craigowl

Its really easy to be an armchair judge and we all have our favorites and our opinions. Many runs are so different and really difficult when you see the judges compare them side by side. With that said, the judging does need to be changed. The current process allows itself to have a dominant personality/opinion override the more passive voices. Most other subjective judged formats that have five judges will have all five score independently with the high and low scores discarded and the final three averaged for a final score. This does not eliminate bias, but certainly alleviates it to some extent.

I ride a Giro Switchblade which has a removable chin guard, it is DH certified and works extremely well for me as an amateur rider. Without the chin guard it provides extra protection and warmth during the winter months over a basic helmet and for enduro racing you can remove the chin guard for climbing on warm days. It may not be the best 3/4 or best full face but ticks a lot of boxes and meets the highest safety spec including MIPS and in my opinion definitely worth a look.

There is still much "old school" money and influence in the lower South Island. People with nothing better than try and keep those "evil" MTB'ers out. The truth is Victoria for having half the Island population (almost 500K) and is at best the 4th best riding area on the Island, but the one with the greatest potential. Other communities have embraced the future and see the value in biking/mtb. In Victoria they have started building more urban pump tracks, which is great but the current ones are so inundated with young kids (which is also awesome) but where do the intermediate riders go who want more of a challenge? Yes, the CRD allows MTB to share space in the landfill (thank you) but that is not exactly easily accessible (no bus service) so if you are 16 or above and own a vehicle great. The city itself has so much remarkable green space where urban trail/features could be built and encourage safe progression but everything just gets completely closed out. What would be wrong with the odd sanctioned trail, can you think of a healthier activity for youth to be involved in, seriously? I know I am rambling but thanks for sticking with me on this, I have three boys who ride, who are passionate/obsessed with mtb, and as result they love their bikes and ride them everywhere because they can and because its responsible (they learned this in NZ, not in Canada). Now imagine looking at the long term, if we encouraged more kids/youth and made more accessible trails, this generation would grow up with a "bike first" mentality and would would be the benefit to the planet then? I am not suggesting that every green space needs to be inundated with MTB tracks but what is the harm with allocated one or maybe two trails with responsible builds? It is time to look beyond the simple mindset of today and look at the big big picture, the long term health of our planet, our people, and our children, and in the words of John Lennon "a world where we can live as one".........by the way my kids ride with packs and pick trash along the way and guess what they are mostly chip bags and beer cans not likely from the MTB crowd but from the "environmentally friendly hikers" with who we share the very few trails we have. Last note, I am not totally in favour of rogue builders as many do not know how to build sustainably and respect the land but for those that have ever "trail built" it is truly a spiritual experience where you become one with the earth and you do not want to destroy but only to create and enhance for all to appreciate. Thanks for sticking with me to the end on this one.

Sad to see Cam go as he was the only actual personality on the show, he was never going to win but was the only one who was remotely interesting when he spoke. Agreed he couldn't beat Bradley or Emmet but let's be real none of the other girls are even remotely close to Flo. Cam was bound to finish third but you could see he was at least attacking the course and giving it a legit go. Flo cruised knowing she just had to make it down safely and still smoked the other competitors.