Cams New Ride

Published: 2010-10-24
Author: Cameron Porteous

Got a new cross country bike last week and its awsome. Working on setting it up how I like it by putting a shorter stem on and fiddling with the suspension. Here is a pic of it right when i got home fully stock. Have been ripping it up in the endownment lands for this past week and got a chance to head up to squamish to take it on some real trails.

Giant Trance X2 2011


Heres a short video from ripping it up in the endownment lands. Filmed and edited by Ben Porteous

Ben Once Fought a Lion, when he pinned it and it came to time to deliver the Death Blow, he let it live. This is the Ben I know. A Season Re-Cap

2010 Has been the most fun season I have had to date. I got my riding back on track and rode some pretty awesome spots. The year started off with a sick roadtrip to California with Dobie, Graham and Jamie. Next up was racing time. I really think all my off season training regime paid off this year. I raced a couple of NW Cup races down in PA and then proceeded on to tear it up at BC Cup. This year I chose to race in the Senior men class which was hilarious. Ray Faubert, Graham Davey, and myself had a good time racing and enjoying the laid back approach to the fullest. Good times. I raced in the North Shore Smackdown DH, Aarduum, Bear Mtn, and then we were off to Panorama.

I raced in the Mad trapper DH and then the next race the following weekend. In between races we did a little road tripping around the Kootenays and Rocky Mountains which was pretty awesome. Then after that off to Whistler for Crankworx. Crankworx was pretty awesome I raced the AirDH which is my favorite race of the season and I was having so much fun doing whips I even risked it a bit and threw down a pretty awesome Nac-nac in my race run so that was all in all very thrilling for me. Next was the Canadian Open Dh which was sweet crazy course and it was kind of a chaotic practice sessions with short hours and hot shot pros flying around doing race laps. I had a good incident with some dude from Yeti flying in behind me when I was cruising the course getting a feel for things and I kinda blocked him a bit and he yelled away then proceeded to crash further down. Thats the good times of racing and we shared a laugh afterwards. Then we finished the season off with some rad times in Bromont.

Anyways thats my season and I had a lot of fun. Thanks to Rob and Dunbar Cycles for hooking me up and Len the mechanic. Then also to my parents for being awesome. Also everyone who I rode with it was sweet. I will let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

photo credit to George Porteous and Paul Sales

Andrew Mitchell. The Man . The Mystery . The Legend

Getting out on my all mountain bike seems to be my thing these days.

As I am trying to get rid of my beer gut that I created last year, (I did this by not riding my bike for a whole year because of an injury).

Anyways getting out and pushing the thresholds of my heart and lungs is what I need to be doing at the moment and the all mountain bike is a good motivator for me, I need to ride dh so I just mix up the trail into basically a long super d course. I am always attacking the hills to get my heart rate going and trying to stay off the brakes as much as I can when im on the decents, and let me say its working! I am so tired after a few hours of doing this. I am stoked that there is the technology these days to allow riders to have a decent amount of travel for the dh and still be able to maintain a good pedal platform for the uphills.

I am really missing the DH bike right now... But I know that to be where I need to be for next years season my fitness needs to be at a high level so I am keeping my head down and trying to be at that level by april next year!

There is still so much that I am learning about suspension set up and bike positioning just by doing these all mountain rides. Such as having the seat an inch lower allows me to get over the back wheel and attack corners way better and running a little bit lower tire pressure on a course that is slower really gives you a more stable platform to work with.

Anyways thats the all mountain chat for today, hoping to get out on the jump bike tomorrow before I go for an all mountain.

Adam Is the coolest guy I know.

Your friend and lover of all woodland creatures,

Andrew Mitchell

A slight bar turn makes all the difference

A lil pic from shooting the other Day with Joe Sales.

I was without a bike or any of my gear so I got all of Robs old hand me downs.

They smelled really bad.

Adam

Cam gettin loose

Here's a little video i edited from last Sunday on various trails on Cypress mountain. Had a great time the bikes feel so good on the rooty loamy trails. Ben shuttled Aaron, Trevor and I all day. We managed to get 5 or 6 laps in and each of us had a few crashes. Really great ride to kick off the fall downhill riding season for me.

Enjoy

http://vimeo.com/15972690

(download off vimeo for better quality viewing)

- Cam

Thanksgiving leftovers

DUNBAR CYCLES Thanksgiving Leftovers from George Porteous on Vimeo.

Here is a video I edited with some footage i had on my computer from the season. footage isnt the best but I think it is a worthy watch.

enjoy

Ben P

Mitchell For the WIN!!!

Ringle Dangle the phone goes.

"Drew! Slalom! grass hill by the water 11 you in", heck ya im in.

After the long day of all mountain shredding yesterday, the sun came out this morning and decided to let a bunch of us have some fun on the side of an old grass hill. Old school slalom was the name of the game. One of the boys picked up a bunch of flags from home depot for $6 (steal) set up a little course and bam slalom done! This was some of the most fun racing you could have for the cost and makes for some wicked sliding and drifts on little bikes. The awsome thing about this is when you crash nothing really happens you just sorta roll, well... some of the boys hit hard but thats how its goes. Everyone was just opening it up, no one was really using brakes which made for some awsome racing to watch. I dont think that one heat of racing went by where you weren't yelling or going OHHH YAAA!

After a few warm up runs I ended up qualifying 2nd (didnt help that I tried to go really fast and alomst did a 180 in a corner but still nothing to smerk at because everyone was pinned). Working my way threw the field I made it to the final heat and went on to take the first win in a series of slalom races here.

Wicked fun today! Drifting, Sliding, Crashing, Racing it all makes up for an amazing day with buddies and was super easy to get going.
I would suggest that everyone should get one of these tracks going.

Drew Out!

Andrew Mitchell wants you !!

Epic all Mountain ride today with the local super d race stars here in Victoria, BC.

Started out nice and slow with some sick single track all the way to the top of the hill, it was super cloudy in the parking lot but the rain held off until we reached the top of the climb. As I was climbing the flowy switch back single track on the way up, we would see a huge rock face and a few of us would attempt to be the king of the climb and get up and over the top. The conditions were super slick which made sliding down after not making it to the top a little sketchy... but good fun reminded me of trials moto riders trying to complete impossible stages.

As we got half way up the climb of course we had a mechanical. Someone's rear air shock burst! After he threw his bike of the nearest cliff, and then climbed down to retrieve it, us "engineers" discovered it to be a simple fix... but we needed a shock pump. So we sent a retrieval man to get one back at the parking lot. We arranged to meet up with him at the intersection of a crossing fire road and trail networks further on up the hill, so we pumped up the rear shock as much as we could with a tire pump and kept given'er.

FEW! this allowed me to back of the pace a little and save some energy to kick these guys asses down the the decent at the top!

The trail was just on the edge of hero traction today which made climbing dirt sections a breeze... (well sorta) after shredding some loamy single track about 20 mins later we met up with the retrieval crew. Even with all this going on I never saw a smile leave the packs face.

Finally we got to the top, only to loose a soldier (the dog). After some ear screeching whistles the mangy mutt showed up, haha! And we're off! I instantly attack the trail as others follow. I can hear them behind me which only makes me want to pedal harder out of every corner and let go of the brakes more and more.

We stop for a quick break only for one of us to hop in front of me in the of chance of crushing my recovery and slowing me down on the trail.

(It seems every time im out riding with this crew it's more of a mind game when your going reallly hard and pushing the limits of the trail and your fitness but thats what makes it fun is pushing those limits)

After making it down to the bottom of the hill, I thought we were going to be taking the easy road back, WRONG! Right back up another fricking huge climb. I laughed to myself as I knew I didn't have much left in the tank, but being competitive means sucking it up and pushing past alot of those thresholds. So I stayed in the middle of the pack on the climb up just to play it safe. As we reached to peak I pushed harder to try and drop every one and pull a big lead. I definitely got ahead but its a bit of a downer when the rest of every one comes out and there barley breathing and I am spent.

We continue on as I have the same tactics in hand I continue to empty the reserve tank out only to hear them catching me on the uphills, in between the flowy loamy corners and steeps. After the final decent there was a rush of happiness coming from every one realizing that the conditions and the riding together was an amazing day!

We headed back to the parking as I quickly cut off the trail to go up one last little pitch to hit the best corner on the hill at the moment, everyone continued on.

I came into the corner and shredded mud and dirt every where! Best way to finish an epic day of riding, I think.

Getting back to the parking lot, I noticed everyone was soaked head to toe because it had been pouring down rain for the last hour, but we hadn't even noticed.

All together it was around a 3 hour ride of Ripping apart flat corner after flat corner and pushing my lactic threshold to a new level(great for training).

Andrew Mitchell Out!