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Slopestyle reinvents the wheel

The future of the sport on display at expression session For years, the worlds top freeride mountain bikers have toiled in the shadows, emerging every so often to appear in fat tire movies and race in sanctioned events like downhills and biker crosse

The future of the sport on display at expression session

For years, the worlds top freeride mountain bikers have toiled in the shadows, emerging every so often to appear in fat tire movies and race in sanctioned events like downhills and biker crosses.

All of that changed last Saturday night with the first annual Shimano Saint Slopestyle Expression Session on a special course built at the base of Whistler Mountain. With an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 spectators looking on, a dozen of the world’s top freeriders made their way down the course, riding the wall, dropping off stunts, hitting a series of four gap jumps, and airing out over a huge spine to an off-camber transition almost 35 feet away.

For Joyride organizers Chris Winter and Paddy Kaye, the goal was to provide the freeriders with a venue to show off their unique skills.

"As things stand now, where else are you going to go to check out these guys riding?" said Winter. "Nowhere. There are a few small events in the U.S., and there are the Red Bull events in Australia and Utah with huge cliff drops, but this was kind of unique. The format complemented both the dirt jumpers as well as the freeriders, all different styles."

Winter and Kaye plan to make the slopestyle an annual part of the Whistler Summer Gravity Festival, aware that they have essentially created a new mountain bike event with huge potential.

"I was talking to Darren Berrecloth who has competed in the X-Games and the Red Bull events, and he said this was the best event he has competed in," said Winter.

"Next year we’re not going to get the nationals again, so we’re going to have to figure out exactly where Joyride is going to stand in all of this. We definitely have big plans for the future."

The slopestyle featured 12 of the top riders in the sport, with each rider getting two runs in the qualifier, followed by one run in the finals. The panel of judges gave each rider a score out of 10, which was averaged out.

The last rider of the day was Berrecloth, who also scooped up the first ever Shimano Slopestyle Expression Session title with a score of 9.375.

Berrecloth put his BMX skills to the test, wheelie-dropping off the top stunt, and pulling a nice 360 off the green box. He opted for the Shimano Saint drop over the wall next, landing smoothly. With a full head of steam, he hit the spine gap and pulled off a huge, stylish superman before landing cleanly.

"Basically, I just went for it," said Berrecloth, who hails from Vancouver. "One of the benefits of being last is that you get to see what everyone else does, and you only go as hard as you have to to win. You just see what people do off different obstacles and you try to go one better."

Berrecloth had nothing but good things to say about the Slopestyle format.

"This is the future right here. This is the next X-Games event. The skaters, the BMX jumpers, they can’t go this big, and the crowd was totally into it," he said.

Watching Whistler’s Gareth Dyer crash and be carried off in a stretcher in the first run of the finals was tough for the athletes up top, said Berrecloth.

"I felt bad for (Matt) Hunter who had to go after him, it’s always bad karma for the next rider. It sucks that this kind of thing happens sometimes, but you’ve got to shrug it off and focus on what you need to do, even if you are feeling a little freaked out."

Berrecloth won a $2,000 prize for first place, plus a $1,200 watch for the Loose Cannon Award, a rider-judged award going towards the best jump of the day.

Second place went to Eric Porter of the U.S., who pulled backflips and even a 360 over the gap jumps. He earned a score of 8.25.

Third went to Whistler’s Richie Schley. Considered one of the originators of the freeride sport, the crowd was definitely happy to see Schley continuing to push the enveloped. He went for the wall drop and the spine gap on both of his qualifier runs, going big and landed solidly on both. On his run in the finals, he stunned the crowd with a huge Nothing – no hands and no feet – over the spine gap. That was good enough for third with a score of 8.025.

Cameron McCaul of California is still young at 16-years-old, but his 360 and backflips show that he is on his way to great things. He tied for fourth with a score of 7.875 with Thomas Vanderham.

Vanderham opted for big airs all the way down on his final run, pulling out a huge tail whip off the wall and pulling a Nothing of his own over the spine gap.

Aaron Chase of the U.S. was sixth, starting off with a 360 off the log drop at the top of the course. He followed up with a 180 spin onto his rear tire on the green box, but didn’t land it cleanly. He redeemed himself on the gap jumps, however, and finished in sixth with a 6.75.

Matt Brooks and Wade Simmons finished seventh and eighth with scores of 6.75.

Although Simmons was still healing from a serious injury last season and rode a little more subdued, he managed to show why he is still number one in the freeride world. He rode up the bridge behind the wall towards the big drop, but instead of going off the end, he decided to jump off the bridge and ride the wall down.

Matt Hunter was ninth, John Cowan 10 th , Gareth Dyer 11 th and Kyle Ritchie 12 th .

Cowan has to get special mention for getting the crowd going. He fell on his first attempt to land a backflip over the bottom gap jumps, but, urged on by the crowd and the other riders he kept hiking back up until he landed the trick cleanly on the first jump, and almost made it around on the second gap. It put him well over the one minute time limit for the course imposed by the judges, but Cowan looked like he wanted to land the trick more than he wanted to win the contest.

Special mention also has to go to Kyle Ritchie, a 15-year-old from Squamish who was solid in the qualifier, but had a crash over the gaps in the finals and didn’t finish his last run.

The same goes to Whistler’s Gareth Dyer, who attempted a huge backflip over the spine gap, and broke his arm when he landed slightly sideways. Most people agreed that the flip, more than 25 feet off the ground, could easily have put Dyer in first.

It was a rough day for Dyer, who had his competition bike stolen the day before the contest, and rode the course on his hard tail. Cody Swansborough and Berrecloth also had bikes stolen.

With more than 100 members of the mountain bike media in attendance, including several film crews, you can expect to see a lot of footage from the contest over the next year.