Matt Hunter

Recent Matt Hunter Videos:
Matt Hunter's Gear:
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    Demo 8

    When you ride this hard, your bike has to ride harder.

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    Enduro

    Attack the big stuff, the small stuff and everything in between....

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    Pitch

    All Mountain riding is about attacking the big stuff...

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  • http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bc/SBCExperience.jsp?eid=4348&menuItemId=9252

    P-3

    Jumps, tricks and berms—as long as you've got the skills.....

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    Tires

    The product that started it all.....

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  • http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bc/SBCExperience.jsp?eid=4952&menuItemId=9301

    S-Works MTB Helmet

    The lightest certified helmet in the world, worn by 2008 UCI World XC Champion Christoph Sauser...

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Demo 8

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 skias much as I can.

Sponsors: Specialized, Shimano, Adidas Eyewear, Dakine, Chromag, MRP.

Baja shred sesh

December 7, 2009

Wow. Sometimes we travel to film segments only to find that the terrain isn't as good as we hoped, and we have to struggle to find lines that are fun to ride. Other times... It's like this!

I have been down here at Punta San Carlos on the Baja for 5 days now, and it is insane. The first few days we were here we spent a lot of time finding the zones that we wanted to shoot, then we spent a couple days building the lines to ride, then yesterday was sick! We rode!

I had found 4 lines that I really wanted to ride. The hills out here in the desert are really crazy, some are fully mountain-sized. One in particular had a near vertical peak on it that stayed really super steep for around 100 feet, then it drained out to a super soft dirt scree slope that was just begging for my tires to carve. The evening light was blazing, the cameras were ready, and it was go time.

I hiked up to the top of the peak and almost got blown off! The wind was really howling up there, it was really difficult to even stand up. I had to move a few rocks out of my entrance to the slope but other than that the line was all-natural. Reminded me of skiing.

The drop in was heinous. On my first attempt the wind gusted at the wrong time and I had to lay my bike down just before I went over the crux into the steepness. I hiked back up to the peak and tried again. This time the wind cooperated (barely) but I got into the steeps and had a look at where I wanted to go.

Because of the steepness of the slope I hadn't been able to really check out my line as I usually would. I knew there were a lot of ruts from the water draining down but I couldn't see how big they were.

As I dropped over the rise into the steeps, I was pretty surprised by the size of the ruts. They were a lot bigger than I had expected... The only thing to do in this situation was to get off the brakes and hopefully float over the ruts. I started to bump across the top of the ruts like I had expected, and before I knew it I was into the soft scree slope where I got to crank 2 big turns in the pow before I hit the dried creek bed below. What a rush. It was so amazing to be able to come and feel like that in such an amazing place.

After that we moved the cameras and crew over to a really crazy toilet bowl-like descending wallride. I had never done a wallride like that but it worked perfectly. i had to go really fast so that I stuck to the curved wall but it was a really amazing feeling as i flushed out the bottom. So stoked!

I am off right now to go shred some more mexican soil. Keep an eye here for more stories!

ciao

Matty

Stats for Matt Hunter are coming soon.
BG Fit
BG Fit

Ride faster, longer, and in greater comfort.

SX Trail II
SX Trail II

Sometimes the Trail Ride tunrs into a Free Ride

Demo 8 II
Demo 8 II

Built for Steep Trails and Big Air

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