Awesome Land: Women of Dirt

The teasers are up for the new Bones Over Metal film, Awesome Land: Women of Dirt! There are 25-second clips of Lisa Myklak, Tammy Donahugh, Katrina Strand, Cierra Smith, Leana Gerrard, Kathy Pruitt, Darcy Turenne, Dawn Cashen, Jill Kintner, Stephanie Nychka, Emily Johnston, and more available for your viewing enjoyment!

Enter Our Winter Training Video Contest!

You're done with school, have a few days off of work, are snowed in, or are rained out. What are you going to do? Train! And do it for a chance to win a $100 gift certificate to Freeride Foundation. Take that new digi-cam you just unwrapped and turn Granny's basement into your personal gym. Whether you get to ride all year, have to put the bike away in September, or turn into a compulsive gym rat as soon as Daylight Savings kills your post-work ride, we want to see how you're getting ready for 2009. Yes, you can literally bring the New Year in with a bang. Oh, and don't worry, we won't steal your workouts--we promise. Really.

The Details:
-Create a 2-3 minute video documenting your winter training regimen.
-Upload it to YouTube, think of a catchy title, and be sure to include "FreerideFoundation.com Training Secrets Video Contest" somewhere in the video's description.
-Then email the link to your video, your name, and your email and/or phone number to jackie@freeridefoundation.com.

Blog visitors will vote on the videos to determine the winner of the contest. Voting on the Blog will begin on Friday, December 26 and run through Thursday, January 8.

Video links can be submitted any time through January 8, but getting your entry in early will help you accumulate more votes!

-We will not post videos longer than 3 minutes, but if you can make us spew coffee on our keyboards in under 2 minutes, by all means go for it!
-Include your friends and family--you'll be able to divvy up the gift certificate if you win.
-Also, please keep all videos PG/PG-13.
-Anyone can enter, anyone can vote.

Here's our first entry, submitted through MarthaHucker.com.



Think you can do better? Let's see it!

Last-Minute Gift Ideas!

Pro procrastinators can put off ordering until Monday, December 22 up to 3pm MST, choose Express Shipping, and still get their gifts in time for Christmas! Not that we recommend walking that fine line, but if you're so pro that you're planning on procrastinating, there's still hope for you!

In addition to our Gravity Girls' Gift Guide, other smart gifts include The Way Bobby Sees It DVD, a Freeride Foundation Gift Certificate, and the 2009 Sea Otter Road Trip. You can order the Gift Certificate or Road Trip at the very last minute, because both gifts are emailed to the recipient.

Don't procrastinate beyond the 25th, though. The awesome deals found in the Gravity Girls' Gift Guide will disappear after Christmas Day!

Confused about sizes, colors, or which gift to choose? Give us a call (801.647.9167) and we'll help you out!

Movie Review: Latitudes

Freeride Foundation wants to help you stock your DVD case with rad riding movies. However, we're getting picky. We only want to sell and support production companies and films that support women riders. That's one of the reasons we brought in The Way Bobby Sees It--Wendy Todd was a co-producer and she played a large part in getting Bobby prepared for the race. Believe it or not, there are several movies from this year that include significant women's riding segments.

The first movie we're reviewing is DH Productions' hi-def film Latitudes. Lisa Myklak turned me on to this flick. She'd told me that she and Emily Johnston were at Woodward West, and were fighting for camera time. When the two girls decided to hit a huge gap jump, they immediately had everyone's attention. The resulting segment shows Lisa and Emily ripping singletrack with the guys, hucking off of Woodward's stunts, and of course, boosting the gap. While I still have a few more films to watch from this season, this segment strikes me as the most comprehensive women's gravity segment possibly since the Marla and Missy years.

Lisa and Emily aren't the only ones to get some air time. Hannah Hannah appears early in the film, riding with the Cannondale Cut crew. The only problem is that none of the riders in the segment receive credits. So, if you don't put 2 and 2 together and realize that Latitudes' main sponsor is Cannondale, and that Mick is a Cannondale Cut rider, and that the girl riding with them must be his ripping freerider wife Hannah, you'd be left wondering who this anonymous female shredder could be. The movie came with a second disc, which includes the Nomads TV show created from Latitudes' France riding chapter. Hannah is introduced here, but who watches Disc 2 first?

Amelia Colasurdo has a short but cool big-mountain-style segment from Southern Utah too. She's also the caboose on the Salt Lake City chapter's singletrack segments. She has a much larger role in the Nomads TV show created from the Southern Utah chapter, which is also found on the second disc.

As for the rest of the movie, there are impressive big mountain and dirt jumping performances from JD Swanguen and the Van Dines, and cool urban and dirt jump segments with Aaron Chase, Jeff Lenosky, Dave Smutok, and Kyle Ebbett to name just a few of Latitudes' featured athletes.

We're stoked to see a movie with more than one female rider and with girls showing up in several segments throughout the film. The industry has a long way to go to when it comes to incorporating ripping female riders into mountain bike films, but at least we're seeing some progress.

We're working on bringing Latitudes to Freeride Foundation, but in the meantime, you can grab a copy at DH-Productions.com.

Buy The Way Bobby Sees It on Freeride Foundation!

Just in time for chilly weather and shorter days, we're bringing in some sweet riding movies. The first movie to arrive is Poison Oak Production's documentary, The Way Bobby Sees It. We reviewed this movie earlier this year, and now you can own it. Or, give this inspirational DVD as a gift! It's perfect for anyone--whether or not they ride bikes.
Click here to buy your copy!

The Way Bobby Sees It: Laugh a Little

I’ve watched The Way Bobby Sees It, a documentary about Bobby McMullen’s preparations for the 2007 Downieville Classic downhill race, about eight times now and I have never been able to make it through the film without needing a Kleenex. The last time I saw it—with a group of guys from the cycling industry—Bobby was there and he was baffled, “Nobody ever laughs at the funny parts.” That’s because the movie’s so intense that the funny parts are the few times when you get a chance to take a breath.

Bobby McMullen is one of cycling’s most publicized disabled athletes. Not only is he an extremely talented rider, but he’s also a smart and hilarious guy whose day job is motivational speaking. Although Bobby is blind (20/1200 in his good eye), has received two double organ transplants, and has encountered more severe injuries from riding and skiing than most of us can comprehend, he literally lives to ride his bike. Bobby is a former Paralympian on the US Disabled Ski Team and races his downhill bike more often than many World Cup riders.

The opening scene sets viewer on edge, with Bobby’s guide calling out commands in a way that sounds desperate. The screen is black and the voices are loud and hurried. The irony is that these sounds are actually somewhat comforting to Bobby—the louder, more accurate, and more frequent the commands, the greater Bobby’s chances of staying upright. Then the mood changes a bit as Bobby reads his full-page spread Santa Cruz bikes ad. He’s wearing glasses that look to be more than an inch thick, and he nearly touches his face to the pages to read the text.

Filmmakers Wendy Todd and Jason Watkins do a phenomenal job of weaving Bobby’s personal story with gripping action shots from a Bobby’s helmet cam and a following camera. They also implement special effects to give us a sense of what Bobby may or may not be seeing as he rides. The Way Bobby Sees It is the second documentary from Wendy and Jason’s Poison Oak Productions. Their first film, Singletrack MINDS, examined the mountain bike culture of Marin County.

However, The Way Bobby Sees It puts these two into a completely new environment. Even though they are the filmmakers, they become a huge part of Bobby’s story when he asks them to guide him down the Downieville downhill course on one of his practice days. The scenes where Bobby rides with his new guides drive home the extent to which Bobby has to trust and completely rely on the accurate commands from his guide. Whether you’ve ridden the Downieville course hundreds of times, or whether you’ve never seen it before, these scenes make it obvious that Bobby and his guide have to do things right or someone (usually Bobby) is going down hard.

And there are funny parts. Bobby is a joker, and that aspect of his personality is not lost in the film. It’s just hard for most of us to grasp that after learning about a person going through dialysis, taking hundreds of pills a week, and dealing with a life of dependency on others, that it’s OK to laugh with or at him. In the end, though, all Bobby wants to do is have fun. That’s why he rides his bike.

The Way Bobby Sees It has been accepted to several film festivals throughout the US. To see how the film is doing, or to check out a screening, visit http://www.poisonoakproductions.com/.

Now you can buy your own copy from Freeride Foundation! Click here to get your hands on one!

Stars and Bars Makes Me Happy

Mountain bike movies rarely live up to my expectations. I grew up on ski films that made me wish I was the one hauling through waist deep powder or negotiating a billy-goat line. I’d get so fired up I’d put on my boots and skis in the living room in August. Then again, there are plenty of ski flicks that miss the point. Once directors overwhelm a film with a cheesy plot, bad athlete acting, or too much of one kind of terrain, the Fun Factor goes straight to lame. These evil elements dominate too many mountain bike movies. We end up with all huck, all race, or all cheese, and rarely does the viewer yearn to be the rider. When was the last time you saw a mountain biking movie that made you want to run home, grab your bike, and start slashing corners?

All Out Productions’ new release Stars and Bars makes me want to ride, and it makes me want to ride fast. If you’ve seen any of Theo Dilworth’s previous videos (All Out Grease, Hella Greasy), you know his work is fun, fast-paced and well edited. Stars and Bars takes things a step further by combining witty artistic elements with entertaining riding. It’s the kind of movie you can watch 25 times and pick out something new every time you press play.

Theo follows all the rules. He keeps the dialog to a minimum, and what is included is totally hilarious—like Brad Benedict’s references to his scraper bike (click here if that means nothing to you). The plot is linear and focuses entirely on the riders. Racing, freeriding, and hucking all get time in the spotlight, and we see all types of terrain throughout the film. Plus, the soundtrack is as entertaining as the riding.

A mix of classic rock, punk, indie, and hiphop selections keep each segment fresh. For instance, The Gourds’ bluegrass remix of Snoop Dogg’s Gin and Juice plays during the Fontana segment. SoCal gangster meets twangy banjo? That’s Fontucky for you! Stuck in the Middle with You is smartly paired with the Angel Fire mountaincross segment—get it? And of course, what kind of movie named Stars and Bars would be complete without a little touch of the theme song from Team America World Police?

Stars and Bars showcases several of America’s current upper-tier gravity players, Cole Bangert, Luke Strobel, Ryan Condrashoff, and Brad Benedict, as they travel from the 2007 Sea Otter Classic to the season finale at Snowmass, CO. What separates Stars and Bars from other racing movies is that whether the boys are racing or showing off their home turf, they look, act, and ride like they’re having a blast. It makes me want to jump on my bike and have as much fun as my fellow ‘Mericans.

My favorite segments are filmed near San Diego with the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, J.D. Swanguen (yellow), Cody Warren (white), Aaron Gwin (red), and the Griz (black). They’re riding a burned-out hill, and their full-kit colors look surreal against the scorched terrain. The riders flow through lines like I’ve only seen in big mountain ski and snowboard films. In the following segment, Theo captures J.D.’s smooth, confident style as he carves through delightful-looking dirt. It feels similar to watching skier Seth Morrison tear up Alaskan lines in MSP’s High Society.

The only thing missing from Stars and Bars is the ladies. Lisa Myklak, Caroline Jarolimek and Jess Vogt are each appear briefly, but not on their bikes. A crash by Kimber Gabryszak, quick shots of Melissa Buhl and Kathy Pruitt racing, and the final pro women’s mountaincross heat at Snowmass are the only times girls actually ride in the film. Theo promises to have a few more female segments in his soon-to-be released slopestyle film, Floatin’. But regardless of whether you’re a boy or girl, if you’re a fan of going fast downhill, you’ll walk away from Stars and Bars itching to grab your bike and haul some booty.

For more information about All Out Productions, visit www.alloutprodux.com.
To purchase Stars and Bars, visit www.ridesfo.com.