snow and surf in a day and the never, ever, ending wind.

Posted: October 20, 2009

kia ora from NZ. Our trip has been going pretty good so far. We're all stoked we've actually gotten in 5 days a week of riding. a few of them have been pretty suspect days but we're riding. The weather has been slightly difficult this past week and a half. Super slushy (way too slushy), crazy bullet proof ice, foggy, rainy, snowing, and wind. wind every day. A typical day has little wind down here in wanaka and howling winds up on the hill. we're stoked when it's only 40km/h up there. but we hear from the locals that the wind stops in like, february. awesome. But generally the sun pokes out at some point, the wind will gust and back off for a second or two. so we just wait for a quick break and drop in.

last week i took brad martin for a snow and surf day. a few friends lent us some boards so we jumped out to the west coast after riding to get an afternoon surf. It's only the 4th time in my life i get to do both in the same day. For being obsessed with both sports that number kind of surprises me. the surf pretty much sucked but it was fun. chest high kinda sucky shorebreak. a few dolphins swimming around. no matter the conditions whenever i get to do a double day i love it. brad had a blast too. so totally worth the effort.

The bagjump has arrived. The japanese team paid to have the bagjump down here and a few other people are getting in on the fun. I got a few jumps on it yesterday, and tomorrow we're gonna have dustin craven, jeff batchelor, brad, sarah conrad and myself hitting it. The setup is an idea that i'd talked with the bagjump guys about this summer. a big spine with both sides groomed with the pipe cutter so you can easily hit both sides into the bag and it's still like hitting a pipe wall.
If i can get it up i'll post a video of us hitting it. internet is super slow again this trip.

It's super windy out today(90+ km/h winds), so no riding. I'm gonna hang out in the backyard, ice my ankle in the creek, go on a bike ride and enjoy my second spring of the year.