Garrett Robertson 2012 Season Recap

It's hard to believe another season has already flown by. As fall comes to an end I am always ready to take a breather, kick back, relax and try to let my body start to mend itself. Of course every year is the same and within a couple of weeks of snow falling I'm itching to get back on the bike and do it all over again.


I was fortunate enough to start 2012 off early with a trip out to supersessions at Woodward West in march. I had never been to woodward before and it was a last second trip but I was giggling like a school girl the whole drive down and the whole time I was there. If you haven't been you need to find time to go, period. It was a great opportunity to brush off the cobwebs for me and I was back and riding my best within hours. My highlight of this trip was probably learning flairs, something I'd wanted to do for quite sometime but never had an overly safe environment to try for the first time.



Right after getting back from woodward the snow had melted back home and I got to put what I had learned to the test while filming a fun video with Virtu Media. It was given the fitting name, It's Spring Bro!




Next up for me was my first trip to Green River Utah. My tires have touched Utah soil before, but never in Green River and I couldn't have been more excited. We had a great crew for the trip and were going down to shoot for Virtu Media's "Shifted". Anthony Evans, Spencer Graf, myself and of course Matt and Eric from Virtu all loaded up the cars and got underway. Our first week there everyone built non stop, sun up to sun down everyday. By the end of the week we had so many lines and jumps built we weren't sure if we'd even have a chance to ride them all. Unfortunately that is exactly what happened, the weather turned on us and the sky's opened up. Our timeframe to film got cut down big time and I managed to break my foot on the first day of riding to top it all off. However Anthony was still shredding hard and fast every glimpse of sunlight and Spencer rode one of the gnarliest rock lines I've ever seen. It was nice sitting back and watching the boys thrown down for the camera. I owe a big thank you to Ns Bikes for making the trip happen, I can't wait to get back and get redemption.


So the foot made me miss Jamie Goldmans UDUG2012 which was a big bummer to say the least but I was determined to get back on the bike and make it happen for ranchstyle the next week. I wasn't 100% by any means but when I was riding it was pretty easy to forget about. I ended up putting together a decent run including a frontflip on the last jump which put me in 9th place. You can read my full trip report on my blog here...


Shortly after ranchstyle is was straight back to colorado for the teva mountain games, I struggled in both my runs and ended up having silly crashes in qualifiers which stopped me from moving on. I was very dissappointing but was ready to send it for the best trick. I ended up taking the win with a 360 double tailwhip which definitely turned the weekend around. Im stoked to be heading out for the winter games on feb 8-10th and can't wait to throw down over the big snow jump!


After a bit of a break until July, the rest of the season happened very fast. Wam Bam Jump Jam, Highland Claymore Challenge, Colorado Freeride Fest, and Center of Gravity all came back to back weekends. My favorite event had to be Highland. In the week I had there I learnt hip flips, 360's off drops, and my new favorite trick, Lawn dart frontflips. I felt like I had a really great run but ended up a couple places off from finals, next year I'll be back for sure and with a vengeance, haha! Highland is seriously an amazing place to ride though and another mountain that should be on everyones places to go list.




Center of Gravity! I was thrilled to be back for the event this year and it falls on my birthday! Plus, it's in Kelowna so it always feels like its my own personal next level birthday jam. The crouds are awesome, all the riders are out throwing down and if im lucky I'll get to show off for Harrison's mom. That's a winning combination. It's a pretty short, tight course with a drop then 2 dirt jumps but I got to try out more of what I'd learned at claymore and put together a run good enough to win the best line. I ended up 360'ing the drop followed by a lawn dart frontie and finally a tailwhip on the last jump. I had an absolute blast riding with everyone and hope I can be back for next years event.



Dreamland Jam, yep need I say more? Ton of riders from all over BC throwing down, big jumps and this year we had the kind folks from redbull there to capture it on film. Check it out!



Finally my last trip of the season, and it was definately a good one. At's Showdown has to be one of the most fun events of the year. With head to head elimination you only get one run to make it happen and you have to do it 5 times in a row if you want to make it to the final round. It's such an unpredictable contest you never know what will happen and all the riders have huge smiles on there faces the whole time. The highlight for me was doing my biggest lawn dart frontie yet off the first jump and I was stoked to have my liquid image video goggles on for the shot and Ian Hylands was there to snap this fantastic photo too.


My POV



The trip wrapped up at woodward west for the 2012 mountain bike weekend. A ton of shredders showed up to ride and I think its safe to say that everyone had an awesome time. We were blessed with great weather and tons of riding from the hanger to the dirt jumps and megatrails. I learned a bunch of new stuff while I was there and even started to figure out how to ride park which has definitely not been a strong suite of mine in the past. I'll be spending more and more time at woodward this next season forsure. It's impossible not to have a fantastic time riding and learning while hanging out with all of the friendly staff and coachs.


Looking back i'm really happy with how my season went this year. I seem to be developing a habit of getting injured in the spring right before everything really starts but I've been lucky enough to keep them minor as well. Above all the main thing I think I did in 2012 was learn how to compete if that makes any sense. Riding in competitions back to back throughout the summer has really helped me develop a stable of tricks that I can do with more consistancy and can work them into most courses now while maintaining a good variety along the way. I can't wait to put what I've learnt to use in the fast approaching 2013 season. I'd like to give a big shout out to Jason Moore, Dariusz Trybocki, Stephane Belanger, Eric Davies, Mike Dutton, Jake Kinney, Chris Oliver, Harry Robertson, Jim Bostock, Stacey Sbolci, Rob Cochrane, Glenn Laplante, Anthony Evans, Matt Butterworth, Eric Marciniak and of course all my friends and family. You've all helped make 2012 a fantastic season and I am forever grateful.


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Lama Cycles
Deity Components
Spank Wheels
Outbound Cycle
@grobertson90

Photo Cred:

Lee Trumpore
Nic Genovese
Kyle Hamilton
Liam Mullany
Paris Gore
Ian Hylands
Tess Buckley
Mike Zinger