Camp Shandro Has a Winner

In the June Issue of Bike magazine, we offered to send one reader—someone who had missed riding all last season due to an injury—to Andrew Shandro’s Summer Gravity Camp in Whistler, British Columbia. See, Shandro was just coming off his own injury, a torn ACL, and knew how frustrating it was to sit on the sidelines and watch the world progress without you. He’s a good guy, Shandro, and wanted to help.

Nea, your tale of woe is inspiration to recovering disco babes and shuttled slaves the world over. Enjoy Shandro’s Summer Gravity Camps.

The SCG camps attract hundreds of happy campers each summer. Riders receive instruction from Shandro and a whole host of pro riders in the fine art of piloting bikes through all sorts of nasty terrain, as well as access to Whistler’s world-famous bike park and training at the brand new Air Dome, a 10,000-square-foot covered facility complete with a foam pit.

We got tons of responses—from young kids just learning to ride and from guys so old they had acute arthritis. We received many, many letters from guys who tore their ACLs, and too many letters from riders who injured themselves on motorcycles. We even got a letter from a kid who broke his leg playing soccer when an overweight buddy fell on him. All we can say is be careful out there folks, it’s a dangerous world in which we live.

Of all the letters, one rose to the top. Nea Jackson sent in this heartwarming tale of a mother whose main goal in life is to school her children not in algebra or English or the joys of being an upstanding citizen, but to school them on the trail.

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It ain’t always easy being a girl and growing up in the seventies...while my brother and his buddies were riding their sting rays and taking them over jumps, I was doing the roller disco scene and doing tricks and dance moves on my skates. Oh sure, I had a bike but mine had a pink banana seat and a basket with plastic flowers on it. The rules of what girls did were only beginning to change. Not that it made me follow those rules—even less as a grown up.

In my twenties, I discovered what I thought was “mountain biking,” AKA riding on fire roads. It wasn’t until I turned 35 and had two boys of my own (well, three because I include my husband) that I found out what mountain biking REALLY was. By this time, the boys were already taking jumps and screaming down hills. My boys were the first to teach me how to get air on my bike—taking me over little jumps. Even so, my abilities are seriously waning behind them.

We took a great trip to Mt Washington on Vancouver Island—I was feeling in my groove. I biked down trails hard all day. My one son was done—the other looked at me, I looked at him, and we said those fateful words, “Lets do ONE last run.” We did. I ate it hard. Three weeks later I had a pin in my wrist and a cast on my arm. Yeah, I missed the season. Guess how much better my boys are?? Guess how much I need to be able to catch those boys or at least give ’em a run for their money and teach them that there are girls who ride their bikes in the dirt? Guess how many times I had to be the shuttle slave and drive their sorry butts down some sweet trails, only to be a good mommy and listen to just how sick the ride down was and take them up again? And again?

So, there are two things going on here.

A) I need to get my skills up pronto

B) I need to rub something back in their face and say, “Oh yeah, guess who’s going to Gravity Camp??”

Go to Summer Gravity Camp's web site