KELLY MCGARRY’S CRANKWORX REPORT

Crankworx is done and dusted now and it didn’t go too bad for me. I competed in the Deep Summer Photo Challenge which is a competition where six  professional photographers are invited to the Whistler Valley  for three days to shoot as many great MTB photos as possible (60% bike park photos)  and present them as a slide show in front of a massive crowd at the Fairmont Chateau.

I was in photographer Dan Barham’s team of riders and we worked hard over the three days and got together a bunch of really cool shots. We placed second at the event which we were all stoked on. Look out for some shots from the event floating around. Spoke will be publishing Dan’s submission in the November issue.

After the photo comp it was time to focus on the Slopestyle. I had been helping out with course building leading up to the event, and was fairly stoked on the course. There were a few scary features thrown in the mix including a massive SRAM sponsored 55 foot ply to ply gap. I had been eyeing it up in practice, I figured I would give it a shot on my DH bike. I pedalled as hard as I could into the gap and sent it, only to be horrified after I took off that I was going to come up short! I hit hard into the plywood, smashed my face on the handlebars and ripped a big hole in my face (17 stitches). I was not a happy camper. I ended up being the only one silly enough to give it a shot! haha.

Due to rain, qualifying ran on the same day as the final, practice was gnarly with plenty of people ending up in the meatwagon with broken bones. I managed to stay on my bike and made the final in qualifying.

I felt a lot more pressure in the final, with more cameras and the crowd flowing in. I had a solid 1st run, and was sitting in 7th coming into the 2nd round. I had a super clean 2nd run and placed 9th overall. I am pretty happy with a top ten result in the largest slopestyle event in the world and looking forward to next year’s comp!