Its Christmas Time!!!

Well Christmas is almost over in the Gilmore house, but the boys have had a great time and Santa was very generous with presents. Typically its been the  Lego and Games that have turned out to be the favourite presents for them both. Will's loved his new iPhone and his Lego F1 car which only took him 6 or so hours to complete.

Snowboarding wise its been a quiet time relatively since Shoreditch .Will has just been doing his usual twice weekly trips to Freestyle night at Snozone Milton Keynes. He loves riding about with the usual crew and having a blast.
He has been really excited about heading out to the mountains though and yesterday we waved him off for two weeks away. He's gone out to Pila to ride with Steve Addicott and Kate Foster, and then is heading off to the World Rookie Tour in Lavigno.We will update more once we have some pictures and news.

Shoreditch Showdown & Whitelines Contender Page

 So last week Will was one of the lucky few to get invited to take part in the O'Neill Shoreditch Showdown in London's East End. It was a pretty impressive set up and certainly not for the faint hearted. Will was the youngest contender by a mile and he looked so small up there with all the other riders. But he did himself proud and rode really well taking a few heavy slams along the way. He did'nt make it through to the final 12 riders but that was a huge ask considering the big name riders who included Andy Nudds, Sparrow Knox and Ollie Dutton to name but a few. There was a great vibe and the final was fantastic with Sparrow taking away the top prize.

Also the little fellow (I'm going to have to stop calling him that soon) was super stoked to be in Whitelines Magasine as a Contender.Great seeing him getting recognition for all his hard work..

Shoreditch Showdown

Wow, Will has been invited to ride in the Shoreditch Showdown Invitational  event in November. Looks like its going to be an awesome street rail set up and will be a  great experience for the little man and once the qualification is over he'll get front row seats to watch the event going down.

Slide to Sochi at Snozone MK

Today Will was part of the Slide to Sochi event at Snozone MK. It is a road show promoting the upcoming Winter Olympics. He got to meet former Olympic athletes Graham Bell , Iwan Thomas and Sir Steve Redgrave. Will was his usual quiet self and was a little too shy to do an interview with ITV , but he was happy to chat and get his photo taken with the Olympians.





With Becky Menday, Sir Steve Redgrave, Euan Thomas and Graham Bell

Signing the giant Slide to Sochi Snowball

In the Fourman Bob Sleigh

In Ellis Bigham

TSA Sponsor our Will

Some great news for Will is that The Snowboard Asylum ,TSA are now sponsoring the little man. It means that he joins another crew of rad snowboarders including Jamie Nicholls , Amy Fuller  and Matt McCormick to name but a few.

Its been an exciting few weeks as also got a cool mention in the latest Whitelines magazine.

What's new...?

Well it's coming to the end of the summer holidays for Will  and he's thinking about starting year 6 of primary school and the new snowboard season coming up.

A couple of days ago the new Whitelines Buyers Bible dropped on our door mat and we were stoked to see him named as part of the UK CLWR family.




Its only a few weeks till the Sub Jam in Chill Factor, Manchester , a possible few days training with the GB team and lots of exciting opportunities coming up in the new season.


Summer Trip

Well its fair to say that Will had a great time away with the Why Ain't You Jibbin crew.

He met old friends and made new ones and just had a great time boarding, and playing about in the sun and water.

Unexpected Opportunities

Its funny how sometimes opportunities happen so unexpectedly. Earlier on this week we had a call from Ben Kinnear inviting Will along to train with most of the main GB freestyle team up in Glasgow. Even though it was totally unplanned and only a day's notice, it seemed a real shame to pass up the chance for Will to meet and ride with the likes of Billy Morgan and Jamie Trinder. So we juggled thing's as much as we could for our Will to go . So the last few days have seen Will skateboarding ,snowboarding and generally hanging out with the main GB freestyle team. He's back home now after an ace time ,where again he made us proud by being so independent and getting over any  initial shyness and fears he may have had.


Thomski Robinson, Fin Bremner, Billy Morgan, Nathan & our Will

Awesome picture

Picture by Jool's Smith on Who's Afraid of the Park Night 
June 15th Snozone MK

Blitz Camp and FBBB night

Its been relatively quiet  snowboard wise for the last month or so, but then that's sometimes a good thing. Will has been doing his usual Thursday and Friday night down at Milton Keynes Snozone.
Last Friday however was Blitz camp down at Hemel Hempstead Snow Center. Will had been invited to join the Blitz camp by Mark King when we were up at the Van's Hi Standard Competition and this was the first one since then. Needless to say Will had a wonderful time, and really enjoyed riding with the other team members. Looks like we'll be heading down to Hemel more often now.
Blitz Camp May 2013 is a great video showing Will riding with the rest of the Blitz team riders..

This Friday was FBBB takeover of Park Strife at Milton Keynes, and it was great park set up with a pretty big kicker. The lovely Jool's Smith was on hand to take some great pictures of everyone riding including some great ones of our Will looking super cool in his new  CWLR gear

Not long now till the end of school and the start of the Summer Holidays. Will's really looking forward to going away for a weeks training to France at L2A with Steve Addicott's   Why Ain't you Jibbin Crew. He's going to have an awesome time out there with the other groms , going on a road trip and being away from us . Other news is that  Steve is currently working on a little edit of Will from footage taken over the winter 2012/2013, can't wait to see that..

CLWR. Sponsor Will

CLWR  sponsor Will..

So the super trendy and up and coming clothing company Colour Wear have invited Will to be one of their team riders which he is really pleased to accept. He's really looking forward to representing Colour Wear in the future and wearing their quality clothes.

We are also pleased to announce that Stance Socks have sponsored Will and a great selection of socks arrived in the post today just in time for a test run on the Milton Keynes slope.

Will's 13/14 Capita Microscope and Union Bindings

Little Man is stoked that his new season Capita Microscope and Miniflite Unions Bindings have landed at the Gilmore household. He can't wait to take it out on the slope and try it out.


13/14 Season   Capita Microscope size 125



13/14 season Union Microflite bindings

Ashbury Eyewear Sponsor Will.

Will showing off his new Ashbury Googles

Will is  really lucky to have been sponsored by super cool brand Ashbury Eyewear. They were really quick to send him a pair in time for riding up in the Van's High Standard competion in Cairngorm, Scotland. Wearing them out on the mountain proved that not only do they look super cool but also performed really well too.
Will had a blast riding up in Scotland with his snowboard friend Jake Binne. It was a bit of a struggle for Will to get the speed for the jumps and rails but they still had a blast with Will winning £20 and Jake £80 for landing cool tricks

Will at the Brit's

It's been a really fantastic time for Will out in Tignes, its his first time out at the competition and he had to work hard to convince us that he should go.

Tuesday saw the Bangers and Cash rail jam which had no age category and a jam format. The little man really enjoys jam format competitions and he was really relaxed and enjoyed the course . He pulled off  270's on and off and a big gap to board slide on top of the wall ride. This earned Will a place in the final 8 riders and apparently it was a close run for 3rd place, but coming in 4th in an open age comp at  10 is really cool.


Bangers and cash rail jam 




Will with his 50 euro prize money for getting into final 8 in the Bangers and cash rail jam

Wednesday he rode about in the morning with his Dad and then he was  really lucky to be chosen by Andy Nudds to be in the team representing Britain to battle it out against the French team. So the team had Andy Nudds, Fin Bremner, Becky Menday, Jake Binney, and Will.. They had a real blast riding head to head against the French riders , with the British team deservedly winning with some fantastic riding. Making Will one happy lad, as he won a penny skateboard amongst other things..





Battle of Britain team with from left to right Beck Menday, Andy Nudds, Will, Jake Binney, unknown bloke and then Fin Bremner
















Thursday was the Slope style championships and the weather wasn't great , so they had shortened the course to one jump and two rail sets. Will rode really well keeping his nerve in the two run format and came away with second place in his age category.

Nathan Gray with first place, our Will in Second and Tomski Robinson took third

So in all a very successful first Outdoor Brit competition for our Will and he was right to nag us into taking him out there. Special mention must go to the people who've helped Will with his training, so a big thankyou goes to Thom Boddington at Snozone, Steve Addicott at Why ain't you Jibbin and Ben Kinnear and the gang from the GB Junior Freestyle team.

Will and Steve getting a ride upto the top of the course in the Bangers and Cash rail jam

Pictures from half term why ain't you jibbin camp

After daily lunch of curly fries at Changabang

Waiting hit the park with Gabe

Some pictures from Will's week in Morzine riding with the Why ain't you jibbin crew.
Look out for a little video edit coming soon.
He had such a great time and can't wait till he has another week out in Pila soon  and then its Will's first time at the Brits in Tignes..

Why Aint You Jibbin Camp

So Will is out in Morzine training with Steve Addicott and Kate Foster this week. He's been having a great time and its good to catchup and ride  again with fellow GB team riders Callum Paton,  Ayla Thiding  and Natalie Silkstone. Its the perfect chance to get some much needed practice on some of the bigger kickers and the half pipe which Will just can't get access to at home in England.

Great start to the week with the Why Ain't You Jibbin GB Juniors. Awesome park and pipe day! — with Ayla Thidling, Calum Paton, Bradley Gaulter, Thea Fenwick,Steve Addicott, Will Gilmore, Nathalie Gabrielle Silkstone and Kate Foster.

Boarder Boards Awesome Shop

http://www.boardersboards.co.uk

We've decided where and when...

It hard trying to decide how much  mountain time Will should have , and then trying to balance those decisions around family commitments.... but we have decided at last what Will is going to do this season..
So Will is having a week out riding with the awesome Steve Addicott in Morzine, France in February and then another  two weeks out in March, one week preBrit training in Italy and then he's going to the outdoor Brits out in Tignes for the first time ever. Will is really up for it and is really excited..

Plus we have found an awesome trampoline training venue for Will that is willing to help him with his arial awareness . Its at the National Trampoline Gymnastics Acedemy in nearby Northampton  and we are starting with monthly one to one lessons.. He had his first session last week and it went really well..Its a relief to find somewhere that will help him as we don't want him doing potentailly dangerous tricks without expert help and advice..  Will post photos's soon..

Will's 10th Birthday and his first go at a video edit

 

Well its the little man's 10th birthday today and he's gone and got a flu bug which he is not happy about. But even feeling rotten hasn't stopped him from building most of his Lego presents up .
We'll post some pictures soon...  He has requested Chinese Crispy Duck and a Triple Chocolate cake which we made together yesterday..

Most of those presents were Lego !



Lego Sopworth Camel all built up!

One other thing that Will has been up to is making his own video edit. He found it a facintating process and spent a good few hours mastering the software and the edits that Thom Bodington took of him last Thursday. Apart from a couple of glitches mastering the music rights he did it all himself..

Will's TV appearance and Glasgow Grom camp

Its been a while since we updated what Will has been upto. He's been going to the Thursday night shred sessions at MK riding with the usual crew and  then went up to Glasgow  early December for a two day grom camp with Ben Kinnear. That was great as Will got some practice at Bearsden Dry slope even though its not his favorite riding, he does have a go at it every few months or so.

But Will really got the most out of the training at  Braehead Snozone . They did a fabulous job of the indoor double kickers and Will got to practice frontflips and 720 spins which he is getting really close to nailing..It's always great for Will to get to ride with fellow groms too and make more snowboarding friends..     GB Grom Camp in Glasgow

Also the TV shows that Will appeared in have been shown since we last updated . First he had an appearance in CBBC's Newsround and then the Friday Download programme which is below. It Features two fellow Milton Keynes freestyle pals Becky Menday ,who did the snowboard lesson and Jake Binney who rode with Will . Considering how nervous Will and Jake were they did so well and spoke more than we had been expecting.,..

Christmas has been brilliant and his favorite Christmas presents being his Lego R2-D2, his first ever phone and a new jacket.. We have Will's 10th birthday to look forward too over the next few weeks and we asre in the middle of  planning where and when to get Will out riding in Europe..