Last weekend, I went to the San Francisco Bicycle Expo and shot photos of Andrew Taylor's Showdown and the Ladies Jump Jam. Check out the rest of the shots in the gallery: Andrew Taylor's Showdown at the SF Bicycle Expo

Last Saturday, I went to the Lib Tech Downtown Throwdown put on by Snowboy Productions. The comp was a 2 hour jam with a few breaks to fix the big divots that formed below the rails in the trucked in snow. The setup was a round rail, a pole jam or a down-flat-down ledge with a small box in the middle and a quarter pipe at the end. I got a few shots walking around during the setup, then went up to the library for some from above views. I tried to get into the other building across the way for better light, but my big white lens and my media wrist band weren’t enough to get me into closed offices, up top. During the rest of the event, I found a bunch of different angles and even climbed a few trees. Even at an urban event, I’d find trees to climb...

Dylan Alto took first, with Nick Visconti in second, Dyland Thompson in third, Ryan Paul in fourth and Brandon Hobush in fifth. Andrew Brewer won the destroyer award and Chris Brewster took the Dinner For Two award.

Check out the rest of the shots in the gallery: 2011 San Francisco Lib Tech Downtown Throwdown

During Crankworx in Whistler this year, I shot photos of the events for a series of slideshows for the Awesomeland.com podcast. I recently finished the first one and today I uploaded a full-size version. Watch it in full screen with HD here.

Here's a few shots from Pro Downhill Finals on Sunday. I have more shots of it on ridemonkey in an update by David Peacock - http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/showthread.php?t=241620 .

Saturday, I shot DH practice in the morning. In the afternoon, I shot Slalom finals and then Speed and Style finals right after. Here's some shots from the day.

Check out more of my shots on Ridemonkey in the articles David Peacock wrote:

• Sea Otter 2011: Dual Slalom
• Sea Otter 2011: Speed and Style

Here's a few shots of yesterday's pro DH practice.

1) Travis Lindsey has been working on the slalom course constantly and making sure slalom events go smoothly. 2) Katie Holden, Elliot Jackson 3) Sandy drop lip 4) The corner after the steep section is now a huge berm. 5) hip. 6) Bryan Young of Fifty Fifty racing on the hip 7) Downhill heckling began Thursday 8) Brian Damschen doing a whip over the fence after watching Cat 1 dh practice.

Here's some shots from Yesterday at Sea Otter. The last 7 shots are all of the Speed and Style course. Rider's will hit the kickers and then ride the pump track back to hit them again. They'll be judged on the pump track as a race and their style off the ramps. Today is the first official day of Sea Otter, but pro downhill, slalom and speed & style practice don't start until Friday.

The other day, while editing photos from the Go Pro event at the Roxy Chicken Jam, I realized I should make a slideshow out of all my best shots of the day. Finally, it's done and uploaded.

Watch it here: http://vimeo.com/patrickbranch/roxypowderjam. All the shots in the slideshow are in a gallery if you want to share or buy individual shots: http://gallery.pbmedia.us/p38979092 .

Saturday was the inaugural Roxy Powder Jam, an event brought on by the weather. Slopestyle was canceled due to less than ideal park conditions, so the backup plan they came up with to replace it was an event where teams of riders were to film anywhere inbounds on mammoth mountain with Go Pro cameras. The footage of whole teams (and individual riders) will be judged and winners will be announced April 11 with $15,000 to be split between them.

I ended up going with team 4. The riders of team 4 were Christy Prior, Danielle Brodrick, and Leslie Glenn. Seth Lee went along to help film with a Go Pro, doing lots of follow shots, while I took behind the scenes still shots of the riding and filming. We started by Main Lodge and worked our way over to Canyon lodge, first dropping a building gap in the trees and then getting some shots of natural gaps and drops with all the fresh powder. We stopped at Canyon for a bit to dry out the cameras and get some food. As we were heading out, we heard the lifts would be closing because the wind was getting so strong. They did close with exception of chair 8 (where a huge line quickly formed) and a chair lift up the bunny slope. We ended up taking the gondola to the village and then taking a bus back to Main Lodge.

At main lodge we built a jump with a gap over two wind lips above the athlete lounge. It was around 2:30 in the afternoon when we built it and the wind was getting worse, but we wanted to get some more Go Pro shots. My camera was getting covered in snow that wind was blowing across the direction of the jump. I had to keep cleaning off my viewfinder and lens. It was an effort to even stand, let alone build a small jump. By the time we finished it, visibility had gotten a lot worse. The riders had a hard time finding the lip to even aim for it and the wind wasn't making being in the air easy. They hit it a few times and called it.

The Trouble Andrew and La Roux show with the awards ceremony that would take place in the village was moved inside to Canyon Lodge because of the weather. Halfpipe was the only planned event that happened. Qualifiers and Finals were combined in one heat because the weather window was questionable. Kelly Marren took first in halfpipe winning the $15,000 purse
with Leslie Glenn in second and 10 year old Chloe Kim in third.