Creston Goatstyle 2008 -Week in Review

Posted: Jun 11, 2008

It has been a long wait for the crew in Creston BC, but the time finally came for the 3rd annual Goatstyle slopestyle event in Creston BC. This year the Goatstyle crew had something big up their sleeves. Wesley Graham, the event organizer and developer managed to get around $50,000 to spend on the event for this year. Dave Wigen had some land that they were digging up and needed the dirt to be excavated out of the site so he decided to get Wes to come down to the site and check out if the dirt would be any good for building jumps and making a course. It turns out the dirt was perfect!! Dave said when they were digging it up from the ground; the dirt was almost green because it was made of so much clay.

I arrived Sunday night in Creston with another one of the Goatstyle crew members and my fellow rider Dustin Greenall. We were staying with one of the coolest guys I have ever met, Mike Melynchuck. That night we had to go and meet with the other crew members to lay out the next day’s work. All the guys were really cool about all the ideas we had and took everything into consideration. Wes had $50,000 and over 100 dump truck loads of amazing dirt.


Monday, the day everything starts. We woke up around 7:30am but didn’t become alive till around 8:30 – 9:00. Ate breakfast, had showers and headed to the course. Dustin and I laid out the fence posts and pounded them in while some other guys put up the orange fencing. Collin, the man with the wood, brought all his curved logs that he had been collecting since the end of last year’s event and was he ever stoked on what he could do with the logs. We went in for lunch and talked about what needed to be accomplished. Collin had “Billy’s Bridge” under control, Mike was working on the big box, Wes was running around doing insurance stuff, and Dustin and I had no clue what to do. We felt useless because we didn’t know how to build with wood that well and the dirt wasn’t coming till Wednesday so we were stumped until then.


Tuesday, again we woke up early after a rough night of celebrating how the first day went so well and started to add all of the supports and laying down the plywood on top of the boxes. Collin finished Billy’s bridge so that meant that Dustin and I had to guinea pig the new stunt. That went well for the first couple jumps and then when we started to try tricks off of it we, well I started to eat a lot of dirt.

Wednesday, Dustin and I were actually going to be able to work since the dirt was starting to arrive. Dave got his company's back hoe and started to bring the dirt up to the top of the course where we needed to build all the landings and a bunch of berms for Billy’s Bridge. Once all the top dirt features were completed we needed to start the dirt jump line at the bottom that ran through the parking lot. Dustin hopped in the big loader and created heaven with dirt. The jumps were huge! They were perfect!

Thursday, we had to get everything pretty much completed so that Friday would only be touch ups and making sure everything is safe with WCB and getting all the banners on the stunts. Collin had all his wood features done, the dirtjumps were almost 100% completed, Wes and Gord had all the insurance and liability stuff almost completed and the contest was in two days!!!

Friday, everyone took their time waking up because there was really no rush to get building other than a couple of the wood features had to be re-built. Dustin and I worked on the jumps and made sure all the bumps and ruts were out and that everything was all smooth for Saturdays qualifying. We were all super excited for the weekend to see how everyone liked the course and the different style of riders coming to Goatstyle from all over Canada, US and even PUERTO RICO!


SATURDAY!
The big day was finally here!! Practice started early but didn’t run long due to how many riders there were and how little time there was in the day. Qualifying started right away and ran all day, first up was the junior beginners. It is so cool to watch the younger ripper’s ride the course like if they had ridden it several times. The kids can shred these days! It is awesome to see the talent coming out of the next generation of riders. The last category to go that day was the Senior Advanced(PRO). This was the category that I was in and it was a tough group! With riders like Kurt Sorge, Geoff Gulevich, Dustin Greenall, Eric Lawrenuk, Graham Agassiz, Gareth Dyer, Phil Sundbaum, Padro Diaz, Logan Peat, Justin Wyper, Mitch Chubey, Cody Heinrichs and an amazing bunch of Seattle and Richmond boys who absolutely kill it!


After the qualifying everyone just disappeared and a big projection screen was set up ready to play the new movie from the collective “Seasons”. After the movie Wes organized a big photo shoot for Goatstyle. The huge lights were set up and the whole parking lot was lit up. Everything was getting throw down from barspins to flipwhips. Just as everything was getting gnarly and the photographers were just banging off amazing shots, THE ENGINE BLEW UP FOR THE LIGHTS! Everything went black. Wes was pretty pissed off about it because he rented the lights for quite a pretty penny. He had been waiting three years for this shoot and the engine blows up! I really want to thank Wes for that great opportunity.


Sunday Morning, time for the big show!

I woke up Sunday morning and again, I was a little late for practice but it really didn’t matter because the rain kept coming down hard. I did a two runs from the top and another three from half way down and it was scary!! The wood was caked and slippery from everyone’s tires. The jumps on the other hand were really slow, it didn’t help that there was almost an inch of mud on the run in. I still ended up hitting the big set and getting a mud facial. I ended up taking a few diggers in the mud, trying to backflip a big jump with fully caked tires is not a smart thing to do! I learned the hard way.........one minute I was rotating, the next; I stopped upside down with no momentum to bring me back around. Twice that happened. Wes and Gord called Dustin and I for a little group meeting to talk about the options to deal with the rain. We either could wait till the rain passed, which we all knew was not going to happen, or we could call the finals off and split the prize money equally with all the senior advanced qualifiers. Dustin and I didn’t know what to do, the finishing of the comp was resting in our hands and we just decided to wait a couple hours to see if there would be a break in the clouds and a chance for at least a one run final. Well that did not happen. Finally we both went up to Wes and Gord and said “you know, there are a lot of people here that have a long trip home and that are super exhausted. Let’s just call off the finals and split the cash/prizing".

It was definitely depressing to know that the course that we had put long hard hours into was not going to be ridden to its fullest. But you know what? A lot of people would think that all the hours put into that course was just a waste of time since the competition was canceled but I don’t think so. I experienced and learned so much when I was there, it was incredible. I made a bunch of great new friends and had the time of my life!



I would like to take this opportunity to thank Wes for letting me come out and work along with everyone else and for putting on such an amazing competition. Gordo, I can tell you’re going to be a great father and your baby is beautiful, thank you so much for organizing all the internet groups and making sure everyone has a great time. Collin and Dave, I don’t know how to thank you guys enough for supplying all your unique skills and equipment. That loader sure did one hell of a job and Collin those crazy curved logs made the course turn out with many unique features and thank you for taking the time to search out in the woods when you’re busy building your trails to cut down curved logs. I really have to thank Mike for letting us bunk at his house even though it did get a little rowdy at times. All in all it was the best week of my life and I know it’s only going to get better each year. Thank you to all the pro riders that came out and put on a show. I can’t wait till next year because I know it’s going to get only rowdier!!

Photos courtesy of: Wes Graham, David Bennison, Jason Headley.

Check this link to see Goat Style pics from the past 3 years!

Thank You

-Casey Groves-
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