A sport the British are actually decent at? It’s only a matter of time.

The racing season begins with the usual suspects and a few new faces. We were all surprised not to see Mark Horacek making an appearance after good pre-season form utilizing his shuttle taxi.

There’s a Chocolatefoot league on Dirt’s Dirt Fantasy League – a URL that sounds much more exciting than it is – http://dirtfantasyleague.com if you’ve not joined already.

Password is “Kraken” for entry.

It’s good to see the footage getting another step up in the quality stakes this season, judging by the various websites covering the events alongside Freecaster. Rob “Murray Walker with Swearing” Warner is still in the booth, with Alex Rankin cutting together a few clips.

Good combo I reckon.

Any predictions? I think there will be some racing and some crashes.

Munich Lupine from Big Col on Vimeo.

I emailed them to see if they’ll do a digital download version. Who buys DVDs these days?

This is the followup to Home, the other video I’ve also not seen:

Harper Mountain from Jon Hadfield on Vimeo.

Various riders, jolly good times. Especially the sundown slide down the gravel pit just outside town. This is super steep, but totally rideable. You just lean back, and let it roll. We witnessed a Brett Tippie masterclass – he gapped about 30ft down it at warp speed and carved his way to the bottom.

Then we carved our more standard lines. The darker lines are the slow folks. One of those is mine.

Lines at Kamloops Gravel Pit

The following day we were back at Harper after a few laps of Rio, in time to catch some golden laps of the mountain.

What? Where?

Watch the video. Note he gets blitzed by the rider in front he’s supposed to be head camming, who’s probably not Greg Minaar. Then look at how many places you’d grab a fistful of those 200mm rotors, or flip yourself into the trees.

Then add a metre of rain.

Then race it.

You lose.

Craig Bullen 2009 edit from Taylor Loughran on Vimeo.

Here’s a video of a friend of mine Craig Bullen – another ex-pat Brit lining up for residency handouts here in Canada. He’s living the dream in Squamish, and recently had his 15 minutes of fame. Slick moves, Captain.

Fun in the woods from NSXSKI on Vimeo.