Harrison Mendel - 2010 Season

My 2010 season was a rough one, many ups and downs. Injury after injury led to a relativity short season for me. I might I have spent more riding days off the bike then on because of this, but for the periods of time that I did ride, It was unreal. From photo shoots to competitions to whistler trips, my 2010 season was filled with excitement and pain.The riding season in Kelowna started really early this year with a warm winter, We were riding on my birthday! Which was always a dream to have a jump jam for my birthday, but it's in February so that wouldn't happen, but this year it did! One of the many highlights of the year! My mom did a BBQ and Cake! I think about 30 people showed up to the Birthday Jump Jam! Dustin Greenall (Banshee) had just moved to Kelowna so he was there enjoying the day, but then he proposed an idea of a monster jump. Next thing I know there's a gravel pit loader driving down the road thanks to Benton Leong (Kona) and a 8 foot tall lip in a boat trailer thanks to Garrett Robertson (Sun Country Cycle) and Matt Gretzinger! The next weekend Bryce Piwek came up to Kelowna to shoot for Dustin and Casey Groves (Transition). Here is a great shoot of me on the big jump!


The beginning of the season was going great for me, already back to where I was from the previous year. Until I had a bad snowboarding crash and wound up with a major concussion. I was out of riding for 3 weeks. Luckily I was going to mexico the next week so I wasn't tempted to do anything until after that. While I was out with my concussion Dustin and Casey Started to rebuild my house. One night we brought down the loader again and made the piles for our landings. They built a wooden drop in ramp and box. After that it was time for the small machinery thanks to Matt Gretzinger and Winn Rentals. We used a small excavator and bobcat to clean up my yard and shape landings. After a weekend of building with those we were ready to ride! The jumps were great and super fun! Thanks to everyone for the help!


When I got back from Mexico, Dreamland had been started. I was home for only about 20 minutes before I rode up to the new jumps. Wow, they were massive! I only had 2 days to ride them before A snowboard competition. Unfortunately I couldn't attend Dustin and Brandon Haywards (Banshee) Birthday Jump Jam at Dreamland! But all I heard was good things! After a solid couple weeks of riding at dreamland, I made another mistake. Pop'd weird on a inward shoulder buzzer off the 3rd hip jump and landed nose heavy. My feet flew off and I rode down the landing on my seat until finally getting squirrly enough to flip over and hit my head. Lights out for me. When I woke up and I had no idea where I was. I continued to tell Dustin how cool the jumps looked and that I've dreamt about the place. When we pulled into my yard, same thing, could not believe how fun the jumps looked like! I thought it was all fake so I was bummed that I would never get to ride these jumps. I was done riding for a month.


It was a month till I was back on the bike with my new Troy Lee D2, my full time helmet. The next big event was Goat Style. Everyone was talking about how big the jumps were and getting stoked on it the week before. And to be honest the jumps were smaller than the ones we had been training on the previous week. It took a long time to get used to coarse. I didn't even get the run I wanted all weekend. I was invited to the Red Bull Friday Night Lights Jam. Which was super fun but I had a bad night. All the pro's through down first run so I knew had to do something. I just went for a 360, but the jump had been changed alot since I had previously ridden and this was my first run. I got a little bit sketchy and had a minor injury. So the rest of the night I did a couple more runs and watched the pro's throw down!



The next day was qualifying. I think we only got one run of practice and then had to put a run together. I knew what was enough and qualified 2nd. The rest of the day at Goat Style is always fun just chilling with friends from out of town. The next day was finals and luckily we had some practice. I watched one of my friends Jeremy Hayward get worked on a under rotated flip off the whale tail and got a little shaken up. He was taken away by ambulance. Always hard to watch a bro go down like that. I rode my first run. Absolutely nothing like I wanted. Even Casey Groves came up to me after and said "Harry that run wasn't you, Jaywards crash was brutal but you just got to focus, things like this happen in this sport" I then repeated to him "I'm spinning the first drop." I had never spun a drop or step down before. I also didn't tell anyone that I was going to do it. At the top I took some deep breaths and then dropped in. 360 the first drop perfect. I was stoked. When I came around the next corner all my friends were sitting under the Red Bull tent screaming with excitement. A few of them even chased me down the coarse. I finished my run off with a tuck no hander off the whale tail, Dump 360 the last jump and a T-Bog air in the quarter. I finished 2nd to Anthony Messere and was super stoked on the whole weekend


After Goat Style was Whistler, always a summer highlight. The last 3 summer's I went to whistler I ended up in the hospital. Luckily this time I didn't! It was probably the best week of my life. I went up with my cousins family and my aunt found a awesome deal at the Pan Pacific so we were fortunate enough to stay there, Wow that was a nice place. Wake up every morning and go look at the mountain outside the windows. We ended up doing 5 days of bike park! It was a dream come true! While I was there I rode tons with local Dennis Langenstam at the dirt jumps and skate park each night. Also I got to opportunity to shoot with Laurence CE multiple things which was awesome! He really knows what's what behind the lense! We shot dirt jumps, slope style coarse and even skate park late one night! I don't think I could have changed anything to make it better. Huge shoot out to my cousin's, aunt and uncle for bringing me along! Here is some highlight photos...




After Whistler was over I just rode around town and a couple highlight nights and the new Kelowna Bike Park! Those jumps are extremely fun to fool around on the small ones transferring from line to line. On August long weekend, It was Kelowna's Center of Gravity. The first day I didn't go because of the price and I just stayed and worked on my bikes. That night Paul and Nick Genovese had just come into town on there way back from Whistler. We rode for about an hour, took a brake then came back and Nick pulled out the camera. I knew it was time to get on point then. Paul asked me to 360 the last jump when I told him a never had. I decided since we were filming with Nick I should just man up and do it. Nick wasn't even filming that jump at the time, but I went for it. I pulled off weird and landed 270, put my foot down and flipped over. Sharp pain
immediately entered my foot, I knew it was bad. I knew I had broken my foot. And worse than last year...


I went to the hospital that night and the doctor had a look at my foot and said "Wow this is bad" So I had X-rays and he couldn't find anything wrong with my foot. The next day a specialist looked at my foot and couldn't find anything either. At this point my hopes were up. The went to a familys cabin and atv'd all weekend. The day we got back I had another appointment. The foot specialist looked at my same x ray, found a few brakes and then a shattering in one of the bones! He said it was really bad. So the next day I had CT scans. The doctors concluded I had shattered my navicular bone in my foot into over 30 pieces. I was done for the season.


Me and my mom had planned a 2 week riding trip that was now cancelled. We still went up to Whistler for the final Crankworx weekend just to hang out with friends and watch the slope style. It was awesome to watch Casey come 3rd and Sam Deuck (Norco) come 4th. Two riders that I know. Congrats to all the winners! And that concludes my 2010 season! What can you say, its a dangerous sport! Good luck to everyone and have a good season! Also huge healing vibes to all the other injured riders!

Here is my 2010 Promo, Enjoy!




Photo Cred
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Bryce Piwek
Kai Wendt
Mike Kirk
Samuel Dobrin
Laurence CE
Matt Butterworth
Kevin Black


-Harrison Mendel
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Transition Bikes
Race Face
Demon Dirt
Cyclepath Kelowna