#boarderx

We’re going all listicle for what happened at Round two of the ATBA-UK International Series at The Edge in Shropshire on the 18 & 19th June 2011.

Top Five Reasons To Have Been At The Edge

It’s a Centre that doesn’t get enough love from the mountainboarders.

It was World Mountainboarding Day.

Fly-bys.

Breakfast in a box.

Renny Myles was there.

Top Six Genius Ideas of The Weekend

Old-skool MBS decks

Toed-in and out wheels.

Hybrid boards.

Dressing like Matt Brind.

Having more battery for your Go-Pro.

Outside Lines.

Top Seven BoarderX Best Bits

Ryan Bunting tooling up to stab the other riders on the way down the track.

Richard Fisher’s smooth whip-round the pile up in the first berm.

Simon Neck jumping over James Wanklyn.

Max Rye showing true Pro BX skills.

Jonny Wheeler coming 2nd in his first comp.

Rachel La Roche coming first after thinking of dropping out.

Raph finally on the BX podium after eleven years.

Top Eight Injuries Of The Weekend

Ian Williams breaking his arm (ouch, seriously. Get well soon).

Rory faceplanting off a rail.

Dunstan ending up on the bottom of a four-man first berm pile-up.

Max Rye with his magic dislocating/reloacting kneecap.

Phil De havilland-hall knackering his achilles tendon.

Mark Adams with the ‘now I look ‘ard’ swollen lip.

Andy Milenkovic’s back looking like he won’t be laying down for a week.

Andy Brind getting concussed every time he steps on a mountainboard.

Top Nine Freestyle Factors

Piers ‘Stromtrooper’ Sutton going big.

Lisa getting the backflip and only just over-rotating a rodeo.

Tyrone pulling boned-to-the-max nose grabs

Chris Horsley’s too smooth bs cork five, backflip and frontflip.

Tom ‘the man with no pain threshold’ Sharp nailing a rodeo.

Sam ‘he’s got springs in his legs’ Nicholas boing-ing back-to-back backflips.

A beautiful laid-out backflip from Leo (we should have seen more).

Angry Andy nailing an awesome backside cork seven.

Simon Neck attempting a barrel roll.

Top Ten Highlights Of The Weekend

Riding The Wrekin Friday night with Goofy & Mutley in total darkness, rain and thick fog (ok, that was just my highlight).

Spending World Mountainboard Day with a truly awesome bunch of people.

Dancing on top of vans.

The sun shining just when we needed it.

The coincidental arrival of an ice cream van.

Noggin’s Heli-cam.

Meeting the most awesome medic in the world.

Ben Searles’ life flashing before his eyes as Joe Leonard drifts wide on a five.

Ending the freestyle jam with a Pro train.

And finally… Getting the Results up Sunday night!

  For media including ace vids & more great photos follow the links Ben Rye’s video Ben Searle’s video Simon Neck’s video Emlyn Bainbridge’s video Noggin’s Heli-cam video Mountainboarding’s Facebook media page photo gallery Theo Acworth’s full Facebook photo gallery

Thanks to all at The Edge, ATBA-UK, the sponsors, and everyone at the event. Photos copyright Andy Rolfe

Originally published on Remolition.com

MENIL’DESCENTE – BOARDERCROSS DE PARIS LE 4 OCTOBRE

MENIL’DESCENTE – BOARDERCROSS DE PARIS LE 4 OCTOBRE

L’asso RiderZ avec le CDRS75, la Ligue IDF FFRoller et le 20e arrondissement de Paris présente le 2ème Boardercross skateboard et roller de Paris : Ménil’Descente !

Les inscriptions seront en ligne dimanche 13 septembre à 22h sur www.riderz.net pour le Skateboard

Fermeture des inscriptions le 01/10/15

Planning : Boardercross de 8h à 16h30 et le…

Rode Ironsides Court Farm BoarderX Track today with Raph, Simon, Duncan and Morris. The ‘Orange Run’, as it’s known, is a comfortable bx track with the usual rollers and berms. I’m not really into riding boarderx but it was a nice ride, and a great place to be on such a nice day.

After an awesome weekend of some of Scotland’s best mountainboarding we finished off with a chilled session at Perth’s BX track.

How many ways are there to go round a corner on a mountainboard? The answer is lots

But to start with let’s think of a corner as having nine points on it. Three of them are on the outside edge, one at start of the corner, one at the apex, and one at the end. Let’s call them A, B and C. And then we have the same along the inside edge of the corner. Let’s call them D, E, and F. Now, let’s add another three points that follow the middle of the corner and call them G, H and I, and draw all the connecting lines.

Those nine points can be joined up like this:

Which gives us:

A, B, C

A, B, I

A, B, F

A, H, C

A, H, I

A, H, F

A, E, F

A, E, I

A, E, C

D, B, C

D, B, F

D, B, I

D, H, C

D, H, I

D, H, F

D, E, F

D, E, I

D, E, C

G, B, F

G, B, I

G, B, C

G, H, F

G, H, I

G, H, C

G, E, F

G, E, I

G, E, C

Those nine points give us 27 different ways to go round a corner.

So, what the point of all this? Surely we just ride into a corner, go round it, come out of it and carrying on riding, right? Is it really worth thinking about your line? What are the benefits?

There are two benefits to choosing your line round a corner; speed and control.

Taking a corner at the maximum speed is all about getting it as smooth as possible. In motor sports, the ‘racing line’ would be A, E, C as it’s the shortest line though the corner (rather than going round it), and on some corners that would work just fine. But on a boarderX track this might not be the case. As berms are built to hold the rider on the track following the central line of G, H, I might be the faster line. But, out freeriding on a loose surface might mean that taking the widest line of A, B, C might be fastest as we don’t slide.

Control is all about being able to put your board exactly where you want it, to be able to come out of a corner on the best line for the next feature or obstacle. Remember, line out is more important than line in, so if we want to exit the corner at point I we have nine lines to follow. If we knew we were going too fast to get round the corner we might go D, B, I and lose some speed by going out wide. Or maybe we came into the corner on the G, H, I line but a rider had fallen in front of us so we had to go G, B, I. And, of course, this is all based on the perfect corner, but in the real world the track might narrow at the exit of the corner so that F, I, and C are all in the same place. Then we really need to consider our line in to make the exit clean.

So, regardless of whether we have a berm to help us get round the corner or not, choosing the right line can be really useful for maintaining speed, loosing speed, avoiding obstacles (and other riders), or even just making it round the corner. As every corner is different, it’s up to you to decide what you think is the best line to take (and if you’re a boarderX racer, practice every line).

It’s lucky there are so many corners in the world.

I’ve seen quite a few mountainboard competitions over the years, seen things riders do that gives them a competitive edge and seen the mistakes they’ve made. Maybe a bit of thinking about how to approach riding in a comp, and what to focus on to improve your riding might help.

BoarderX

Get out the gate first and fast. Watch the other good riders and learn from how they pull out. Being in front of other riders not only gives you the obvious racing advanatge but it has a psychological advantage too.

Get good at pumping. BoarderX races are won or lost over rollers so learn how to pump as smoothly and efficiently as you can.

Get round berms fast. Berms usually slow riders down, especially when there are other riders also trying to get round it. The outside line is usually the smoothest and fastest, but sometimes the shorter but slower inside line can get you in front. Learn to judge which line is going to be the fastest and look for gaps in between the other riders.

Practice every line. Most riders just ride their preferred line when they’re on their own. Practice coming out of each gate in turn and follow that line down the track, just as if you had other riders in your way.

Ride close. Practice the track by riding really close to your mates, not trying to beat each other, just trying to stay as close as possible the whole way down the track so you get used to having other riders right next to you.

Freestyle

Go big. Big and stylish beats small and technical, so get good at jumping and then add the tricks.

You won’t impress the judges by keep trying the same trick again and again. If you don’t get it, move on to another trick.

If you know the jumps get yourself a set of tricks that work well on that set up. What works well over two big jumps won’t work on a slopestyle with four smaller jumps and a quarter, so tailor your set to the jumps.

Variety is good. Don’t just learn to 360 one way, learn all four, and then learn them with grabs. And if you don’t have that many tricks change the order that you do them.

Find your trick. There are loads of tricks that never get used in competition. Pick one of those and get good at it. It’ll make the judges notice you.

Downhill

Walk the track. Look at from a riding perspective and plan you lines.

Get a safe run first. And then go a little bit faster to get your time down a bit. Doing that is better than trying to go as fast as possible every run as you don’t give yourself the chance to learn the track.

Tuck. Learning to speed tuck properly (or at least as properly as you can on a mountainboard) will make a huge difference to your time.

Sliding out kills your time. Avoid it at all costs. So if there’s a part of the track that gets you every time slow down before you get there rather than keep trying to get through it at the same speed.

Learn to tic-tac. If you do slide out you need to get back on your wheels and up to speed as quickly as possible. With no rollers to pump like a BX course, tic-tacing is the best way to gain speed from a standing start.

Competition riding is all about smoothness, which comes from time spent on a board. Practice makes perfect. Unless you practice the wrong thing, in which case you become perfectly wrong. Practice the right thing.