Thanks to Five Ten Shoes we were recently given the opportunity to shoot with Brendan Fairclough for a day in Whistler during Kokanee Crankworx. Lone Wolf Productions had never shot with a world cup racer before and it was an exciting prospect, of course we jumped all over the chance and arranged to meet with Brendan mid week. When we pulled up to out hotel, strangely enough there was Brendan standing at the front counter with his posse of riders. My first impression of Brendan is that he was a very laid back and unassuming person, even in his crowd of friends I almost didn't notice him despite the fact he is one of the more recognizable faces in the DH race circuit and even film scene. He quietly introduced himself and we talked about shooting the next day. We decided to shoot in the morning on the notorious Whistler trails A-line and Crab Apple Hits. I was enthused to hear that Brendan wanted to shoot on some of Whistlers jump trails because I knew his style would really shine through on those runs.
Unfortunately when we woke up in the morning and opened the curtains the excitement melted, rain was all we could see. Brendan wasn't having any of it either, and decided to hold off on the shoot until we had better weather. Seeing as we had bad weather, no rider and some time on our hands we decided to check out the village and go see our friends at Pinkbike. Their booth was looking good and gave us a great vantage point to shoot Joy Ride from. Just as we thought all hope was lost for the shoot the skies began to clear and the dirt began to soak up all the water, It was on!
We called Brendan and met him at the top of A-line. The small amount of mud that was on the ground seemed to enhance Brendan's riding. We could hear the speed he was carrying in the soft dirt, and feel it as the mud bounced off of us when he flew past on the trail. Needless to say Brendan was getting sideways off of almost every bump he could find, and was whipping so hard that he nearly took out our lenses on more than one occasion. Once we were done on A-line we moved over to Crab Apple Hits, and that's where things got really interesting. Brendan told us he had been riding and shooting on Crab Apple lots through out the week and it showed. His front tire spent more time behind his rear tire in the air. We were also lucky enough to be graced by Andrew Neethling and a few other pro racers which just seemed to raise his ability even further.
After we were done we thanked Brendan for his time and went our separate ways, but remained in awe of what we had seen. We were lucky enough to catch the best trick contest on our way down the hill where we were able to get some great shots with Greg Watts (stay tuned for a section with Greg coming very soon). All in all it was a great trip and Kokanee Crankworx was an amazing event...We can't wait until next year.
A big thanks goes out to
TNL Photography for the photos.
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