Dreaded Update
Welcome to the Hoots Dreaded update for 2010.
Yet again another year has blasted by and the DREAD haired guy that doesn’t ‘compete’ ended up with a full schedule….
Many people ask what a season looks like for Jay Hoots so I commit to writing my annual update to let sponsors and riding community know what I have been up to and to give young shredders a snap shot into what I do as a career Mountain Bike rider.
Steep Rock in the Rain
2010 has been a super exciting year on all fronts and there is so much to share but I will try to keep it short and to the point…
To start the season off right I went on a moto ride in Death Valley with six solid pals to celebrate my birthday. None of the guys knew it was my special day until it rolled around on the trip however we celebrated that particular day by riding 200km in wicked sand dunes and trails with an estimated 1700’ of elevation gain. Over all we ended up doing over 1000 km in 5 days!
Canadian Moto in America!
This year I was present at a few events that really tugged my Dreads and reminded me of how cool Mountain Biking is. Event list is as follows…
-Mach Chicken Trail Maintenance day (buff before the downhill race in Sunshine Coast)
-Ride clinics with Sutherland high school (North Vancouver) XC team
-Norco SPROCKIDS day
-Volunteer days at 4 Bike Skills Parks
Great jumping Giffy over Jay
-Dirt Jump Jam for Canmore XC Nationals
-Williams Lake Bike Park grand opening
–Norco Product Launch
Climbing the walls!
-Crankworx
-Inter Bike Outdoor Demo just around the corner
Of course in between all my gigs I still have to lay down some vid footage and pictures that can be used for articles, brochures, interviews advertisements and of course Facebook!
Choose line set shot
Result of shot planning
Just to get a bank full of images to start the season and then post season takes about 10-15 days of solid shooting which of course doesn’t include all the build and prep time (which I love) Check out my latest vid here;
While the season may be busy, it is never too busy to go and shoot for my favourite TV show, The RideGuide. This year marks the 6th season for me shooting with Ride Guide and after last year’s KILLER shows in Maui, BC Bike Parks, Norco Factory Team and Northern Alberta I travelled and shot two new episodes during this season in Wales, UK (with Darcy Turenne).
High above Welsh farms
and Newfoundland Canada (with Ryan Leech).
Trail Riding with shredding Newfoundlanders
Both trips were fricking amazing with about 2 weeks each to get as much footage as possible click to see the blogs for the trips . Hold on to your remote these will be wicked episodes for sure.
My company, Hoots Inc. and its dedicated highly trained staff have developed 38 bike parks, 21 trails and 21 pump tracks over a 6-year period with the partnerships of municipalities, in kind donations, volunteers and sponsors.
The aim of our parks has always been to get people into riding and offer a fun place to work on bike handling, providing the same type of professionalism in park design and construction that you would find in a baseball field or swimming pool. Hoots does not build gnar bike parks for advanced riders and rely on intimidation to monitor rider use, but rather builds sustainable parks that can handle heavy riding by people who don’t understand etiquette and maintenance just yet.
Hoots Inc designs and builds parks using 10 years of experience riding professionally, YEARS of experience teaching and coaching both Mountain biking and Snow Boarding and using progression and sustainable techniques that can endure heavy weather and vandalism using the best of what municipalities can afford.
Highlight Hoots projects;
Hinton flowy single track
Hinton Expansion – Mini jump park, pump track and 3 trails.
WL Botanio Bike Park
Williams Lake – Mega Bike Park, one of the largest and most complex featuring over 40 jumps, drop zones, pump track, DH pump flow ride and technical feature rides. Deets here…
Filthy Canmore Can
Canmore – Rebuild of Dirt jumps (built previously by Hoots and locals, 5 years ago) into sweet senders of filthy dirt love
Whitehorse Skills Park phase 2
White Horse – Phase 2 construction of technical features area above the huge jump existing park built the year previous. Check it…
Loutette arrival
Loutette finish
North Vancouver – Revitalization and formalization of an unauthorized jump park. Negotiated to keep gap jumps and then built a roller/table jump line and diverted hiking trail away from park.
Hoots has also been involved with several project designs and has been active in design and consultation with several other parks including Aldergrove, BC which is slated to open no later than October.
For the last 4 years I have been working as an assistant instructor for Capilano University for the Mountain Bike Operations Train Building Course. Last semester before the advanced building course came up, lead instructor Mark Schmidt left the program to take on a full time position with Parks Canada. The lead instructor position came up and I took it. With full control of the course I managed with the help of my assistant to re construct the curriculum and rebuild it into a kick butt program that I believe reflects the new age of our trade. This year’s class had to be patient while I worked out a couple of blips but I know the volume and content delivered is what I would expect in a course like that.
MTBO Trail shot
The entire month of April was dedicated to advanced trail building techniques and the results from the class were extraordinary! Excellent class and a great design/build of a sweet trail, so much so that they have inspired me to revamp the ‘Introduction to Trail Building” course coming up in November.
For seven years I have travelled to conferences and workshops (from Isreal to all over North America) teaching and sharing what I have learned about Bike Skills Parks, Trail Building, Kids on bikes, Clubs and the legalization of DIRT Jumps. This year offered me with the Presentation of my career! Early this summer Parks Canada held an internal National Conference to discuss the possibility of Mountain Bikes in National Parks. Discussions ranged from environmental impacts to historical use of parks and then came 3 presentations that highlighted why Mountain bikes should be in National Parks. Lora from IMBA Canada spoke on XC trails, Rob from OGC spoke on Freeride and DH trails and I presented on Skills Parks, Dirt jumps, Pump tracks, Technical ride features like skinnyies, bridges, balance lines and the immense opportunity to implement low risk fun ride options next to parking lots, campgrounds and interpretive centers. Long and short, Parks Canada has agreed to start implementation of allowing Mountain Bikes in National Parks! Each park will be evaluated individually and developed accordingly. We will have to wait until Parks get their policyies changed but WOW!!!! Dirt Jumps in National Parks means that they will have to have guidelines and a formalization of process. This may sound complicated but at the end of the day if a National Park can figure out how to quantify jumps the trickle down effect to municipalities Canada wide will be tremendous, actual LEGAL DIRT JUMPS!!!! The world’s eyes will be on us to understand how they can do it. I only hope to be there along the way.
Thanks for Reading mmm Yukon
What an amazing season it has been and I am so very grateful for my family, friends, sponsors, the awesome guys I shoot with and everyone else who has helped get me through this season in one piece and still smiling!
Ride ON!
Jay Hoots
Norco Factory Team
Hoots Inc.
Yay Hoots Jay! You’ll never meet anybody more stoked about getting people on bikes than Hootie. Join the Hootie-love thread already in session here…
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