LINE RIDERS REIGN AT THE LONDON SKI SHOW & LONDON RIDE 2007

Four of the six skiers invited to demonstrate throughout the Metro London Ski and Snowboard Show held at London Olympia (24-28 October 2007) this year were members of the LINE UK Mountain Command (MC) team, representing LINE Skis!

Our thanks therefore to Mike Wakefield, James Machon, Murray Buchan and the new LINE MC Team Manager Andy Bennett for representing LINE so well over the 5 days of the Show.

Even better… Mike, James and Andy all managed to get through to the finals of the LONDON RIDE on the Saturday 27 October and Mike went on to take the crown. He and James also did battle in the finals of the BEST OF BRITISH Competition on Friday 26 October with Mike also coming out on top in that competition too.

This was an outstanding performance for Mike given that he has been recovering from a major injury since December 2006 and hadn’t been on skis for 10 months! Mike wowed the crowds throughout the Ski Show getting incredible height in the Trespass Quarter Pipe and throwing his Wake ‘N Bake! Welcome back Mike!

James Machon also went big and impressed everyone with his performance. A relative unknown outside LINE until the Ski Show, James is at last getting wider recognition. A hard working, gifted freestyle skier totally focused on expanding his trick bag and perfecting a few dare-devil moves along the way - James is definitely one to watch!

We were very pleased to confirm at the London Show that Andy Bennett has been appointed LINE UK MC Team Manager. Building on the excellent work done by Rick Hutchings over the last year, Andy will be responsible for working with the LINE UK Mountain Command riders, winners of the UK Freeski Team award 2006.

Andy has been with LINE as a sponsored rider for about 7 years and we reckon he is the longest sponsored LINE rider in the world along with Tom Last! As well as his innate ability both in freestyle and freeride skiing, Andy has an excellent understanding of the UK scene having achieved such milestones as becoming poster boy for Ellis Brigham ;-) and qualifying as the first Course Tutor for Snowsport England Freestyle Courses in the UK alongside Pat Sharples, with whom he runs the Groms Camps.

In addition to being a qualified freestyle coach with Snowsport England himself, Andy is a British team and World Cup half pipe coach, a coach for the British Freeski Camps and Tourparty Camps and has recently been appointed a member of the British Freestyle committee in charge of sponsorship for the British team. He is also well known for setting up the KSM, for organising competitions and events with the KSM and Ellis Brigham, and more recently for his films too.

The other news at the Show was that it would be the last public performance for Murray Buchan on LINE Skis as he is to join Voelkl Europe. Ever since Murray first wrote to us at the age of 11 asking for sponsorship we’ve enjoyed having him as a key member of the LINE UK MC. He has been a fantastic example to young riders everywhere over the years, making rapid progress in both the UK and European freestyle ski arenas, taking numerous titles including “Austrian Open Rookie of the Year” last season. We will miss having him on LINE but we have no hesitation in wishing him well. We have always known that he has the potential to compete internationally with riders from all over the world and hope he will achieve his ambition of making skiing a full time career when he finishes school. We hope to see him representing Scotland soon - whether for skiing or rugby! Best of luck Murray!

Tourparty / Tourparty staffer and LINE fan Chris McGuire was at the London Show and has sent us a brief rundown on everything that happened for those who weren’t there to see the action, plus the photos in this feature - many thanks to him for this…

BEST OF BRITISH… AND LONDON… AND THE WORLD!

As always the ski show was good fun with demonstrations going on all day from riders including Mike Wakefield, Andy Bennett, James Machon, Murry Buchan, Paddy Graham and James Woods on the Trespass Quarter Pipe.

Some crazy stuff went down with Mike on his signature trick the Wake ‘N Bake, Woodsy doing D-Spin 900s, Murray doing Truck 720s and highlight of the whole week James Machon doing Cork 900s and a 1080!

The snowboarders were on form too, with the UK’s finest including Sparrow Knox, Jamie Nicols and Gary Greenshields to name a few doing all sorts including McTwist 9’s, and crazy Backflips to Disaster. Also the snowboarders had the Burton Rail to play on too, built over a brand new Discovery from Land Rover.

LINE Mountain Command rider Josh Birch was also doing his thing on the Trespass Quarter Pipe in the "London Ride" and was filmed for a feature by the BBC's Sportsround programme, doing a great job as a new presenter talking up freestyle skiing etc!

The Dark Summer party was rad and thanks to the free beers supplied by Corona things got blurry but the premiers of Chris Asquith’s (Regime Change Productions) new film “Nobody Loves” and the new Ellis Brigham film “Sticks + Stones” were awesome.

For my money the stand-out sections to watch in the new ski movies for were Joe Murrell (Sticks + Stones) with a Pistol flip in his section, Paddy Graham, Murray Buchan, Andy Bennett and Gaute Haker.

Friday was the “Best Of British” competition, it which was fun to watch and the amazing skiers made it an impressive event. Yet again it lead to some amazing stuff from all the riders, with Rodeo 7’s from Joe Murrell, Cork 7’s from Josh Fawcett and very corked 9’s from James Machon. The winner was Mike Wakefield throwing the trick that he invented the Wake ‘N Bake despite his hardly being on skis for 10 months since his injury while training in Les Deux Alpes!

Saturday meant the “London Ride” competition with some of the worlds best including all the UK riders and others such as Flo Wieser and Henrik Harlaut. The riders from outside the UK found it difficult on the Snowflex which lead to some scary looking crashes but all in all there was some crazy stuff with the prizes going to Mike Wakefield in 1st place, Henrik Harlaut (from Sweden) in 2nd place and Paddy Graham in 3rd place.

The rider of the week for me has to go to either Mike Wakefield, James Machon, Woodsy or Sparrow Knox!

By Chris McGuire