Matt Hunter

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    Enduro

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Enduro

I was born in Kamloops, British Columbia in 1983. Singletrack zigzags through the hills behind my parents' house; bikes were freedom. I explored the hills and trails wherever and whenever I could. I was 12 when I got into XC racing. I was really into it until I was about 15, when I started focusing more on DH riding. Some of my friends who I raced with made the same transition, and we started to learn together. We started building big jumps and aggressive trails. We filmed ourselves riding and I made a short video. I entered the video in an online contest, the "Ultimate Freeride Challenge" and ended up winning. That was the beginning of my sponsored career in 2003. Specialized sponsored me then and I have been with Specialized ever since.

My focus has always been shooting photos and filming video segments, that is what I love to do. I really enjoy finding adventure in the mountains - whether it be challenging moves and airs or maybe it's a multiple day ride.

I like watching big mountain skiers and snowboarders, the way they shred the mountains in the snow inspires me on dirt. Besides riding, I surf, fish, and backcountry ski as much as I can.

Sponsors: Specialized, Shimano, Clif Bar, Chromag, MRP, IXS, Fox Racing Shox, Dakine, Contour

building and filming and building

October 14, 2009

Filming can be really challenging. There are all kinds of variables that need to be just right. Light, wind, dirt conditions, trails or jumps, it all has to come together.

I have been trying to finish up filming my segment for "Follow Me" all season. The first time the crew was out to shoot I had a weird crash and hurt my neck.

The filmers have been really busy and they haven't had time to come back till last week. I really wanted to get my segment wrapped up so I worked really hard to get all my stunts and lines ready to shoot. The weather was perfect, cold but clear, and the fall light makes everything look awesome.

I filmed a couple of my trails to get warmed up, then decided to go shoot one of my features I have been working on. Near my house I found a naturally curved cliff face that I wanted to jump onto like a wallride. I built a big wooden jump onto the wall and a run in to get the speed. Everything was looking pretty sweet.

The morning we went to shoot the wallride was pretty windy. When I had done my practice run ins I had a tailwind, but now I had a pretty stiff headwind. I smoothed out some of my run in to help with speed, I needed all the speed I could get for this one.

The film crew was all ready and the light was perfect. I had done a couple run ins that felt like enough speed so I gave them the signal that I was going and pinned it.

As I was nearing the take off I could feel that my speed wasn't right, I wasn't going fast enough. It was too late to try and stop by the time I knew, so I just pumped really hard and popped the jump. Too short. I hit the wall below my landing target and rolled to the ground. I had so much dirt in my mouth I was spitting thick mud! I felt pretty good except for where my bike had hit me. I had a pretty good cut. Damn, off to the hospital again. Another shot for the crash reel.

The film crew packed up and headed home. It was really disappointing to see them leave without the footage that we were trying so hard to get.

I'm off to build a bigger run in for my wallride. I'll get it next time!

Matty

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