Winner Yale Cousino and Mike Burton in the foreground.

The Academy clan, with Leanne Pelosi.

Melissa Evans finished second...and now has a $1,000 smile.

With an all-new setup and a list of some of the top pros in the world, this year's Hot Dawgz & Hand Rails was the best ever! Taking first place for the ladies was Laura Hadar, who was followed up by Bear local Melissa Evans. For the men, Joe Sexton took third with crazy tricks on the new double-sided tranny wall rides, while Kyle Lopiccolo was one of the only riders to transer the wall rides, which put him in second and all got him best trick. And in first was Yale Cousino, who killed it on every feature and took home $5,000.

Andreas Wiig, Darrell Matthes and Ninja.

Not the best place to be yesterday. Cool temps, with a breeze...blocking snow.

Asian Tony, The Dingo, Cory Cronk, Chris Bradshaw and Creepy Cyle from Electric.

Lady ripper Desiree Melancon.

Active had a hot dog eating contest.

All the way from Canada, Mr. Jed Anderson.

Little Joey Sexton and I.

Sexton, pre-pretzel.

Johnny Miller had these hand-made vinyl pants that sparkled like the cover of your banana seat. That's right, you used to have a bike with a banana seat.

Here's the rest of his kit...amazing.

Leanne Pelosi, picking on Aelxis Waite. Lexi was in the house, but she forgot all of her gear at home.

Mike Casanova mid tail-block nose grab.

NEFF was in the house...

...and had four giant boxes of goodies to give away, that is, if you could sink this putt. This kid drained it!

Mikey Rencz, all smiles as usual.

Robbie Sell could make it as a model.

Scott Vine guinea'ed the setup first, dropping the kink rail over the stair set. Sweet.

Seth Huot, Roberta Rodger and some guy named JP Walker were in the house. Since they are Big Bear Team Riders, Seth and JP were judging the contest.

Simon Chamberlain was also judging. Sexton was trying to make buddies with him.

Whistler locs Spencer O'Brien and Leanne Pelosi.

Now, I'm not a professional crowd size estimator, but there were in the neighborhood of 2,500 people in attendance at the HD&HR this year. I'm also going to have to say that the crowd was about twice the size of last year's event. Everyone kept their cool, and got to see some amazing riding.

Everyone absolutely killed it. The finals were crazy. Yale and Kyle Lopiccolo were charging, and Sexton and Lucas Magoon were dissecting every rail. Matty Ryan was also making lines out of nothing. Ollieing from flat up to rails, going like a hundred. Definitely great to watch. If you weren't there, hopefully you watched it live on ours or Bear Mountain's sites.

Yale Cousino photo by Will Talbott.

The Dingpop and Sal.

The mens Podium.

The Bear Mountain equivillent of the Hollywood Walk of Famme. JP Walker signs his name in the wet cement.