Saturday 6 April 2013

The Brits

Last week we got some time off work and took a trip over to France, firstly to Tignes for the Brits, and then over to Morzine for the PBRJ. It was a LONG drive over to Tignes, we got a ride over with Charlie Rowland, but unfortunately took the wrong route and ended up driving up a wiggly Italian mountain road that eventually turned into a piste...the sat nav didn't warn us it was a summer road! 12 hours later we got to Tignes at about 2am!


Tuesday morning was the first event I was entering, the Bangers & Cash Rail Jam. In true Sabrina style, even though I got up in plenty of time, I still managed to go the wrong way and get there late and the first round had already started! There was 15 minutes left, but luckily I got my safety tricks down first time and got myself through to the finals! :) 

An hour or so later, the finals started. It had started snowing even more by this point, which made it a bit hard to see, but that didn't matter too much as it was a Rail Jam. The setup was really fun, there was a short channel gap box into a down rail/box. There was about 5-10m between the two features which was just enough time to get stable and ready to hit the second feature. This was really fun, as I havn't hit many features like this, so it was a nice challenge. I was really happy as I got some nice combos, like switch tail slide on the box, to front blunt on the down rail. And also some switch ups on the first to switch back blunt on the down rail. I've been working on my switch tricks a lot this past year, so it was a good time to mix it up.
There was also a gap to wall ride feature to hit, so once we worked out the speed for that, or should I say once Katie (Blundell) worked out the speed, I also started hitting that :) I got a nice stalefish to wallride on my second hit which I was pleased with.  I ended up in 3rd place, winning 50 euros, some Skull Candy headphones and a Penny skateboard :)



After a super snowy day, I was ready to have a rest before slopestyle on Thursday. Nathan was planning on doing slopestyle (skiing) on wednesday, and it turned out to be absolutely bluebird!! Unfortunately he was too late to enter on Wednesday morning, but managed to get into a French Slopestyle on the X-games course instead, which he was equally stoked on and rode really well, spinning both ways on the BIG X-games jumps! Chloe (Hardy) did manage to enter the ski slopestyle in time, and came out 3rd overall!! Well done Chloe!!

Thursday was slopestyle, and it decided to dump with snow again! woopeee!! We got up to the course and couldn't see a thing! I even fell down the side of  a mound just riding slowly through the course! In the end they decided to just do the last kicker and the two rails after, which was the best we could do in the conditions. I was happy in practice as I did some front 3's on the largest jump, which I usually wouldn't want to do in such snowy flat light conditions. I don't think anyone would have attempted to ride park that day if it wasn't for the comp! Unfortunately I fell in my qualifying run so didn't get into the finals. But I was still pleased, as last year my goal was to spin on the big jumps, rather than straight airing them and spinning on the mediums. :)


Charlie Rowland rode really well in the men's finals, stomping 2 really clean runs! Cork 7 japan, to blind switch up through the gap box, to front 1 on, cab 3 off the donkey dick!! Unfortunately he just missed out on the podium, but we were all super stoked for him landed such a good run in such harsh conditions. Well done Charlie. I was really impressed with how well everyone rode in so much snow, all the girls were spinning the big jump in finals, and Katie ended up in 1st place! :)

So then, it was off to Morzine for the Volcom Peanut Butter Rail Jam European finals!!! 

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