October 23, 2005
First East Coast Mountain Bike Skills Camp an Overwhelming Success
by Bikergrl
This summer Nova Scotia hosted a new type of event for Canada's eastern provinces. The East Coast Mountain Bike Skills Camp held in August gave riders the opportunity to learn from a Pro - Norco's Jay "Hoots" Krantz.
Well known for his tireless contributions to the mountain bike community on the other side of the continent, Jay brought his special blend of positivity and know-how to riders in a 3 day series of workshops. Riders progressed through skill building exercises in street, dirt jumping and downhill disciplines and came away with improved technique and a very positive experience. Although some participants had never hit a dirt jump or a ramp prior to the workshops, each one left with an expanded bag of tricks and sense of confidence on the bike thanks to Jay's inspirational instruction.
The Camp wound up with an open street jam, BBQ and awards ceremony at the Sportwheels compound in Sackville. Prizes were awarded for a variety of achievements including most improved rider, longest skid, best crash and highest bunny hop. The competition really heated up with the ECMTB spelling bee where prizes were awarded for proper spelling of mountain bike terms.
Although we suspected that the interest was there to successfully run camps of this nature in our area, we had no idea how well received they'd be. With encouraging comments from the participants such as "Best 3 days of my summer..." and "It was so much fun! Definitely one of my highlights..." we feel confident that next years camps can be even bigger and better.
ECMTB would like to thank all the participants and sponsors including Norco, .243 Racing, Sportwheels, Hub Cyle, and Advanced Screen Printing. Special thanks go out to Jay Krantz for making those 3 days in August memorable for everyone involved.
Posted by bikergrl at October 23, 2005 01:31 PM
