Well, what a weekend for our French gravity sports team!
Philippe & Marie - victors at Rigalet!
Awesome picture courtesy of Goat Longboards
Philippe Dupuy & Marie Bougourd took the number one podium places at the Rigalet downhill challenge.
Marie (aka Spoky Woky) was admittedly a little disappointed to be the only female rider in the competition, but gave the men a serious run for their money & placed twelth overall...
Marie on the podium
& Alexandre Lebrun grabbed the number 2 spot at the Italian World Cup IIda Cisterna D'Asti event.
Alexandre's podium moment in Italy
We are so proud of you guys (and so pleased to see that you all bagged some wine as a prize)!! Now the season is off to a flying start for sure & we'll look forward to brings you more news asap.
Interested in trying gravity sports yourself? Find out more from the IGSA...
We're really pleased to have caught up with our friend Ian Emery today - not least because he appeared with a very splendid box of cakes for us! Ian flies his RC Helis in the AHA competitions & has fast progressed through their ranks.
We've sent Ian away with some more bearings & our very best wishes for his upcoming competitions (which seemed only fair after he'd bought such nice cakes - we are all sticky now, but very happy). We've been pleased that he's found our precision EZO bearings up to the hard-knocks job of keeping him flying.
Here's Ian's update on his season so far:
Bexhill-On-Sea (Round 2)
"The second event of the 2012 league was held at a new venue at Bexhill-On-Sea. It promised to have a good turnout as there is a good following in the South East. The weather was sunny, although very windy. Surprisingly nobody turned up for the Sportsman’s class again, although there were 2 new competitors entering the Clubman’s competition which I flew last year. The Clubman’s competition is a list of 28 manoeuvres of which you have to choose any 8, and since my manoeuvres were included in that list I decided to fly in Clubman’s, joining the 2 new competitors so at least we could have a competition. I flew the Sportsman’s schedule which consists of 2 hovering and 6 aerobatic manoeuvres whilst the other 2 opted to just fly aerobatics as they were competing with Flybarless helicopters. I managed to win the event overall, although I had a slight scare in round 2. The wind caught me out when I was climbing into a manoeuvre called a Cuban 8, I had to bail out of it which lost me quite a few marks. That is what I like about this hobby everyday seems to be a learning day".
Festival of Flight – Barkston Heath (Round 3)
"This was to be the last event before a 2 month break whilst the British Team go to the European Championships in Germany. Amazingly whilst the rest of the country seemed to be suffering from torrential downpours, Barkston Heath was baked in sunshine. This was a very poor turnout and there weren’t enough competitors in any of the 3 classes to form a competition so it was decided that we would have a training day. The British Team were ironing out any last minute issues and I attempted to fly the F3C Schedule for the first time, although there were a few manoeuvres that I wasn’t brave enough to attempt just yet. What surprised me is what a huge step it is from Sportsman’s to F3C, those guys just make it look effortless. Nevertheless I got some very good feedback and some pointers for me to work on before the next competition".
Ian also recommended that we watch this video, as it shows us what is expected of him in the F3C competitions this year...
The new F3C pattern demonstrated by the world champion Hiroki Ito:
Wow, that looks tough... we're sure you'll pick it up in no time Ian - good luck from us all at SMB!
Schaeffer's crew say "For Go Skateboarding Day 2012, Schaeffer was going to try Ollie as many boards as possible. Then, as usual in England it poured with rain so he didnt get to do it.....but here is the practice session he did last week. He nearly made it".
Pretty amazing for anybody, never mind someone who's only 8 years old - well done Schaeffer!
We can also enjoy this video of the ever-graceful Marie Bougourd (aka "Spoky Woky") skating her local park, wonderful!
We are delighted to be sponsoring Marie for the 3rd consecutive season & are sure she'll continue to be an amazing success in the European IGSA ranking this year.
We look forward to bringing you lots more gravity sports news as the international season progresses.
We've just introduced a small range of Polypropylene bearings into stock - these are used where a higher level of corrosion resistance is required from a plastic bearing & where our standard acetal plastic bearings won't cut the mustard! Visit our website for more information on plastic bearings. If we don't have what you want in stock, we'll order it in for you, so contact us if you have any questions!