Skydiving has recently begun to consume my daily thoughts. I used to get home from school and spend hours watching FMX dvd’s, now I get home from work and spend hours on You Tube watching skydiving and BASE jumping vids…it owns me.

That being said, its no surprise how excited I am for NZ’s biggest skydiving festival being held in Motueka from 15th til the 23rd of August. My girl Lisa and the rest of the crew at Skydive Abel Tasman have been working round the clock to make this happen, and the line up of aircraft, skydivers and activities that the event is boasting is seriously impressive.

If your anywhere near the area make sure you drop in. I’ll be there with more than a fridge full of Demon having some fun, come say hi and if your keen maybe even jack up a tandem skydive…it will change your life!

See below:

An international line-up of sports skydivers from Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan, the UK, and Australia, will join a large contingent of local talent in a diverse range of events.

Skydiving records
The Good Vibes 2009 programme will include all levels of skydiving skills and disciplines from flat to vertical flying, small and large formations, to canopy competitions.

The organisers also hope to set some New Zealand skydiving records.

Skydiving activities will include ‘big ways’ with up to 24 participants, RW, POPs, VRW, atmo, tracking, hybrids, wingsuit, swoop & chug, beach jumps, scrambles, speedstar, accuracy & swoop.

A novelty jump, celebrating a local woman’s 1000th jump, is scheduled to include a bevy of lingerie-clad female skydivers. Spare seats in the plane will be raffled off – in aid of charity – to keen males willing to the pay the price.

Skill development
Coaching opportunities and skill sharing opportunities are a major draw card for the event.

Skydiving coaches and organisers from New Zealand and Australia will offer skill development for all levels and disciplines.

Skydive Abel Tasman
Good Vibes was launched in 2003 as a two-day event designed to bring New Zealand’s relatively small skydiving community together.

Good Vibes is hosted by Skydive Abel Tasman, in Motueka.

Background: Skydiving in New Zealand

Most New Zealand towns have an airstrip or helipad so flight-based activities with breath-taking views are easily accessed.

Many drop zones have a choice of experienced operators offering flight-seeing, skydiving, and hang-gliding.

Some skydive operators and clubs offer static-line jumps, but most novice jumpers opt for a tandem skydive. In a tandem jump, the learner is linked in a double harness to the instructor who has control of the parachute.

After instruction, tandem skydivers are taken to 2500 – 4000m before leaping out together and experiencing up to 45 seconds of freefall.

The Southern Alps and Fiordland (both in the South Island) are popular jumping grounds, and Taupo in the central North Island is another reliable venue.

Steve Gregor

RUN FMX

As promised guys, a huge weekend is now behind me.

I only managed to squeeze 2 skydives in over the weekend due to weather(thats 2 more than I would have got if i sat at home on the couch thought!), but the crew at Skydive Abel Tasman are so good ill be heading back there within the next few weeks to hopefully complete my training. Im in love with skydiving. Nuff said

 

X Games 15 Best Trick Wrap Up:

Unfortunately the record books havent been completely re-written as a lot of us had hoped with all the hype coming into X Games as half of the field in Best Trick crashed! But you do have to admit, the calibre of tricks being attempted was simply mind blowing. If you stepped back in time a couple of years…to think that this past weekend we would have guys trying to pull 75ft Front flips, 720 backflip rodeos, body varials and 360 backflip indian airs…people would have called you crazy.

But this is why we love FMX, even when things dont go quite to plan for all the riders the level of progression from year to year is still very obvious and thats what keeps us pumped!

Im yet to find any super cool action shots of each trick because they are all combos so its not like back in the day when there was a perfect time to snap the photo, so instead below are quick you tube links of each of the stand outs with a brief description:

1st Place : Kyle Loza – ‘Electric Doom’

I was super disappointed to discover Loza wouldnt be attempting the ‘Bike Flip’ as originally planned. According to inside info, Kyle is suffering a wrist injury preventing him from doing the trick. Instead the Originator opted for the ‘Electric Doom’ which won him gold at last years Best Trick. Its impossible to explain so check the video, this trick made him the first ever 3 x in a row FMX Best Trick Gold Medalist….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1ziSRfSnJo.

2nd Place: Blake ‘Bilko’ Williams – ‘Flying Dutchman’

Many fans are of the opinion Sargeant Bilko should have really walked home with a Gold Medal in his bag for his 360 Backflip Indian Air which he spontaneously named at a Press Conference after landing it. What do I think? I dunno, I think I might agree just because this is a completely new trick compared to Lozas Electric Doom that we saw last year. Either way you look at it, its super impressive!…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FDuAjbLErM.

3rd Place: Todd Potter – ‘Coffin No Handed Backflip’

Im a huge fan of Todd Potter, but more so for his full freestyle runs rather than Best Trick. What Potter bought to the table this year was something weve never seen before, and aside from a squirrely landing he did pull it off which is more than you can say for most the other riders, but it was never going to make Gold. The Metal Mulisha young gun also threw a cliffhnager backflip for his 1st jump which was impressive but once again weve seen it before. This is the biggest no handed backflip youll ever see…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qoh701ks7nI&feature=related.

Crashed: Travis Pastrana, Paris Rosen, Charles Pages, Scott Murray.

This years best trick featured more of one thing than weve ever seen before: Crashes! Personally I was most excited to see what Travis Pastrana was bringing to the table, and what he bought was unbelievable and most probably would have won gold IF HE LANDED IT! Ive added the vid below. Wonderboy calls this one the ‘Toilet Paper Roll’ and has been working on it for 2 years, its basically a backflip 720. Virtual unknown Paris Rosen came out from Arizona and attempted the worlds first ever 75ft frontflip, which would have been epic and had the world excited, but unlucky for the up-and-comer Rosen under rotated and took a rather huge hit. Paris was OK but the same cant be said for his bike. French madman Charles Pages came out charging with his own version of a body varial and crashed so hard it looked like he broke his hip and yet somehow walked away. Double backflip wonder and best trick alternate Scott Murray attempted a double backflip for the zillion’th time and crashed HARD. As he has a habit of doing Murray walked away to try again another day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7Kmbq3Irt4.

All in all it was a slightly disappointing X Games Best Trick simply because I was hoping some of the new tricks were going to be stomped and claimed. Never the less what these boys threw down was heroic and huge respect goes out to all the athletes who competed. People dont realise the ‘behind the scenes’ work that goes with these guys…props where props is due.

Stay tuned!

Steve Gregor

www.runfmx.co.nz