ON YOUR BIKE
In the time that I was off the water, my favourite activity to do was mountain bike. And your not going to believe this one, I got an e-bike. Yep an e-bike, I know they are not the coolest thing to write about but I can tell you this – they might be the most fun bike I have ever owned. Now it was fun going up the hill, taking the corners at speed, loving every second of being on the hill, ripping up and down and addicted to being on it every day! And guess who was my riding partner… Jason Polakow – perfect. So we start riding and riding and the fun keeps getting better and better. We shred through the forest, down the hills, up the hills and while you think this is going to end badly, well it doesn’t. The mountain biking gets me back on a mission. Instead of thinking about being 40, I start thinking about doing jumps and getting in better shape. You might say, “Getting in better shape on an e-bike?”, well they are pedal assist bikes and if you don’t pedal you don’t go and it is great for getting in shape because you actually go out and do it all the time because you’re having fun all the time. I started doing bigger jumps and some little gap jumps and pushing my boundaries.
With my ear recovered it was time to get back on the windsurf board. I had been wanting to progress my windsurfing for a long time and I’d made a lot of progress, but still nothing that was really making my heart jump like going down a hill on a mountain bike and hitting a little gap. I loved this feeling and missed it on my windsurfer. So I started throwing doubles. Yep double loops at 40. I had really wanted to try them but hadn’t yet got up the courage. The Pistol River AWT event was coming up and I felt it would be the perfect place to go for it – grab some wind and some sail and toss it. I was in the finals and one of the things all my friends tell me is how predictable my sailing is; I decided it was time for a change.