so another fast nz racer has announced his retirement. first JK (not from that band jamoroqui) retires, and now Alex Rankin has done.
he is certainly not old so i think its becuase he cant get anyone to pay him a fat enough check to ride so he is gonna go stack shelfs at the supermarket instead.
personally i think mr Ranking can see the future and its of much faster and younger riders in the main frame and no room for him anymore.

No we dont know if God exists or who cuts Mel Gibsons hair but the life long mission of whistlerdiaries and NZDiaries has been answered.

Yes thats right Duncan Riffle has spoken to us, we had to goto elaborate lengths to comunicate with the snappyest dresser in the US but after writing our questions on a postcard marked Santa and throwing into the steaming volcano at the top of mount doom, we have an answer.

Diaries: How do you keep your socks so high?

DR: Years of practice…constant attention, it all comes down to your dedication. How bad do you want it?

So there it is from the mouth of the riffelator himself, not quite what I was expecting, but definitely something for the diaries scholars to ponder.

Duncan also answered another of our questions to:

Diaries: Why does Decline magazine love you so much?

DR: Ha. I love Decline magazine. Maybe it’s a mutual plutonic love. I have known Scott Hart or maybe I should say Scott has known me since I literally first started racing. I ‘introduced’ myself by asking if he was in my class. I guess he found it rather funny that the little grom worrying if he had to race against him kept showing up at races and found his way all the way to where I am today. Shawn Spomer, Ralph, Mark Jordan, Scott, all those guys are super cool and have always shown there love. Thanks boyz.

So there we have it, I almost feel as if this website has now lost all purpose.

Big thanks to DW for making our dreams come true

SAM

Round five saw me drive all the way back down the country again, via the goat island, through the egg village, via pikey nun ville, past the art deco capital of the world!!11one and back down to levin.

The week saw me not ride at all because it was too hot, I kept up with traditions by drinking coffee siting around and asking people where to buy pedals.

Any hopes of riding on Thursday at levin were dashed when yet again they were doing course maintiance the day before the race, these people clearly never ran with the boy scouts. Anyway the usual course maintaince technique of cutting out interesting roots, making other bits more dangerous, ruining my sneaky lines etc was in full affect. Interestingly there is apparently a rule that the back side of a jump must be at 45degrees, quite how landing into a 45 degree slope instead of about a 70 degree one will help you when your coming up short on a 50ft double was not made clear, however it seemed to keep a few people busy and out of trouble for a while.

Course conditions where looking good on thursday, but when we woke up at our campsite/boyracer donut circuit on friday morning it was raining, this was about as welcome as a dead bunny at easter.


more to come when i rob an old lady to fund my internet habit

Right, just so people dont get confused, the following is from the NZ National Champs in Nelson that were held three weeks ago. Yes, thats a long time ago. Yes, we are slack. And yes, it seems odd to bother putting this up after a report on the following round? well, deal with it. We had been meaning to do a full report, but the weekend was too painful to think about so it got put on the back burner. Then the day I decide to actually pull my finger out, Sam wrote the report for Auckland, so instead of a full report here is a photo essay of crap photos I took with Adams MyFirstCamera.


Joe Barnes jumping 'The Forty Footer', which was actaully not even thirty feet long. For bonus info Hes jumping this switch footed.


Giant Glorys are ugly so i tried to beautify this shot of one. didnt work


Ebony and Ivory.


Another Tin Donkey.


Some dude who spends alot of time colour coordinating his attire.


The bit before the road crossing.Which way was faster? to the left off the log or to the right going low and across the log. Either way there was a huck to flat. strangely the landing looks really big and inviting but in real life it was pathetically small and mincy.


Uplift. Riders complained of not enough runs. The upligt dudes went on break whenever they fancied it regardless of actual race schedules. Trucks broke down. Trucks crashed into parked cars. It was hella dusty. and Sam had his shifter snapped off on the uplift on the way to his race run.


Dusty.


Sam on the step down at the finish.


Podium for Pro Elite.


My short lived 4x race. DQ'd a fraction of a second after this photo was taken.


Thanks to Ginger Si's mom and dad letting us stay for the weekend. Their hot tub was put to good use.

Posted by SEB

The course was good, although some of the modifications made the day before the race could only be described as "bizarre" digging your own braking bumps is a definite first. Much of the jump construction would best be described as pikey and someone definitely got a bit over zealous with the chainsaw.

Thankfully this track wasn't in England, otherwise health and safety would have
put a stop to the race before it had even begun, laying logs across the track? hello? anyway most of the logs rolled off when the more pedestrian of the riders hit them.

But despite my whinging I really enjoyed the track, fast, a bit loose and tricky enough to mean I didn't have time to smoke my Sherlock Holmes pipe or drink any tea on the way down, contrary to what any commentators had to say.

Riders wise the usual people looked fast and the other people looked slow, no surprises there, race results are available on some other website that you checked before you looked here anyway.

Joe Barneseses poomerow finally gave up the ghost with a bust main pivot, fortunately James shirley had put himself out of the game with a tree hugging incident so he hopped on James vp-free and promptly broke that too.

A quick note for Si Paton, I've broken another set of your pedals. Big thanks to the philanthropic James shirley for the lend of some pedals.

In other British news Alex stock seems to have recovered from his mauling by Pc Pooch with a solid result there.

Coming up shortly is the final round in Levin where I'll be keeping it realer than a Brazilian Bureau du Change (work that joke out if you can be bothered).

Back in the day if you wanted to impress the kids in your cul-de-sac all you had to do was a big fat skid down the drive way. Then things moved on and the skid didn't cut it anymore and the only way of showing off in front of the girls hanging out behind the bike sheds at was to pop a wheelie. Then the Hans Rey phenonmenon kicked in and you had to do back hops outside the off-license whilst Sid the local homeless dude was inside getting your bottle of Scrumpy. These moves were great to do because they made you feel like a super star amongst mere mortals, even if the truth is that you just looked like a big headed little show off.

So in an ever changing and fickle world it’s no surprise that the wheelie and the skid just don’t hold the same sort of kudos anymore. At the NZ nationals we noticed the emergence of the Car park Cuttie as the de riguer move for little bastards. It seems that after practice runs every young git with a full TLD outfit is expected to make his way back to fathers Merc doing a fish tail all the way through the car park.

It’s not big and it’s not clever. Every time a kid comes barreling through the car park doing cutties it throws up dust clouds that waft into your open car window, covers your sandwich in a thick layer of carpark crap, and which you later digest. To make matters worse impressionable young Adam has latched on to the craze. Instead of going riding he often spends half an hour having a cuttie session in our driveway.

So here is a detailed how-to on carpark cutties…

Step one: If you feel the need to do a car park cuttie then the first thing you need is a good length of rope.

Step two: Tie the rope in a knot and pass it over a tree branch.

Step three: Put your neck through the knot and jump.


Cutties, JUST DON’T DO IT!

Posted by SEB


That says it all really

News:
There is none.

Instead here is a photo. If you're really bored then please leave a caption in the comments below. Best one kills time.



ps. this is not photoshopped

vanessa quinn (aka VOQ or V-Quizzle or "whos that fit bird on the blue Intense?") broke her neck at recent NZ nationals. She did it in her seeding run when she hucked to flat and did a proper head banger on the bars.

The Collective has received one of action sports films highest honors by winning the “Best Director” Award from the X-Dance Action Sports Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Why it should recieve an award for gnarly dancing is beyond me. Maybe i havent found the secret bonus section where the Claw takes it to the dancefloor.

Whilst out riding around in the wilds of cyberspace in my G-wagon i came across a rumour that Nico Vouilloz will be returning to competitive downhill racing. Just to remind everyone Nico comes from a time where grown men like Steve Jones had the choice between the rough and rugged Shaun Palmer or the nice boy Nico Vouilloz for their wet dreams. It was like the choice between beating off to the Spice Girls or All Saints.

I sent him an email to find out for real.....
Nico Hi are you the real Jill Kintner? :-) the 4x star? Amazing season congratulations!
NZDiaries.com No sorry Nico its NZDiairies.com. I had a shit season, thanks for reminding me arsehole! Anyway whats le 411?
Nico Yes I will be present on 2 WC events, probably WC2 and 5! I will also compet in rally car in a new IRC serie (like european championnish) I really do that for fun and challenging myself! After 4/5 years, it should be really difficult to come into top 5! The top guys, specially Sam look very fast...
NZDiaries.com Do you mean Angry Sam Gothorp?
Nico Have a good season! Bye Nico"

Steve Peat bust his ankle doing street riding...[GROAN]...apparently he wasnt doing an Abubaca on a plant pot (have you seen Aaron Chases section in NWD7!! no? GOOD!), in fact he was doing some stair hucks with Brendon Fairclough. WTF? Surely thats not condonned in the Team Honda G-cross training manual?

posted by SEB