Tricking every set is a good bonus too though. Here are some more riders who did not make it, starting by qualifying place 19.Colin MacKay had bad luck as his bike did not show up and he was without a bike for three days. This limited his practice time and on a course like this, if you want to feel comfortable, you need to put your time in. Colin is a rider who likes to trick every set. With the amount of riding he got down before the comp, it was a gamble to see if he could stick it. 3-whips ain’t the easiest tricks to throw on the first set of a big 6 pack but Colin rolled the dice and went for it. Good attitude but it didn’t work out this time. 19th place was his.
Josh Steed made it to the Valley and the Australian did some awesome tricks on the way down. With Dane Searls, Corey Bohan, Dave Dillewaard, Kym Grosser and Colin MacKay present, it looks like Australians are taking over. It could have been a bigger Aussie posse had the invited Cameron White, Steve McCann and Ryan Guettler shown up. Josh Steed represented Australia by getting 18th place. Local hero Darren Barrecloth had no problems with the big jumps. He’s actually used to jumping even bigger stuff on his MTB. He recently won over $ 100.000,= USD by winning a mountain bike tour in Europe and joined the BMX-ers (which is where he came from) on his home turf.
Darren clicks turndowns like the best of them and did a giant superman seatgrab over the 40 feet gap of the last set that had the crowd going. Switching back and forth between his Specialized MTB-s and his BMX bike is not easy and to rule at both is next to impossible. It’s good to see that he gives it a try and hasn’t forgotten about his roots even when the prize purse is smaller than he’s used to. 
Paul Kintner has true trails style. The North-West trails rider had no problem with any of the distances or any of the lines. How he does it, I don’t know but he gets wasted at night, and simply gets on his bike to rip the next day. It might be his daily routine. Practice makes perfect. He throws mean 360 lookbacks too but missed the cut (16th). Jed Milden from New Zealand is one hell of a rider. I’d never seen him ride before but he left a strong impression on his first presence. Similar to what Dane Searls did last year when he came over for the first time. Jed’s riding is strong and he pulls the big tricks.
He’s not afraid and received many rounds of applause for his efforts and 15th place in the end with a score of 75.1. Check that “Nothing” photo which I believe represents his style well: balls out! Kye Forte was looking forward to the Elevation so much. After his Empire of Dirt event got cancelled because of the rain Kye was happy that the sun showed up in time to get the contest started. Kye whipped and three-sixtied over the various sets and called his brother “Cocky” when Jay asked him what he thought about Leo.
Kye placed better than his brother so he shut him down at Elevation. Kye’s 360 tables are one of a kind. Where Chris Doyle has his signature 360 turndown and Ryan Nyquist has his signature 360 suicide no-hander, you can recognize Kye Forte’s presence by miles away as soon as he busts his 360 table. Sweet. Finishing 13th, where they’re taking 12 to the finals, sucks. It happened to another true trails rider from the North-West who goes by the name of Darin Read. Correct me if I’m wrong but someone did a cancan la
nder on the big set and I think it was Darin. For sure he did cancan three-sixties and had the flow that others missed. Riding a lot of trails pays off at a contest like Elevation and Darin just almost made it into the big finals with all those big time sponsored riders.Finals are today. Will keep you posted.
BdJ
13. Darin Read 76.7
14. Kye Forte 76.0
15. Jed Milden 75.1
16. Paul Kintner 74.7
17. Darren Barrecloth 74.1
18. Josh Steed 74.1
19. Colin Mackay 72.3
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.