Kelowna was a fun, relaxing Cribb Bomb tour that turned into the Love Bomb as we lullabied shit up! The ladies out numbered the guys this trip nine to six and they ruled the coop. When it was time for sleepy time music it was sleepy time. We had four couples all in love on the love bomb kissing and holding hands. The Bombs aroma was love with a splash of Cariboo beers and skunk.

This trip we were lucky enough to have the new Cariboo Root Beer on board the crypt so me, the driver, could enjoy some ice cold Root Boo while driving and not having to worry about getting pulled over by the five o and nailed for drinking and driving! It’s just Cariboo Root Beer man, 0.5% alc. and tasty as ever! I love it in the freezer and then cracking one ice cold with a little of frozen root beer bits.

It’s good to see everyone enjoying Cariboo now with the new 0.5% root beers one of the newest fans is straight edge hardcore crazy man driver of the short bus and owner of Switchback Longboards, Kelsey Crozier! I could hear him yelling Cariboo while slamming the root beer through out the weekend!

We started the tour with some shotguns of course and we had to dump the shit tank so the youngest was up for the job, a lady. The first signs of the Love Bomb were apparent when the Chilliwack gentleman Vanderveen was up for the task, giving her a break on her first love-bomb tour.

We hit the road and ended up meeting up with Stumanchu and his Tuna Can RV but no matter how many time Stumanchu calls it the Tuna Can we all call it the Meth Lab because that’s exactly what the thing looks like. It’s big grey and has big odd looking house door on the side of it that makes it look like a lab of some sort and its like thirty feet with no windows on the side of it and to boot a busted taped up passenger window. Now he can join the busted window club. The crypts back right windows been busted for months now! But don’t get me wrong but Stu’s Meth Lab is a true skate bus and everyone should do a trip on it captain Stumanchu is a blast.

When we unloaded the buses on the side of the highway just before the big climb out of Merritt we took a group shot with all the crews from the Love Bomb and the Meth Lab. It was a party! We took the picture and made sure Stu’s Meth Lab crew had a couple flats of Cariboo beers to keep them happy on their travels to skylands. We convoyed together till the brake check and the Meth Lab took off, of course I never drive by a good old mountain highway bomb without the chance to see some young guns burn some legs and maybe see a good crash.

It’s too bad that this eighteen kilometer bomb is all paved now for the new generation of Coast Highway bombers. Back when I was doing it in the pitch-black dark with a little moonlight, no headlights and cracks that only 97 flywheels could smash over while the cool, cold mountain air and the moon sucked you down the mountain, with no hope of missing the many pot holes from all the bad British Columbia winters. The roads were so bad but it made the ride so much better and gave you the balls you needed to make it down the next brake check without scoping the terrain.

I’ll never forget, on this particular hill, I gave everyone the warning at the top of the brake check from the years of experience. “Ok there is a lot of pot holes that will eat you on this hill so beware and try to watch where your skating.” Well, because I’m so heavy I lose the van lights with all the riders carving away, now it’s me against the moon. The shadows the moon gave off on the cracks made everything look like truck eating holes, which made for a wild ride. I hopped over every shadow like it was the one until the sick sound of your trucks sinking into one took me to the pavement hard, smashing my body again to a stop. Another wrecked Coast hoodie another wrecked pair of shorts, lots of warm blood running down the inside of my arm, legs and a totally janked up ankle!

I went to bed on the ground that night. This was before the luxury F-Bomb days. I used to show up to all the races with no sleeping bag no tent no plan just rough it or hope for the best. Ahhh, the good old days. With all the old guys and the original Coast crew out of the scene now things are so different. It’s good and bad. Anyways, I went to bed that night stinging bad from the crash. I laid on the cold ground on top of my leathers and wrapped myself in the coast flag and just let the stinging crawl up and down my body, eating away at my flesh.

I woke up and I was still stinging like a mother #%@#er and the whole night when I thought it was blood running up and down my body it was actually big fat huge red ants and I was using the red ant hill as a pillow. The pain though the night was them feeding on my flesh. I freaked out ripped my hoodie off and they were all over me like maggots on a decapitated human head or fly’s laying eggs a severed rotten foot. I snapped! That was a Striker Tale from the Crypt for ya.

Speaking of crashing, Raggie was riding in the Switchback bus behind us and decided to run the hill from the brake check and thought he would have some fun and try to touch the barricade around 80km only finding himself smashing into the barricade giving everyone in the bus behind him a free yard sale. He got up just fine but his helmet had a nice yellow skid mark from crashing back onto the road skidding on the yellow line. %$#@in rightz I taught Raggie well! Now, he leads the bombs on the highways in whatever bus he’s in! It’s good to see the Coast spirit alive and well. It’s important to keep this way of riding alive to me. It’s too easy to just go and do some slides then attack some mountain road that scares the #@$% out of you!

We got to Kelowna, the Love Bomb was hungry and the only thing we could find open was a Mc Jesus but it was drive through only and we couldn’t make it through with a thirty three foot Love Bomb, so we sent some love birds to the drive through window and to my surprise after we got a hold of the manager, we got our order. I don’t know what they ordered but I got two yummy ice cream cones and a Big Mac meal with super sized fries and a drink I smashed off of the side of the cripple bomb.

We woke up at got to the race and packed it full of riders form the crash corner and headed up. We had over thirty racers packed into the Love Bomb and tanked to the top without a problem. The race was stopped and had to wait for us but it must have been a sight seeing everyone piling out at the top hill with my big fat smile on my face.

Now that the driver got everyone safe and sound to the race it was time to try out a much anticipated Cariboo cup of Captain Morgan original spiced rum and the epic new freezer ice-cold caribou root beer mix before a nice long much needed nap. It was great and so was my nap.

Billie did more crying than ever this trip and that made it tough for momma. Poor Billie is teething again and she wasn’t very happy, but when she forgot about the pain she was having fun walking around the crypt. She watched Amy from Vancouver Island set up her board and that was cool to see for me as a daddy watched his little baby walk over and show some interest. Billie is growing up so fast and she is starting to notice the other girls are skating and she looks like she’s interested in what the hell is going on. Amy got third place in the ladies class everyone on the love bomb were very proud of her!

Not everyone on the crypt got away with a clean bill of health. Eleanor Yardwaste was poaching runs and found herself crashing all over the track until her last crash that broke her collarbone right in half. She is one tough chick and I was surprised when she came back to the camp to enjoy a Cariboo Genuine Draft and relaxed watching her boyfriend Johnny the Cariboo Love Bomb model pose for some product shots.

After this I set her up in the recovery chair on the Cripple Bomb. It’s the passenger seat turned around with the arms out and its what I healed in all summer last year while on tour with my collapsed lung and four broken ribs. She was in good hands. Not once did she complain or bitch or cry the rest of the trip about her injury. No hospital drugs just the green can and she was fine. Unreal. I’ve also broken my collarbone from a high-speed highway crash they grind, rub and clunk! Glad it wasn’t me this time but cheers to her and cheers to a speedy recovery!

I announced on the Sunday and it was nice and hot for a change. A huge crowd came out and I was very excited to see that Blake, the Skylands race organizer hooked me up with the nicest set up of the season. A cordless mic and a pretty good sound system. I was off the leash. No ball and chain, I was free to move! I was in heaven! I could do bathroom reports, I could go to the sponsors booth and do interviews with the companys that support the event helping them get the word out on there gear I even said screw the scaffolding and climbed to the top of the mountain over looking the race course and the whole set up on the crash corner.

It was great from up on the bluff I felt like Gandalf. So I ordered a Pizza Hut pizza and if the guy wanted me to pay thirty bucks for a large pizza I was going to make him climb a mountain with his little debit machine and deliver me a Canadian pizza with extra marinara sauce. I made the order at 11am sharp! First pizza of the day I was stoked. I got the pizza! Hahahahahahhaaaahahahah!!!

This years numbers were up! Skylands had three full sized busses shuttling racers to the heavens for race heats and free rides. Everything went very smooth until a crazy local blew through the flag person at the bottom of the hill while a heat was coming down and made a big scene that only ended with his stuck up wife cryin and they were escorted off the hill by two squad cars as the crowd and racers cheered. We got back to racing!

MOBBIN HILLS N SKYLANDS 2012

Skylands 2012 Downhill Wipeout

The winds were out of control blowing the garbage bags off of the hay bails and racers off the road. Vernon kick ass ripper Bren Davidson crashed and wrecked his opposite shoulder so he was out of the race and now on the mend. We wish him a fast recovery. Bad luck but that’s racing. I never got to race the top challenge in Montreal because by every August for four years straight I was already broken and not able to race from injury. This sport or this way of life kicks the shit out of you if you have no fear and a set of balls.

We finally got to the finals and it was no surprise that K-Rimes and Patrick Switzer were racing again but this week they had to fend off Prince Dillion from Summerland, a rider that’s been really consistent with podium finishes the last couple years and then Andrew from Ontario making his way back to the podium after the start of a hard year of not being able to fund himself to get to all the races after Landyachtz stopped supporting him as much as they were.

Even with the lack of racing for the 2012 season Andrew kicked some serious ass and found himself in second place only to lose to the mighty K-Rimes, not bad for a guy that hasn’t had much support or race situation practice this year! Hats off to Andrew Chapman for proving he is a racer you should spend your cash on. Hey, this isn’t the last podium this year Chapman will be on!

So the finals were K-Rimes carving to the finish line all alone and then Chapman and Dillon fought for second and third place while Capt. Canada’s P-Swiss took anther respectable fourth place finish.

It was a great race and I was lucky to announce another race. Big thanks to Blake for supporting me and my dreams! It’s really nice to still be at all the races doing what I love and enjoying what I helped and devoted my life to create!

Thanks Cariboo Brewing, Landyachtz and Switchback longboards, the cribbers and all the race organizers that continue to support me after all these years! Living the dream for now!

Strike out!