Some of the world’s best downhill mountain bike riders came together in Valparaíso to compete in the tenth edition of the Valparaíso Cerro Abajo. The downhill race is renowned as one of the craziest in the world and attracts thousands of spectators, who lined the length of the course.  While most mountain bike courses stick to dirt trails in areas outside the city, the Valparaíso Cerro Abajo is among a growing number of urban downhill races, where the riders have to weave their way through the streets. In addition to pre-existing structures such as staircases, roads and footpaths, extra jumps are added in to the course to make things more exciting, both for competitors and spectators.

Cedric Garcia and Filip Polc taking a break with thier Drift HD's

One of the biggest jumps was placed just after Plaza Bismarck, with some riders passing over the gap with no fear, while the jump became the end of the race for some other riders. While it was Slovakian Filip Polc who won both the 2010 and 2011 editions, this year it was time for a Chilean to step up to the top of the podium. It was Mauricio Acuña who led the way, while Polc was not too far behind, finishing in second place. The Chilean rider made it through the course in just 2 minutes and 38 seconds, with Polc just .31 of a second slower. The best female rider was Brazil’s Luana Oliveira, who completed the course in 3 minutes and 21 seconds.

Not so far from the finish line, riders were faced with a wallride between two ramps. The gap between the two ramps was too much for some of the riders. Below is a video of one rider who didn’t quite make it all the way. Aside from negotiating the obstacles, riders also had to watch out for dogs, cars and pedestrians. Known by many in mountain bike circles as “the craziest race in the world”, the event attracted 60 riders, not only from Chile and Latin America, but also from the rest of the world.

Drift was lucky enough to have the top 4 riders wearing Drift HD cameras and they captured some awesome footage, check out the Southtime edit below for an exciting recap of the whole event.

DRIFT, as official partner, will be providing Drift HD cameras as part of the prize for the winners in each category, as well as capturing HD POV footage as part of the production team’s equipment who will be broadcasting the event.  DRIFT will also be in attendance in the village from the 24^th- 26^th at our stand, so if you’re heading to the event drop in and say hello.

El Dorado Freeride is the main competition for extreme skiing in the Pyrenees and the largest in southern Europe. An international sporting event, it draws riders from over 20 countries for a weekend of the most extreme downhill and some serious après ski. Success here could mean a chance to compete on the Freeride World Tour so riders are looking to push themselves to the limit and boost their rankings for that all important place on the circuit.

For some more information on the event please visit

http://www.eldoradofreeride.com/2012/

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Saturday saw the entrants fight it out for their place in the final, only the top 10 men and top 5 women would make it to the final round on Sunday.  The riders have all day on Saturday to run the course and clock up the quickest time they can; with this track being particularly mean preparation is everything including suspensions for big hits, the right tire pressure and with many riders chose to trim the handles as parts of  the track were incredibly narrow it  was difficult to have  handles more than 760 mm.

By the end of the day the top 10 of the mens was closely matched, all riders being within 1.5 seconds of each other. Marcelo Gutierrez was top of the pack at the end of Saturday, and he was looking to win, especially after his defeat in the city of Manila a few weeks ago. The favorite and defending champion of  Santos in 2010 Filip Polc, remained in second place. Greg Minnar closed out the group making the top ten with a time of of 1: 01: 857.

Sunday and the final, which was to be broadcast in front of more than 80 million viewers and watched by 4,000 spectators who lined the track anticiapting a closely fought final, and they weren’t to be disappointed. One by one the riders went down in reverse order from their rankings gained on the Saturday, the local Dijoni Fornari snook in to take 5 th place, with Emanuel Pombo securing 4th. Gutierrez was looking to take the title on Saturday, but an unfortunate flat left him out of the running on the Sunday, opening up the field for Filip Polc; after a crash in last year’s semi-finals, Filip was pushing hard to redeem himself. Polc was on the limit on Sunday and it paid off. Literally and figuratively crowned king of the hill.

Result from finals Descida das Escadas de Santos 2012:
1 – Filip Polc (ESL) – 0:58.207
2 – Walace Miranda (BRA) – 1:00.554
3 – Cedric Gracia (FRA) – 1:00.859
4 – Emanuel Pombo (POR) – 1:01.352
5 – Djone Fornari (BRA) – DNF

Southtime captured all the best of their action on their Drift HD170‘s and Drift HD cameras and brought us this great little edit.

When Kimi Räikkönen and Nick Heidfeld enjoy a Party together and Aura Dione is wearing her warmest clothes of her huge wardrobe it’s time for this year’s most spectacular Ski-Doo Race. The Swatch Snow Mobile weekend in Saalbach Hinterglemm was once more a get-together for world champions, ski legends and motor sports heroes, plus leading figures from industry, culture and society. The nail biting event was watched by thousands of spectators around the range, and Drift was lucky enough to be brought along for the ride.

F1 racing giant Nick Heidfeld took a Drift HD for a spin during his laps at the event and brought back some amazing footage, showing these guys really do go for it, this ain’t no friendly competition!

Thanks to Tara Ramos, Nick Heidfeld and the rest of their team!

Nick Heidfeld Edit – SWATCH Snow Mobile 2011 from Drift on Vimeo.

It was 3 am, 38º F, and pouring rain in Butte, MT. Photographer Trent Bona and I had just finished filling our 25′ C-class RV up with $150 worth of gas for the fourth time since leaving Denver 16 hours prior, and spirits couldn’t have been higher. Desperate to escape a very dry early season in Colorado we had rented the RV from RV America in Aurora, CO with hopes of getting our powder fix in British Columbia. Butte represented our third shift change of the night, and I moved to the cab-over bed to let Trent take us the five remaining hours to Sandpoint, ID where we had plans to meet up with Caleb Mullen and hopefully ski the first real powder of the season at Schweitzer Mountain Resort.

The trip had been in the works for months, but somehow when dealing with skiers it always seems to come down to the last minute. This was no exception, and we finally put our deposit on the RV a little more than 15 hours before showing up in Aurora to move in and drive north. Former CB resident and fellow Moment athlete Louise Lintilhac and her photographer fiancé Dana Allen agreed to fly into Kelowna, BC and move into the RV when Trent and I got there. With everything coming together mid-day Tuesday, I called Trent and asked if he would be ready to leave for a two week trip to Canada at 5am Wednesday. Amazingly enough, we were both able to organize our lives into a couple enormous duffel bags and were leaving RV America by noon, right on schedule.

Unfortunately, not everything can go according to plan, especially on a trip like this. As we drove into Sandpoint, the rain never changed to snow. Even 4000’ above at the top of Schweitzer it had rained all night before a morning temperature drop turned the mountain into a sheet of ice. The next morning we were making great time on the road to Kelowna when a tandem trailer truck jackknifed across the road, blocking the pass above town, forcing a 4 hour detour through the Okanagan valley. We were rewarded with a beautiful drive through interior BC’s wine and beach resort country, but after over 30 hours on the road we were starting to wonder if we were ever going to get to ski powder.

Shot with a Drift HD helmet camera.

Ski RV – Road Trip to Revelstoke 2012 from Tom Runcie on Vimeo.

Saturday morning dawned with the “skiRV,” as we had dubbed our home and transportation, parked in the Whitewater Ski Resort lot, blanketed in a very welcome 6” of fresh snow. Like kids at Christmas the four of us practically sprinted to the lifts. Armed with one of Whitewater’s finest as a guide, we were taken immediately to the goods and started our trip off with a 1500’ powder run. Whitewater is set at the end of a box canyon, with lifts going up either side but not up the end. The result is an extensive sidecountry area between the two main lifts that offers up to 3000’ of powder skiing, depositing those willing to make the short hike from the top of the chair right back at the base lodge. Though high avalanche danger kept us from exploring some of the more interesting options in the Whitewater sidecountry, for the four of us fresh out of the snow-less southlands it was such a joy simply to be able to ski safely in the trees and hit the occasional cliff without worrying about finding barely-covered stumps and rocks.

After our second day of real winter, we made the 300 km drive to Fernie, BC to meet up with fellow Freeskiing World Tour competitor Luke Nelson. Fernie offered a perfectly situated RV lot complete with hookups, adjacent free showers (a relief for the ski RV crew), and easy slopeside access. Once again we were taken straight to the best the mountain had to offer, and spent the day shooting photos in breathtaking light among the technical cliffs and chutes of Fernie’s five enormous bowls. Happy with our photos and turns for the day and with rumors of snow falling to the north we piled back into the RV and turned our sights to Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, 300 km north in Golden, BC.

Kicking Horse is in the process of expanding operations, but we were highly impressed with the terrain we found. The main mountain is accessed via a 4100’ gondola. From the top of this chair, four long parallel ridges fall back towards the base with nearly endless skiable chutes and tree shots dropping into the bowls to the sides of the ridges. The icing on the cake for me was the run-out to the base area, which kept soft cold snow all the way down while remaining playful and fun. After a six hour day of lapping the whole vertical drop of the mountain, we were able to ski back to within a few feet of our RV. A quick dinner and we were on our way again. We drove over Rogers Pass, famous for its consistent snowfall, and were amazed at the 30’ tall snow banks that guarded either side of the road. It seemed a fitting welcome to our group of (until recently) snow-deprived skiers to Revelstoke and the first stop of the Freeskiing and Freeride World Tours.

For more of Tom’s adventures, go to: www.tomruncie.com

Jake Nicholls - Credit Simon Parker Photography

Daniel had this to add about working with Drift for 2012; “I’m excited to be teaming up with Drift this year. We regularly produce videos with our team riders and cover some exciting events that Amped support, so it’s important that we make use of the best gear possible for the job. The quality and ease of use of the Drift cameras are brilliant, and allows us to setup quickly and confidently knowing that we have things setup right to get great footage right time around. Amped Clothing will have a number of riders competing at World Championship level this year such as Motocross star, Jake Nicholls along with top enduro talent such as Jonny Walker and Daniel McCanney. We can’t wait to start getting these riders kitted out with Drift equipment and seeing what they can come up with.”

Drift will be bringing you exciting news from the teams campaign throughout 2012 and you can look forward to some great edits to get your teeth in to shortly! In celebration of this Amped Clothing are offering Drift fans a great deal on their newly launched caps, all you need to do is click the link below and enter the code DRIFT at the checkout to receive £5.00 off!

In the meantime check out their latest edit from Jake Nicholls; just a taster of what we’ve got to look forward to;

 http://www.thisisamped.com
http://www.facebook.com/thisisamped
http://www.twitter.com/thisisamped

SOC ACSS: DRIFT TRAXXAS CAM Jump and Flip January 7, 2012 TRAXXAS National

Drift HD Stealth on Valenta excel termik by Trencin Ostrov

Here is how the Drift HD170 Stealth action cam is mounted on the Radain Pro.

Remote control plane crash in water

Martin Ogden, in the 35-39 Cruiser class, was the first rider of the weekend to take the win. Three clear motos followed by a clear semi race meant he easily made the final. In the final he left the entire field behind to take his first win onboard his Identiti Krisis MX.

Jordan Lunn

Jordan Lunn had his first ever BMX race and found himself in a very competitive and packed Male 17-24 class. The strength of the field was increased as a lot or riders stayed in this class so they could race the World Championships in Birmingham. This made it a very hard field to race against and Jordan had three hard motos containing some riders that could have placed well in pro elite! Jordan held his own and came a very good 33rd out of 53 riders which is not a bad start to his BMX racing career. In fact it was extremely good for his first ever race at perhaps the hardest National Bmx Track on the calendar this year.

Team rider Joey Gough had her first race back in BMX for many years against a super hard field in Championship Women. Once again many riders chose to stay in this class to enable them to compete at the Worlds. Joey had a great first moto coming in second place but a very strong field consisting of many World Class riders from Europe (who had stayed over from Saturday night’s Supercross event) meant it would be a stiff test for her. Despite this she rode brilliantly and raced her way into the final. A first turn crash in the final meant that a place on the podium wasn’t to be. But 8th place for her first race in a long time is still a very good result and gives her something to build upon.

Peter Power (Father to the superfast and super smooth Jake Power) had his first race on board an Identiti Krisis MX in the Veteran Category. Pete obliterated the field by taking the win in every moto and left the field behind in the finals to take his first win of the 2012 season.

Micheal Cummins

Michael Cummins had a hard day in Junior (especially as they had to use Manchester’s super tech “pro section”, which is one of the hardest pro sections in the UK) but raced well and had some very good gates resulting in him doing well in every moto. Unfortunately in the semi-final he missed the last jump of the pro section which meant he ended up in the B finals. Michael went on to win the Junior B finals by a massive margin and leave us to think what could have been! With some very tight and fast racing on a very hard track we are very happy with Michael’s results on board his Identiti Krisis MX.

Team Manager Dave Franciosy had this to add: ” The team were under a lot of pressure to perform this weekend and despite it being the first time they all were together it was great to see how well they bonded and worked together. With such a large amount of pre-race press the team were sure to get a lot of attention during the race weekend from fans and fellow racers alike. To add to this pressure the Extreme Sports Channel followed the team for the weekend with the riders doing interviews. The crew also took plenty of race footage of the team to be broadcast on the channel.I could not have asked for a better start to the season for the new team with all the riders doing very well on such a hard track. It certainly goes to show that we should have a great year ahead of us”

What a brilliant start to the year the team have had, and we’re looking forward to seeing a lot more from them over the course of 2012.

For many of us that partake in water sports, and use the ocean as a playground understand how quickly a situation can take a turn for the worst so it’s shocking to discover how underfunded (or in some cases like Sandown and Shanklin, supported entirely from independents sources) this service is; they rely on the crew generously giving their time to perform incredible rescues and independent supporters; so that’s where Drift came in, and we couldn’t be more pleased to be supporting such a cause.

The crew have been busy rigging up and testing out their Drift HD; using the Drift HD waterproof housing, which they have modified with two waterproof line grommet’s in order use the external microphone and LED indicator; have mounted the camera on the mast using a RAM mount. The mic runs from under the righting bag, picking up engine nose and chat on the deck in the install checks (the mic has been custom waterproofed also). The LED indicator is also is on the mast, this is visible to the crew that the camera is operating and recording.

The remote for the camera is located near the throttles, this aids the Coxswain(s) to record what is needed via the safety of the helm seat, and the crew now longer need to climb on the tube to activate a camera to record, avoiding an unnecessary risk to a crew already taking so many.

If you’d like more information, or more importantly would like to further support the work of Sandown and Shanklin Independent Lifeboat you can do so via their website http://www.sandownlifeboat.com/homepage.htm.

Johnathan and his team mate, Nick Baumgartner placed an impressive second in tough competition. Cheever noted, “Last years World Champion, Chumpy Pullin of Australia was ahead of me this race with two euros trailing. I could have ridden better, but you know what they say about boarder-cross. If you don’t do well this week… just wait until next week.”

Johnathan and team Cheever have an impressive resume, with Johnathan currently being a member of  the U.S. Snowboarding’s SBX A Team as well as being ranked 3rd in the world in SBX and a US National Champion he’s got and exciting year ahead in 2012 and we’re looking forward to seeing more POV footage as he continues to dominate across the snowboardcross scene.