Jamaica, Jamaica, Jamaica. 4th time to Jamaica and I can officially say I have finally laid out at the beach. hahaha. Ridiculous, I know. This trip was a little different than years past, there were essentially two parts to the trip, a project for the Jamaican Tourism Board without bikes and a week of bike fun (also for the the JTB) with the Jamaican Fat Tyre Festival. I feel like so much has happened since Jamaica, which it has. It’s kinda been a whirlwind of bikes and rad trips and I take way too many photos that sorting through them is a mission and a half when you constantly on the go…soooo I will let the photos and Dennison’s Vlogs tell the story. I will post the videos series we made for the JTB as they are released!
Yessss. So stoked to go back to Jamaica for the Jamaican Fat Tyre Festival. The festival isn’t till next week but Matt Dennison and I are headed there this week to get some ‘work’ done and check out some other hot spots.
You have probably seen lots of my photos from the making of this on my Instagram…but now the edit is live with a nice little write up from Shorty. Check it out on Pinkbike.
(This is 1/5 of a larger project that we are working on, interested in being a part of it? Email me.)
A few weeks back I went out to Orcas Island with some of my favorite girls and Paris, a boy and very talented photographer. ha. The NW is a hot bed of talented girls on bikes and Paris and I wanted to get a handful of those girls together for a photo trip, so that’s what we did…Jill Kintner, Katherine Short, Katrina Strand, Sarah Leishman and myself! It turned out to be a pretty awesome couple of days. We rented a cabin right on the beach, rode, shot photos and bonded! Fun time. Look for the article in the Spring issue of Freehub.
WOW. This is sooo cool. I am so stoked to be featured in the trailer for Female Wolfpack, a new website which features video of women’s action sports. I think Rachael Burks has a great thing going here…!
As if we got to ride our bikes at this place, but we did. I felt like I was about to get sacrificed to the gods of something while I was riding but it was pretty cool. If Super Mario land existed in real life, this would probably be it.
After spending some time up at Nevado de Toluca, we cruised down to Metepec which just recieved the designation as a ‘Magic Town’. Part of promoting this new designation was a live Televisa broadcast with our bike loving crew (us, a moto trials guys and a bike trials guy). Anyway, we did an urban segement here in Metepec and we also made a few stunts in the city park, the most notable of which was the hole (see the video). Basically when we were scouting the park, Chase and Witek found this hole/cave thing…poop hole. Hahaha it was totally cool because it was one of a kind but I would want a hazmat mask to spend more than a few minutes in there. Hahaha. It is pretty much a cave/tunnel but you can drop into the hole from the top and they were bound and determined to make it happen, so thats what we did. I didn’t do the hole, I really, really wanted to do it but after seeing the success/failure rate (right around 50/50), I decided to pass. It was a super technical drop with little to no margin for error…you have to hip drop in blind like 8-10 feet and you have to be lined up perfectly to avoid hitting the sides…and then once you land you have to stop before hitting your head on the cave…which happend to nearly everyone. Rad, but not my cup’o tea. I have quite a few more videos coming but these photos and videos can keep you entertained for now. :)
Wow, this trip has been so awesome! Like I said in the last post, this trip was super last minute but sometimes those are the best kinds of trips. I didn’t really come here with expectations as I honestly didn’t really know exactly what I was doing. I didn’t even know who was coming! Less than 24 hours after arriving we got thrown into a full production and it was pretty freaking cool. In the end we ended up shooting 2 mornings of live Televisa broadcasts, the morning show and a sports show, and a bunch of other stuff which wasn’t/will not be aired live but rather for other other programing.
This Volcano we were in, Nevado de Toluca was pretty incredible. So beautiful and sooooo fun. The Mexican government was a major player behind this project so the Govenor of Mexico came out to see us ride and some of the other athletes do their thing! It was crazy there were policia everywhere and snipers and all sorts of crazy stuff…insane security.
I am so thankful for this experience. This is the direction that I am working towards and to get to do this trip, right now with the boys was great. I learned so much following them and watching them and listening and learning. And they were so incredibly encouraging and stoked on everything I was doing. So cool. Couldn’t ask for a better crew. :)
Anyway, I will let the photos do the speaking on this one.
PS. Keep an eye out for one of our many GoPro edits dropping shortly.
Soooo I was planning on sticking around Utah for a few weeks to ride and shoot. BUT I got invited to Mexico to do something for Televisa so I pinned it to Seattle to drop off my car, unpack, do laundry, repack and fly out….here we go!!
I have traveled to Jamaica the past 2 years for the Jamaican Fat Tyre Festival. I feel like I talk about Jamaica way too much? Maybe I do. haha. Anyway, when I went to Jamaica for the first time two years ago I found out that they were getting the first BMX track in the Caribbean and I thought that was so cool. Basically USA Cycling put out a call for proposal from Caribbean countries and Jamaica won. By winning, they got a course designer, builder and a start gate and in return they had to lease the land, get the dirt, equipment etc. This all cool and everything but there was one minor problem….no bikes. Jamaicans love their bikes A LOT. But riding those bikes on a BMX track is not a good idea for many reasons. Sooo 2 years ago a submitted a proposal to Specialized’s First Gear program to get some bikes to Jamaica and it was accepted!!! So fast forward to present time….it has all come together. The track, the materials, the bikes, the grand opening celebration. SOOO COOL. I wouldn’t miss it for the world so I made the trek down there to see the track in real life, see all the bikes getting loved and also see a pretty public stoke of many Jamaican government officials.
Oh and its Jamaica so I couldn’t come and not get my shred on right! :)
I just want to thank Specialized for donating bikes and gear, Pro-Tec for helmets, the Oracabessa Foundation + Goldeneye for helping to fund this project Simon Dunne and Jonathan Gosse <- none of this would have happend without this guy!!!!
I first saw this line during Deep Summer but I only had my XC bike and an open face helmet and was not about to get wild on this thing. After Deep summer, I told Reuben Krabbe about how I wanted to shoot it so we devised a plan and thats what we did! Not gonna lie, I was pretty scared. It is a weird scared. I was sitting at the top of this thinking ummmmm Katie…..why are you doing this? I felt so vulnerable up there because you are sitting on this rock on what feels like the top of the world, surrounded by rock…and the line is totally blind dropping into it, you can’t see the rock till you are on it. I was totally trying to talk myself out of it. But at the same time I was sitting up there totally confident and excited. I had my line scouted, I knew what I had to do and I was real calm. Reuben shot from the Peak Chair (this is just an iphone shot from Kurt who was Mr. Walkie Talkie for the day) so that was kinda crazy…4 min, 2 min, 1 min, 30 sec, 10 sec. GO! hahaha. So stoked on it. :)
