 | | | | | | | | | | FRIDAY:
Woke up really early (jetlag) and went off to find the Coliseum, where the event was taking place.
We found it easy enough, but the event wasn't opening until 12 noon, so we went off to try and find some food. We ended up making it to this place called Henry's, which is a proper greasy spoon in every sense of the word. The place is amazing and has those old jukeboxes on every table which still play old 45s. Greasy fry-ups all round and we were feeling slightly less rough.
Got back to the event, and after securing press passes, had a mooch around the trade show bit, which was full of shiny mountain bike and wrap-around sunglasses. Yeti found a 'Yeti' mountain bike and posed for the camera (see pic) and Grant found a couple of rather apt signs (see t'other pictures). My personal favourite was the 'Who am I?' one. Grant also found out that his bag had rucksack straps and proceeded to run around with the thing on his back, which was hilarious, considering it was nearly as big as him. There's a pic of it somewhere, but I couldn't fit it in here.
The flatland area was already looking good, even though it was placed next to the unicycle trials area. That's right - unicycle trials! This was probably one of the funniest things I've seen in a long while (see pic). What were they thinking? They didn't seem to bother the flatlanders, though, who rode all weekend and provided a great place to hang out and chill.
We then went through to the street course, which was being held on the ice hockey pitch. The course looked great, but Mike hadn't yet registered, and we were all dubious as to whether he'd be allowed to compete or not, but he was soon spotted by Grotbags (the MC for the weekend, ho is, incidentally, 'orrible.) who took him off and sorted everything out. Cheers, Grotbags.
The rest of the afternoon was spent watching the amateur contest and trying to ignore Canada's Most Irritating Teenagers, who had decided to sit in front of us. I think we were being punished.
Most of the Ams were a bit duff, but there were definitely some that stood out. Grant was also on a mission to get some more overseas riders on Pretty Heavy (his clothing label), and before long we'd found a likely subject. He was wearing old school Vans and unnecessarily tight trousers and was riding with no pegs. His name turned out to be Ryan and is a really top bloke with a great riding style, and was pulling stuff that no-one else was and it's always nice to see someone do their own thing.
Here's a few tricks that he did that we liked - backside boneless on the sub, peddling air to fakie (treat) and massive roll-backs to slider 180, all done with great style. Ryan is also, rather ironically, totally straight-edge and never touches a drop, so it's good to see that there's someone out there who's balancing things out for what would otherwise be probably the most hardcore drinking team on earth. Grant's got his email address, so expect a wee interview in the next few days.
On Friday, we also hooked up with Dan, who does the Movement 'zine for the Toronto scene. Grant had spoken to him on email prior to coming over, but we had no idea what he looked like, so this resulted in shouting 'DAN!' every now and again to see if anyone turned round. We finally met him and we all ended up going out for tea together, which took ages 'cos Mike will only eat steak or burgers.
By this time I was waning fast, and only drank cola. We left the restaurant after a while 'cos there were a load of freaky guys screaming at the computer game.
On the way back to the hotel, Dan showed us this TV station that had a booth on the side. This thing was amazing. You put two dollars in a slot and then you have two mins in front of the camera and if they like what you do, they put it on the TV some time that week. I'm not sure if ours ever got broadcast, but it was fun making it. Can't imagine what Canada would make of Yeti and Grant's Scots rapping.
I was beat, so went to bed.
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