Flow: The Progression of Freeride Mountain Biking on the North Shore

Last week, I had the honour of being involved in the creation of an art exhibition about mountain biking now on display at Presentation House Gallery, here in North Vancouver. Ian Verchere, curator of the exhibition, asked me to help advise and build the physical exhibit inside the gallery. I thought the idea of building indoors might be novel and fun.

The exhibition incorporates a rideable environment in the gallery with photographs by Sterling
Lorence, old school mountain biking footage from Digger and a recent video by Jamie Houssain of The Collective.

What we started with

We had 3 days to build the features we wanted but because one of the days was my wife’s birthday I had to cut my involvement down to 2 days…oh the scarifices I make. It was amazing how quickly we got things built. If this had been a typical build in the forest it would have taken a month or so to construct. I suppose having the building materials ready to go and an ample supply of beer and pizza, makes one work much more efficiently.

Wednesday:

Digger and Ian working it out

On Tuesday, I went to the gallery after work and met up with Ian for the first time. We took a walk around the entire exhibit and came up with an ambitious game plan. Spiral staircase to roll down and then wall ride to moveable tranny.

Getting there…

The first day we started on the east side of the gallery. The wallride was going to be the most
technical to construct so I wanted to get that out of the way and leave the easiest part for last.

A thing of beauty if I say so myself and not bad for 5 hrs of hard labour.

Thursday:

Thanks to Jeremy Powers, he saved us a tonne of time by donating these massive timbers


Finished product after 9ish hours of more hard labour

A nice surprise at the exhibition was remnants of Danger Dan’s trail “The Reaper”. One of the
hardest trails on the Shore of yester year. The exhibit opening marks 10 years since the City of West Vancouver destroyed Reaper and other trails on Cypress (known as the “Chainsaw Massacre”). Ian hiked the remnants out of the bush by himself. I think I saw a tear in Dan’s eye when he first say it at the show and it was a surprise.

Remnants of Dangerous Dan’s building on Cypress – destroyed by West Van Parks employees in 1999.

After finishing the stunts on Thursday night, I was the guinea pig and hit everything to make
sure everything flowed nice and will be ready for opening night in less than 24 hours.

Friday:

Friday rolled around and the grand opening was insight. Ian made sure that word got out via the NSMB Bulletin Boards and Facebook. It was a huge success with over a hundred people showing up including a few mtb celebrities.

From left to right: Player 1, Curator and North Shore Vet Ian Verchere, Ryan Leech, Karen Leech.

A fantastic turnout for the grand opening. This photo doesn’t show it but the place was packed.

The highlight of the show in my opinion was fellow NSMB team member Ian Nelson riding what we built – and riding it like a rockstar.

Ian Nelson!

Ian getting stoked “The Ian Show”

Ian “High Marking” the wall for the crowd.

The exhibit rocks and if you were unable to attend the opening, it’s open to the public till August 2nd so go check it out and support mountain biking on the North Shore – the best riding on the planet.

There will be a panel discussion at the gallery on July 18th at 4 pm. The discussion will be hosted and moderated by our very own Cam McRae and panelists include Sterling Lorence and Dangerous Dan Cowan. Come on by, drink a beer or two and join us for a lively discussion.

A huge shout out to Ian for taking on this huge project and all the people that made it possible.

Cheers,

JW

More photos of Ian shredding indoors here…

And a thread about the exhibit here…

Flow on Facebook is here…

For more on Flow click here…