Wheelieboard roly-poly’s, apple bobbing, and graf. It can only be…

Saturday 30th April 2011 saw Plymouth Uni’s All Terrain Boarding crew host some creative fun at Ironsides Court Farm mountainboard centre. Smilie & Wilz went along for the ride…

Lets Get Creative Crest

The Royal wedding weekend saw the UK go flag weaving crazy, something which doesn’t happen often in Blighty. To us mountainboarders, another long bank holiday weekend really meant another excuse ‘if ever we need one’ for comps, bbq’s, fires, and three days riding. With a Royal Shredding day at Bugs Boarding for Surfing Dirt members and PUATB taking over Ironside’s Court Farm, there was plenty of comp-idge to choose from. Well what were we going to do but hit the road towards mountainboarding Middle Earth: after taking a detour to avoid one of those union-jack-filled street-parties ;)

We stopped in at Bugs for a cuppa & to see how Etchy, Wat Tees and the SD massive were getting on. All was pretty chilled as everyone had spent the morning get their shred on in Bugs Boarding’s massive freestyle park. The centre’s looking great; Bugs & Aj have been busy over the winter grooming and adding nice things like a picnic area, b-ball hoop and an all important bar with bbq. So with catching up done and our massive cups of tea finished, it was time to get back in the car and on to Court Farm.

The cool thing about Gloucestershire & Herefordshire for us riders is that you are never far from a mountainboard centre or sick freeride spot. It’s also an added bonus that both counties make arguably the best cider on the planet!

We pulled into Court Farm juiced on caffeine and Haribo just as some grey clouds gathered but it didn’t matter much. There were a fair few boarders knocking about, seshing the revamped beginners BX, tables and quarter. Raph & Lorna were also playin the perfect hosts. Friday was pretty much as you would expect: tents up, BBQing, cider drinking, sitting round the fire till late chatting rubbish. ‘Yeah nothing beats spending time in fields with mountainboarders’.

Saturday: Let’s Get Creative!

Wilz warmed up his spraycans with an infestation of mushrooms on the mini-ramp while everyone surfaced, generally came round, and soon got some morning riding in. Raph took some lessons, James Wanklyn was ripping on his home turf, Alex Boswell pulling some big steezy moves, the very orange Micky & Ben were unbelievably enthusiastically riding. Many others were there like Andy (who’d come from Newcastle!), crazy socks Lisa, Tom, Mark (with his freshly broken leg: longboard + car = get better soon ;) and more, all looking forward to what creative shenanigans would follow: there was to be an Assault Course, followed by a slopestyle jam with all manner of ace titles to be won like King of Handplants & Sir Innovative.
After a trip to the supermarket to get some props (spray cream, apples etc) Si (PUATB el’presidente) kicked off proceedings… Over to the man himself to fill you in on all the details from the day;

The Assault Course began mid-way on the Orange boarder-x track on top of the final roller. Riders would drop in, sprint round the last corner on the track while getting super-soakered, then hop out of the track to a big bungee pull across the hill to the ‘Creamed Apple Dunking’ station, where riders (helmet/glasses/gopro’s on or off) had to dunk for an apple before setting off over some jibby obstacles and the final table on the boarder-x track into a sprayed-on rectangular finish box……where awaiting you was The Cream Wizard, an added distraction when the clock didn’t stop until you were inside the box!

Riders were faced with a Royal gathering at the top of the course, to be set off one-by-one on a timed attempt to complete the Almighty Assault course…

And here begins the Rem photos! (link to the rest of Si’s comp write-up below)

What a great creative use of daylight hours. It carried on into the eve with wind-down riding, slacklining, Wil finishing spraying the quarter + finding a new use for his trolleyboard, some doodling and board customising, and the creation of a majestic trophy, unparralleled in it’s beauty…

Prize giving took place after sunset, with winners receiving an assortment of swag, including a framed picture of their winning move from earlier in the day… Genius! Well done to all the winners: Andy, James, Tom, Mickey x2, Alex & Ben (full deets on PUATB) Nice one to Wil too for coming 3rd in the assault course- the only mountainboard comp he’s ever competed in!

We all then watched slideshows of photos from the day on the projector and stoked up the barby. It was a quality evening of mountainboarding talk, brew swigging, dvd watching, slack line balancing, laughing, and sitting round the fire having fun. I’ve also got a quick apology for all those Andy & I might have woken-up at 4am laughing at our Dali shadows ;D

Sunday morning-ish, uum yes.. Muggy bonehead, run out of food and worse, tea. It was time for Wilz & me to de-camp, re-heap our kit into the car, and say ta & toodle-pip to our fellow wheelieboarding friends & fiends…

Props have to go out to Simon & the rest of PUATB for putting on such a good event. Credit has to go all the riders, and PUATB_zc

the inspired idea of keeping everyone off the normal set of tables in the slopestyle, making it one of the funnest jams I have ever seen in the Courtfarm freestyle park: it was a nightmare for anyone holding a camera, with riders hitting the features from all directions and riding with so much creativity (roly poly’s included) it was difficult to know where to point your lens next! Nice one.

Extra mention to Raph for hosting and getting the centre in perfect condition for the event- all those long days over the winter put in by Team Ironside have payed off with it all looking the best it has in years.

Now read the rest of Si’s event report, check out a quality photo slideshow, enjoy a great video that captures the fun-ness, and of course all the ‘official’ results too: it’s all at PUATB

For another lovely write-up & wicked alternate vid (with on-board assault course action- it’s like you’re doing it!) head over to UK Mountainboarding’s North East based blog, Chebsite

Fingers-crossed PUATB decide to get creative all over again next year :)

Big thanks to all!