A day in the life: Katie BlundellTignes Spirit rider Katie Blundell has been hanging out in Tahoe this winter, riding the mighty North Star park and honing her rail skills in backyard/street sessions.
Photography © Bruce Lerman. All rights reserved.
Katie wrote this for us way back in February, just before most of California's resorts got snow fall of the Richter scale, check it out, a day in the life.
The morning
My day normally starts at about 8 in the morning. I always wake up really early, and am super excited to get up and go riding! I spend about 20 mins doing physio and stretching, all beause of my dodgy knees. Breakfast normally consists of porridge and a banana. I hate bananas but they're good for energy so I always try and get it down quickly before I'm sick! Then the waiting begins… The bad thing about being an early riser is that no-one else is! So I spend quite a lot of time on Facebook in the mornings! Then we normally head up to North Star for the day.
Street Spot
But not today... Rich Jonas and I are heading down to Reno (half-an-hour away from Lake Tahoe) for a street session with the Westbeach boys (Billy Morgan, Andy Nudds, Matt Mcwhriter and photographer Bruce Lerman).
A huge storm has just ended so there is plenty of snow down in Reno. As soon a storm finishes in Tahoe, the riders head to the streets to jib. A local street rider "Danimal" had shown the Westbeach guys a rail spot in a school the day before. We got down there at about 10.30, and luckily there were no other crews there yet. It was honestly like handrail heaven! There were at least three down rails, and three down-flat-downs, all within about 200 metres of each other. These rails had been in a couple of snowboard movies so we were all pumped to hit them. One of the down-flat-downs had even been sessioned the day before by one of the chicks from Peep Show (an all-American, all-girl, all street riding crew – kinda my role models I guess) so I was mega stoked to be riding in the same place!
Warm-up Rail
We started off with quite a mellow warm up down rail. There was a natural run-in so no need for a bungee. The guys stomped some good tricks but story of my life: struggled for speed so didn't even get to the end of it! I did quite a few fire crackers down the stairs on this one so I was feeling pretty disheartened. I really didn't want the Westbeach boys to think that it was a waste of time bringing me along!
Down Rail
We decided to move onto another down rail, one with a few more stairs and a longer run in so we could use the bungee. We tied our 10ft bungee to the Westbeach boys' 10ft bungee to give us uber speed and found that making it longer gave us more control. We could build up speed over a longer distance rather than just being catapulted into it! I got on with this rail so much better and had the opposite problem so took too much speed/pop and kept landing half way down the rail. Tried a couple of tricks and didn't land them all but I was pretty happy that I was at least giving them a go!
Double Kink handrail...
To finish the day, we moved onto a down-flat-down. For me this was pretty gnarly, with 24 stairs, a concrete ledge at the bottom and a double kink. I was pretty much shitting myself and just kept thinking: "I will NEVER make it to the end of this!"
The boys had a couple of hits whilst I sussed it out and then it was my go. I had a couple of go's and made it to the first kink, but then fire crackered the stairs. By my third go I to s was determined to succeed! I thought: if the girls from Peep Show did it, then I want to do it too! Somehow, just through sheer luck, I made it to the end. Whooo hoooo.... Stoked!
I was done for the day, happy that I had survived and that I was still alive! I filmed the boys for the rest of the session and there were some crazy stunts going down! The Westbeach boys seriously kill it! This was by far the best street session I have ever had, so thank you to the Westbeach crew for letting us come and thank you to Bruce Lerman for taking pics. And watch out for edits coming soon.
The Evening
Sometimes in the evenings we ride Boreal mountain as they have a good night shred park. Or we have a house party (which normally turns very messy). But not tonight as we're all waaaaay too tired. So it's pretty much home, eat and then bed. I'll try and get some rest for the next days shredding in Tahoe!
Posted by Online Editor - Sun, 24/04/2011 - 5:41pm
Tignes Spirit rider Katie Blundell has been hanging out in Tahoe this winter, riding the mighty North Star park and honing her rail skills in backyard/street sessions.
Photography © Bruce Lerman. All rights reserved.
Katie wrote this for us way back in February, just before most of California's resorts got snow fall of the Richter scale, check it out, a day in the life.
The morning
My day normally starts at about 8 in the morning. I always wake up really early, and am super excited to get up and go riding! I spend about 20 mins doing physio and stretching, all beause of my dodgy knees. Breakfast normally consists of porridge and a banana. I hate bananas but they're good for energy so I always try and get it down quickly before I'm sick! Then the waiting begins… The bad thing about being an early riser is that no-one else is! So I spend quite a lot of time on Facebook in the mornings! Then we normally head up to North Star for the day.
Street Spot
But not today... Rich Jonas and I are heading down to Reno (half-an-hour away from Lake Tahoe) for a street session with the Westbeach boys (Billy Morgan, Andy Nudds, Matt Mcwhriter and photographer Bruce Lerman).
A huge storm has just ended so there is plenty of snow down in Reno. As soon a storm finishes in Tahoe, the riders head to the streets to jib. A local street rider "Danimal" had shown the Westbeach guys a rail spot in a school the day before. We got down there at about 10.30, and luckily there were no other crews there yet. It was honestly like handrail heaven! There were at least three down rails, and three down-flat-downs, all within about 200 metres of each other. These rails had been in a couple of snowboard movies so we were all pumped to hit them. One of the down-flat-downs had even been sessioned the day before by one of the chicks from Peep Show (an all-American, all-girl, all street riding crew – kinda my role models I guess) so I was mega stoked to be riding in the same place!
Warm-up Rail
We started off with quite a mellow warm up down rail. There was a natural run-in so no need for a bungee. The guys stomped some good tricks but story of my life: struggled for speed so didn't even get to the end of it! I did quite a few fire crackers down the stairs on this one so I was feeling pretty disheartened. I really didn't want the Westbeach boys to think that it was a waste of time bringing me along!
Down Rail
We decided to move onto another down rail, one with a few more stairs and a longer run in so we could use the bungee. We tied our 10ft bungee to the Westbeach boys' 10ft bungee to give us uber speed and found that making it longer gave us more control. We could build up speed over a longer distance rather than just being catapulted into it! I got on with this rail so much better and had the opposite problem so took too much speed/pop and kept landing half way down the rail. Tried a couple of tricks and didn't land them all but I was pretty happy that I was at least giving them a go!
Double Kink handrail...
To finish the day, we moved onto a down-flat-down. For me this was pretty gnarly, with 24 stairs, a concrete ledge at the bottom and a double kink. I was pretty much shitting myself and just kept thinking: "I will NEVER make it to the end of this!"
The boys had a couple of hits whilst I sussed it out and then it was my go. I had a couple of go's and made it to the first kink, but then fire crackered the stairs. By my third go I to s was determined to succeed! I thought: if the girls from Peep Show did it, then I want to do it too! Somehow, just through sheer luck, I made it to the end. Whooo hoooo.... Stoked!
I was done for the day, happy that I had survived and that I was still alive! I filmed the boys for the rest of the session and there were some crazy stunts going down! The Westbeach boys seriously kill it! This was by far the best street session I have ever had, so thank you to the Westbeach crew for letting us come and thank you to Bruce Lerman for taking pics. And watch out for edits coming soon.
The Evening
Sometimes in the evenings we ride Boreal mountain as they have a good night shred park. Or we have a house party (which normally turns very messy). But not tonight as we're all waaaaay too tired. So it's pretty much home, eat and then bed. I'll try and get some rest for the next days shredding in Tahoe!