Although Martin answers the question in the press release, you’ve got to be thinking is there any more space at 23 Degrees for any more Kiwis? I mean maybe MTBNZ should be employing Martin direct to manage all the New Zealand downhillers. With Brook on board Martin now manages four Kiwis (Justin, Blenki and recent signing Anton Cooper). Anyhow it’s gotta be a good thing for Brook and will allow him more time to focus on the actual riding, and leave the bargaining to Martin. Oh and @teamrumoours is right again…

Full Press Release below:

World Number 6 Downhiller Brook MacDonald Signs With 23 Degrees

23 Degrees Sports Management announced today that it has finalized an agreement to represent 2009 Junior World Champion and World Number 6, Brook MacDonald of Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. After an impressive 2011 that included 3 World Cup podiums and an overall 6th place in the series, Brook who turns 20 next week, has a big future ahead of him.

Brook had this to say: “Next year is a really important year for me. I want to build on the experience I gained this year and chase down my goals of being one of the top Downhillers on the circuit next year and hopefully gain a medal at the World Championships. To be honest, I struggle a bit with the admin and paper work side of the sport and just want to focus on my training and racing. I’ve seen what Martin and 23 Degrees has done for Sam (Blenkinsop) and other riders, and so I asked him to help me out with my career. I’m looking forward to it.”

Founder and Owner of 23 Degrees Sports Management, Martin Whiteley, commented on Brook’s signing.

“There’s no question that Brook is on the verge of something big in our sport and we’re very happy that he’s asked us to assist him. We’ll help him evaluate his sponsorship deals and take some of the burden away so he can put more of his focus into preparing for the season and racing at podium level in 2012. This brings our athlete management roster to 7; we don’t expect to add any more athletes going into next year as we have a great stable to work with for now”.

Brook’s profile page can be found here.

Well after today’s excursion to Chris Beverland’s recently revamped jumps (See Red Bull Back Yard Digger post here) I can’t say much, although we did turn out of the town after about only 50m of it… but it was an all right 50m. After the extended crew arrived—Kelly, Chris, Brook “Bulldog” MacDonald, George Brannigan and Lewis Jones—everyone started pretty promptly. Once again Chris’s epic location did not disappoint and we were lucky enough to be graced with amazing weather all day and a next level sunset. I won’t bore you with a blow by blow, but it’s worth noting that the boys “got er’ done” and here’s a little gallery courtesy of Cam Ferguson. On Your Bike kicks off tomorrow so you can expect an update from both the pump track and the show sometime in the next 24 hours. We’ll also be dropping a bit of Twitter love…

Kelly tables a flip

Lewis gets his shoulder buzz on...

Chris skips a whole corner

Kelly gets lazy with a table and only uses one hand

Chris drops a text book tuck no hander

This year at the Wide Open Product Launch we tried to bring back the old Wide Open Dream Track sessions.
Hopefully this can grow over the next few years.

Brook and his New Zealand teammates, Scolsey (l) and Samara (r)

In the last couple of years the New Zealand and world downhill scenes have been witness to the rise and rise of Brook MacDonald, a young guy starting to make it BIG.
While spending a few days with Brook during the Wide Open road trip in late 2010, a few things really struck me. He can ride a bike, whether dirtjump hardtail style or full blown downhill runs, he can foot it with the best no problem at all. The other thing which struck me is how motivated and focused he is becoming (he certainly wasn’t this way a few years back!) Brook wants to win and it’s looking like he’s prepared to put in the hard yards to taste victory on the world stage.

We caught up with Brook briefly last week, while he was in the car somewhere on his way to the Homegrown Festival in Wellington…..

Brook hooking turn in Europe. Pic: Vollmar.

How old are you? 18

Where do you live? Napier, Hawkes Bay

What do you like best about living where you do? Weather, riding, people

What do you dislike about living where you do? Bogans and gangsters

How did you get involved in the MTB scene to begin with, and how long ago was that? It was about five years ago when it happened and I got involved through a mate who was ripping at the time and kinda looked up to him so started off tearing the hills with him.
 

Brook and his fresh helmet at Christchurch round of the DH Nationals.

How many seasons have you done overseas now? I’ve done two full seasons now

What’s your current sponsorship setup / who you riding for this year? I ride for Evil bikes with the MS Evil Racing team and Red Bull.

How did the Red Bull hook up come about? Just lots of talking with Ivan (Red Bull Athlete Manager) over the past months and it all fell into place!

What does this new deal get you – is it all about free drinks or is there a bit more to it? The deal comes with a wage, product, clothing, hats and helmets!

pic: Helen Brumby

Favourite trail in New Zealand? Would have to be Queenstown

What’s your ‘day’ job? Training!

What’s the plan from now ’til you head back overseas – when do you go? I’ll just been training hard out now and I head over in mid April

Best moment from tripping around the National series this year? Have to be when we rear-ended some angry Asian in his Land Cruiser!

Who do you think was the most legendary MTB rider in the world ever? Would have to be Shaun Palmer

What’s wrong with mountain biking? Not enough publicity and exposure

What’s right with mountain biking? That would have to be the travelling

Pinned in Tauranga. pic: Morgan Taylor.

Who do you look up to? I don’t really look up to anyone, just want to be myself. Though it would have to be Sam Blenkinsop.

Tunes to amp you for riding? Bit of drum and bass and rap

What do you buy from Wild Bean when you go there? Butter Chicken Pie

The coverage from the Wide Open product launch keeps on flowing, this time with a bit of dirt jumping from Summerhill trails. Brook’s not kidding that weak Mo’ has taken him months to grow!

The Demo day before it got busy. Plenty of bikes to try although many on the rack in the pic are dealers personal rides.

Day 2.5 and Day 3 of the Wide Open product launch were a little different. The end of day 2 (let’s call it Day 2.5) wrapped up with Wide Open throwing down dinner for their dealers, team and associated hanger-oners (that’s Caleb and me). Abracadabra was the spot, a decent Moroccan place with amazing Lamb shanks on Potato mash!The evening wrapped up with a few pints of Crouchers Pilsner, general  banter and lot of smiles all round.

Matt Whittaker (left) is the kingpin of Wide Open, here he is preparing to tuck in to dinner. 'Dog Boy' was super busy over the last few days and can be proud of his effort!

Matt V from FSA (pretty obvious which person that is) and umbrella brands had flown out from the USA to give dealers the low down on their HUGE range of products.

Team Wide Open getting amongst the action.

Dog Boy mingles with some of his dealers (yes, that guy on the right owns a shop - Tim from T-Whites Bikes)

Brook MacDonald - Stoking.

Friday morning dawned (let’s call that day 3) at 7am. The team showered, Weet-Bixed and headed to the forest to to set up base camp for the day. With a complete fleet of demo bikes racked up for dealers to try and a clear blue sky, things were looking pretty good for the day!

Dealers rolled in and took each of the bikes for a thrash, either taking laps of the downhill track on the gravity machines, or looping a small section of trail to the side of the base on the trail and XC bikes. Lunch time came and dealers were fed and watered and set out to pasture for an hour or so, took a bit of a sit down and were back into it.

Matt V (FSA) getting amongst the action.

As the dealers headed for the hills we (the Spoke posse) rounded up the team for a bit of a pedal across the forest to shape and hit a couple of spots. Looking outside of the normal ‘gravity’ realm we hit the singletrack aboard everything from short travel jump bikes (Black Market Killswitch) and downhill bikes (Turners of course).

Matt Scoles mid corner. The 'print' shot from this spot is killer!

We bagged some shots, got some sun stroke, talked some mindless rubbish and were generally happy with the day! Until we had to ride back across the forest with heavy bags of cameras, flashes and tripods. But hey, that’s part of the job right?

Matt Scoles, flash check model.

Scolsey getting whipped on the DH rig.

Caleb, fearless Spoke editor getting a shot. Yeah, he forgot his riding kit so had to roll 'skate-rat' style.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be rolling out plenty of content from the Wide Open product launch, more photos and videos.

Keep an eye open in a future print edition of Spoke Magazine for a full article and all the good photos.

Paul's place, well actually his parents place but this is what you see just before seeing the dirt setup.

Wow, what a hectic couple of days it’s been! After a midnight lights-out following an hour or so of banter and abuse dished around the Wide Open and Spoke crews, it was a 6:20am blaring alarm that got us dragging our carcasses out of bed and into action for the day.

Paul Langlands; whistle while you work. Paul broke his ankle a month or so ago and was fresh out of his 'moon boot' hobbling around tweaking his jumps. Then, he rode - more on that further down the post!

The plan was to head from our base in Rotorua over to Cambridge to session Paul Langland’s backyard trail spot. On the road by just after 7am we made an obligatory coffee stop and trucked on to C-town. Once on the Mamaku ranges we were confronted with dark clouds, grunty rain, and gale force winds. Not the ideal conditions if you’re planning on getting your bike off the ground!

After a couple of phone calls we decided to push on to Cambridge and see what we could do. Literally two minutes of driving after making this decision the skies cleared and the wind dropped a little. Once at the Langlands compound the boys donned their pads and hit the trails.

Matt Scoles whipped way out. He was hammering out heaps of these over the session.

We battled the elements with showers passing through and winds blustering, causing a little havoc with the riders but Caleb managed to squeeze out a couple of decent shots, Peiter got some solid footage and I threw my camera around snapping everything in sight.

Recent addition to the Wide Open squad, Conor MacFarlane was killing things with these shoulder barges. He also swung a few 360 X-ups but no decent photos were snapped of them.

Wide Open 'old-timer' Brett Frew threw out a bunch of spins over the hip. Caleb got the good shot, I didn't!

Brett took a bit of a rodeo after landing the last jump and ended up tangled in the live electric fence. Shocking.

Brook MacDonald keeping things waayyy moto! One footed downside tables like the best of them.

BOOM. Conor rules.

As mentioned earlier, Paul Langlands is fresh off a broken ankle. He was itching to ride (although probably shouldn't have been) so grabbed his bike and had a quick shred, absolutely killing it in the process.

The rain came in about half an hour before we were due to roll back to Rotorua (for the product launch where I'm sitting right now). After a hustle in the garage we loaded the troops and headed for base, just as the weather was clearing once again! Always the way.

Wellington Reprezent!!! Sarah Atkin killed it in her first true international competition to take 5th place. Photo: Patrick Fallon

Downhill competition filled the race programme today at the Mont Sainte Anne World Championships in Quebec, with the Junior and Elite Men’s and Women’s Championship races taking place. The changeable weather continued throughout the day, and just like the previous four days of events for the New Zealanders, so too did their fortunes.

Auckland's Charlotte Clouston rode a sore wrist to sixth place. Photo: Patrick Fallon

The Junior categories started the programme off after a short practice period in the morning. Steady rain overnight had again turned the Mont Sainte Anne mountain into a variable surface race course, at times drying rapidly, with riders sometimes struggling with tyre choice, how far to push, and hitting race lines learnt during a long period of training in the dry. Sarah Atkin (Wellington) had the honour of being first starter in the championship race, but struggled to hold a clean run together with two crashes and a time that would only be good enough for fifth place. Charlotte Clouston (Waimauku) had wrenched a wrist in the morning’s practice session, and was tentative but determined to ride a strong race, eventually taking sixth place. The third Kiwi off the line was Madeline Taylor (Hawkes Bay). Taylor had struggled all week with the physical nature of the Mont Sainte Anne course, suffering through arm pump caused by the continual impact that downhill racing on a mountain like this delivers. Taylor had saved her best effort for the final, and held podium pace right to the very last jump, where she couldn’t hold on to her bike and crashed just short of the line, losing so much time in recovering her bike that any hope of a top result was out of reach.

Jimmy Wilson, steezing it up with a sprained ankle. Photo: Patrick Fallon

The Junior Men’s race had been much anticipated for New Zealand since the curtain went down on the 2009 World Championships. Second year junior George Brannigan (Hawkes Bay) had narrowly missed winning the 2010 World Cup the weekend before in Windham, New York, and desperately wanted the World Championship title to finish off his European season  on a high note. Brannigan was fourth to last starter, with 38 other riders completing their runs before him. Jimmy Wilson (Christchurch) and Sam Baker (Waimauku) nursed badly twisted ankles through their race runs, but on the physically demanding Mont Sainte Anne course, they were always going to be up against it. Daniel Franks (Christchurch) enjoyed some time in the leader’s hot seat, holding the fastest time for a period covering several other riders. Jed Rooney (Oamaru) joined Franks in the hot seat and then Rupert Chapman (Christchurch) also bumped them down a spot on the leader’s board. The small crowd of vocal New Zealand supporters held their breaths as Brannigan worked his way down the mountain at race winning pace, and couldn’t quite believe the big screen images of Brannigan losing control of his bike and crashing on a section of course he had cleaned all week. More than 10 seconds lost in that off cost him any chance of claiming the win, and he had to settle for a bitterly disappointing fourth place. Brannigan’s nemesis over the European World Cup season, Troy Brosnan (Australia), won the coveted title, completing a rare World Cup/Championship double.

Kieran Bennett snapped his Tomac frame in two in his race run. Yay Tomac. Photo: Patrick Fallon

The feature event the crowds had come to see was the Elite Men’s race. First New Zealander to start was Kieran Bennett (Nelson) who had an absolute nightmare run. Breaking his frame through the seatpost and puncturing towards the bottom of the course put an end to Bennett’s World Championships campaign. Outgoing Junior World Champion Brook MacDonald was confident, calm and composed leaving the start gate and had podium pace right through the first two splits, but a small wash-out sucked too much time from him; while MacDonald held provisional third for some time, he would eventually finish 12th. Wyn Masters was next away, and after a reasonably unsuccessful season by his own standards, wanted to leave the World Championships having salvaged a top result. Masters didn’t have the legs on the day, finding himself unable to ride at the pace he needed. While the star of cult favourite WynTV was still able to turn on his crowd pleasing style, it didn’t translate to out and out pace on the scoreboard. Dunedin’s Justin Leov was next. Leov had this course dialled in practice but lost significant time in a similar course position to MacDonald, and his title shot was over in a matter of a few lost seconds, taking 14th. All New Zealand hopes now rested on Sam Blenkinsop as the last New Zealand starter. Blenkinsop was more than capable of taking this one, but the weather had again played its part, starting to rain quite solidly for the last 20 starters. Blenkinsop was off winning pace right from the start, and in a sport where winning is often measured in the hundredths of a second, coupled with now greasy exposed corners, he couldn’t make any time up over the lower parts of the course, finishing 9th. Australian Sam Hill’s return to top level competition after an early season shoulder injury had the ultimate conclusion, with Hill claiming the rainbow jersey World Championship title by a comfortable 2 1/2 second margin.

Sam Blenkinsop was off winning pace right from the start. He couldn’t make any time up over the lower parts of the course, finishing 9th. Photo: Patrick Fallon

The New Zealand Team was disappointed in the range of results through the categories contested today, having had realistic and high hopes of bringing home titles in each. However, some consolation was gained as the UCI released the Nation Rankings post-competition. New Zealand advanced up the rankings to number one nation for Junior Men, number two nation for Elite Men and number three nation for Junior Women.

The New Zealand Mountain Bike Team now disperses to home bases. Many athletes will be returning to New Zealand over the next two days, with the balance scheduled to be back at home before the end of the month.

Matt from Wide Open let me know yesterday that Junior World Champion and current Pro-Elite shredder Brook MacDonald has broken his foot! Word has it he’ll be right for the Oceaninas. Spoke wishes Brook a speedy recovery.  “Brook MacDonald broke his foot last week and will miss the next few Nationals but is expecting to be fit for the Oceania”s in Dunedin.

Brook crashed while filming with TV3 and was hoping that is was just a bad sprain. This is a real shame for Brook as he has been riding extremely well this summer.

The break is not bad and should only see him off the bike for 6 weeks.” from wideopen.co.nz

Thwarted by the weather at every turn, Wide Open team riders Brett Frew, Matt Scoles and Junior World DH Champion Brook MacDonald made do with far from ideal conditions in a short road trip leading up to the Wide Open product launch last week.

It was also my first play with filming on the 5dMkII (I know I’ve been pedaling slowly). I really need to do that filmware upgrade!