a few of the trail centres close to Edinburgh ,Glenteress and inner lithem , there was a cool network of trails and we spent a couple of days shreddin them . we also hit our mate Stu’s (MTBCUT.COM Scottish dude who has also visited NZ) dirt jumps in Sterling , we had a good session until paul ate it hard and wasn’t feeling to flash , we headed to Edinburgh hospital to discover he had broken both his arms…SH####T .. since Paul couldn’t bend his arms we had to feed him with spoons and straws for the rest of the weekend which proved to be interesting…get well soon paul!

Kelly Wide Open profile vid!!

Kelly's wide open profile vid.. pinkbike.com Video of the Day June 18, 2008!

Kelly 4th at Scott on Air contest Germany

We've just been hangin out in Willingen Germany for the Sympatex Bike Festival, perfect weather after bucket loads of rain during the week. Luckily the windy conditions died down for the Dirt Jump comp and it went off!

Bumped into fellow NZ riders Kieran Bennet and Justin Leov who are here for the DH race this afternoon.

Kelly competed in the Scott on Air Dirt Jump contest last night and placed 4th overall and he is stoked.

Results:
1 Amir Kabbani GER

2 Marius Hoppensack GER

3 Felix Rosendahl GER

4 Kelly McGarry NZL

5 Hendrik Tafel GER

Next stop: Norway!

FISE Experience Mont de Marsan, FRANCE

After much indecision I picked the FISE Experience slopestyle comp in France over the Austrian King of Dirt comp. I like slopestyle comps more than Dirt Jump comps and going to Mont de Marsan for FISE (Festival International Sports Extreme) made for a pretty good round trip of Europe (and I got to go surfing!).

First thing we did in Mont de Marsan was check out the course construction, the set up was right in the centre of this old French town, a slopestyle course as well as skate park.

The course wasn’t ready to ride yet so I decided to go search out the local trails. I rode there with a young French dude Jean, who ended up binning it pretty hard so I had to drive him home where his parents kindly offered us a place to stay for the entire FISE competition … air guitars all round!

Qualifying was on Saturday, I had 2 solid runs that I was really happy with and qualified for Sunday’s final. The Best Trick comp was on Saturday night, I rode in it, stomped some sick barrel rolls but it didn’t come close to the young French dudes double flip and 360 flip from one of the BMX boys.. it was off the chiz-ayne, It was one of the best Best Trick comps I have been at.

On Sunday morning during finals practice I had a rude awakening, ringing my bell 360ing a drop and had to have a sit down for a little while, but when it came to contest time I managed to pull it together and my 2nd run was the money landing me in 5th place which I was really happy with.

After the comp all the riders went to the NHS trails for a cool session. The next morning we drove to Hossegor, a reknowned surfing beach on the coast and was lucky to find some glassy waves, me and Yannick and his buddies hired some boards and headed out into the surf. The good surf capped off a great weekend.

Andorra...

After we had seen the sights in Barcelona we headed to the tax-haven of Europe – Andorra for some hot deals and good riding.
It is a small country with only a few towns, the whole country is in the Pyrenees mountain range with the towns tucked in the valleys.

The first riding spot was Vallnord where only 2 weeks earlier a WC race had been held, we were too late for that and too early for the bike park lifts but still did some sweet shuttling runs taking turns down ‘Old School’, ‘Maxiavalanche’ and ‘Route 66’ on the lower part of the mountain.
We called in for a quick beer at Cedric Gracia’s bar and met some locals.

The next day we drove up another big mountain above Julia de Loria to Naturlandia which is an outdoor eco theme park, part of it was a bike park with wooden features, dirt jumps a few forest trails and a foam pit in the making. We hung out with the crew building the park, one of who Kelly had met in Whistler a few years back! Then we headed back into Spain.

Spain

After FISE in Montpellier, we headed into SPAIN. First stop Barcelona..
Kelly at the Arc de Triomf:

We were over hangin out in a big city pretty quick so headed for the country side, visited some picturesque National Parks and found some great riding spots... and plenty of time for swimming.. look for Kelly..!!

La Guada Sierra NP - Alquezar village in background.

Heaps of old ruins in the country side of Spain.

We found a bike park - La Molina, we were a week early of course, but we still hiked up and rode down one of the tracks - steep and flowy - fun!!

There was some amazing landscape and Kelly was on the constant look out for spots to hit.

The skies have opened..

After a solid 6 weeks of SUN with only a few minor patches of drizzle, the rain is pouring out of the sky.Wwe are in Mont de Marsan, France for FISE Experience and Kelly is hoping to ride in the Slopestyle.. we'll have to see what the weather will do. This does give me some time to write some updates of what has been going down..