A battle loom's on the horizon

One week until the Fluidride Cup starts. DH and Slalom. Maing and i are doing this series and a few other DH races this season, but this first one is gonna be a battle. Should be really wet and the ten day forecast calls for rain on race day, but that could change. I'm still waiting for my rear shock to come back from being re-built so I'm not exactly ready bike wise, but I'll be fine. Going to wear my new Troy Lee helmet so i hope i don't break it the first ride. We'll see. Stay tuned for a big write up of the race weekend. O..the pic is Olivia (our 4 y/o with my new helmet)

FRCup 1
Port Angeles
April 4th - 6th
FRCup 2
Mt. Hood
May 10th - 11th
FRCup 3
Port Angeles
June 6th - 8th
FRCup 4
Mt Hood
July 12th - 13th
FRCup 5
Port Angeles
Aug 22nd - 24th
FRCup 6(Finals)
Mt Hood
Sept. 27th - 28th

Black Rock Fund Raiser day

The Black Rock Mountain Bike Association( Check their site http://www.brmba.org/ ) has been building a great trail system for a few years now, and they have been doing a BIG raffles to help raise $$ for all that goes into that. We headed down in the Maing bus to ride, heckle and go to Padingtons Pizza. I'll sum it up.....Arbys is slow, People in Woodburn don't like us, the gas station was a gong show, Santiam Bikes locked the cash register when we walked in, Mtn Rider looked like a mugger, people in Falls city don't like us, no where to park and we see hardly any riders, Mtn Rider crashes, Lon Darts, Moostache, High 5's rule, packs laying in the bushes, load the stuff, get a flat on the van after driving 100 ft, unload the stuff, jack up the van, take off tire, dig a hole, put tire on, eat pizza, stand in line too long, Raffle too long, we heckle, we heckle, movie projector lame, Jamie's movie great but projector lame, drive home way too late, Mtn rider win's 2 year Sub. to unknown Magazine, Flying j has Grip, Raja cut off. I'm tired.

Port Angeles Shuttle day (AKA-Road trip #1)

A few years back i heard about some races at "Dry Hill" in Port Angeles, Wa. Sounded like a cool area but i never made it up there. I heard about the shuttle day's they had on forum's like ride monkey and mtbr.So a month or so ago i heard they we're having a spring fling thing and the first thing i thought was i had to get some of the freaks and go. So i got Maing,Whiplash, Rubberdown,Josh, Darren from Van and we headed up. The Raja and his band of thieves wanted to head up the night before so they could make a big entrance but we left EARLY sun morning. I went to bed too late ( as i was getting up at 3:45 and it was daylight savings) so when Irish Rob text messaged me at 12:30 AM and woke me up half way into my 4 hours of sleep i was not too stoked. Rubberdown said he would be at my place at 3:45, so at 4 i was thinking i should call him. I did. He's like " I'm just leaving man" I'm thinking .....ok....and he says " Mind if i get a cup of coffee on the way?" I was like How about on the way. So he shows up, and then a cop pulls in. After he charmed the officer away we loaded up and headed for Josh's. He was waiting a while but was still awake. While heading for Whiplash's house, Rubberdown figured out it was time to set the clocks ahead. He was bummed, and offered to buy coffee for all of us. but not at starbucks. So when we got on the road i was telling rubberdown how Irish rob woke me up with his text message, and i said " a few years back and i would have called there hotel for a 6 am wake up". He said " How about me". So he called the Red Lion and got the Raja's # and gave them a wake up call. SO... we had a good 4.sompin hour drive and got to the trails. Lot's of people there. When we we're driving through Port Angeles i was thinking "i hope this trip was a good idea" but after we registered,payed and did our first run i knew it was worth the long drive. The trucks were moving fast. One driver must have been having a fun time as he was rocking the truck really good. I was having trouble standing one trip up. Anyway...the trails were great. Rooty,rocky, and plenty of steep sections. Wet but not muddy. A few jumps, steep roll downs etc... The Pro course was nutty. I got stuck on one off camber rock slab but other than that i was good. The other trails i rode had plenty of cool tech sections. I did 9 or 10 runs with no crashes. I guess i wasn't riding hard enough. Whiplash broke off half of his visor, and bounced off a tree or two on the pro course. ( lot of visor problems lately) Irish Rob had some sort of crazy dismount, but was ok. Josh crashed once i think. We did about 5 Weeks of riding compared to what we do at Falls City. We ended up getting home around midnight. Typical. Up at 7 to go to work and try to stay awake all day. The video i took was sub par..but those things happen i guess. Thanks to the O.D.S. for the hard work on those trails and for having a great shuttle day, and thanks to the Westside Freeride guys who made a 21 hour day seem like no big deal. Looking forward to road trip #2

Falls City Again and again

Back down to Falls City for more abuse. Maing, Robholio and i picked up Lon from Boise for a sweet day of riding. Spring like weather and mostly good dirt. Flying J and Mtn Rider showed a litle after us and the fun started. MTN RIder was in Basic and was hitting the Simulator, did a big no footer and couldn't get the pedals back. He must have been 8 or 9 feet in the air and drooped like a rock. Slam! Looked like he fell out of a tree, belly flop style. Shoe came off, visor shattered. Visor shrapnel cut up his face a bit. Got up, took off the rest of his visor and went back and did it again. He's a tough guy and a great rider. I crashed like a fool on the entrance to Sunday stroll twice. Soft dirt is my friend. Mtn Rider crashed there also. Later Robholio crashed hard on a stump jump..o ya and Lon from Boise crashed in Basic. We showed Lon some of the other trails and he seemed to like the area. good day but way to much Carnage asada.

The last three rides

The last 3 rides at Falls City have been pretty fun. I saw the completion of the new and improved Sunday Stroll trail and the new HUGE take off for the ET jump. Pedaling into that all i good see was the jump. Kind of intimidating. Of course Mtn Rider was doing some sweet move on it,like hitting his head on a branch. Maing had a bowell jarring crash. I rolled into the lower section of Grannys foot. That is a cool section. More trail like that please. I had a good crash in Basic, when i nosed in of a down hill drop. Wheel,head then shoulder. I love soft dirt. Fat Larry was hitting up Sunday Stroll and cased so hard that he smashed his wheel. I thought those Atom Lab rims were strong. Not strong enough. He was out for the day ,so he figured he would ask his Girl to marry him. Chip hit the ski jump up top and cartwheeled almost into a tree. Very exciting. I got Dave out there for the first time and he liked the taste of the Black rock dirt. Crazy Jake's kid face planted and got some blood on the ground. The new ladder drop after the Halo drop is sweet. We hit that like 3 times. Irish Rob did the cliff drop and the drop won. Lot's more cool stuff went down.Jamie and I thought we we're working for a tool company at times but that's how it is sometimes.

Spring is coming!

I'm in Bike

Thank's to K.P. ( the photo master) It's the March issue, the Titec add.

Just Another Day

1/22/2008

Down to Falls City for more wet riding. The Red Raja picked me up early and we headed to the closest coffee drive through. We pulled in right behind Whiplash and Josh (who needs a nick name) Raja said “Let’s pretend we’re stealing the bikes” Sounds good. We got low and he started shaking the bikes, I slapped the side of the car and Josh came out ready to fight to the death to defend his new Norco A line. Funny stuff. Got down there really fast ‘cause the Trailhead Cycles van has one speed. Full speed. Played at Basic training for a while. Same ol thing. Josh was looking good on the A line. No one else was showing so we headed up. Stopped by Brake Check and Raja stepped it up and hit one of the jumps by the road for the first time. SMOOTH! We hit Dino’s re-route of upper Bonzi which is always a blast. Whiplash hit the Cliff drop. Again. He landed way down. At least 18 feet I think. Either way it’s big. Did another section of Bonzi then got on Granny’s Kitchen. The E.T. was closed for re-construction so we headed to the Halo/Halette drop. Raja and Josh were first timers on the Halette drop so that was good to see. Whiplash hit the halo really big. Biggest he’s done it I’d say. He compressed so hard and then for a second I thought he was going down , but he caught traction again and was good. Short ride for the raja and I but hey…it’s cold and wet.

Last ride of 2007

Flying J, Mtn Rider, Dirka and I headed to the hills for one last ride of this year. It was wet, cold and snowing. Hiked to the top and rode a new-ish trail that was really fun. Turns, rollers. Berm city. I heard they’re going to keep it going all the way down and do some races on it. That would be sweet having some grass roots racing around. We rode that to Dino’s re -route to bonzi to old Sickter gnar down to Basic. I was cruising down sickter think maybe I would skip the drop to gap since I was riding on snow. I stopped to look at the ladder and saw that a tree had fallen and chopped it in half. Ouch! I couldn’t tell when I was riding up , so that would have been crazy to ride up on it to find out it was broken. Look before you leap.
Mtn Rider guinea pigged another stunt on the evolving Sunday Stroll trail. Snow on the ground,snow on the ladder, snow on the landing. He had to start on the road and pedal into the first jump( gap) and then onto the ladder to the drop. The gap after the ladder was not huge but riding on the snow covered ladder made it slow I think. He nailed both landings right on the edge and said he was sketchy on the bridge. Looked good to me. It was a short day since we we’re freezing, wet and freezing. Highlight of the day was Freezing J. He was changing out of his wet clothes (all of them) when I noticed a woman in the vehicle right beside him. Oops. Guess we’ll be calling him Naked J for awhile. ( no pic’s of that)

Lot’s of ride’s this year

This was a memorable year as our family did a big road trip and had a great time checking out a lot of different area’s . Nothing as good as what you can find in Oregon. I rode in so many places with so many people it hard to keep it all straight. Good thing I took a lot of pictures. Here’s some to check out.
2008 should be great and I’m all ready planning some MTB road trips. Can’t wait!!

I should have known when I got to Trail Head Cycles for our night ride and saw the young upstart Derek finishing putting his bike together it would be interesting. It’s always good to have your bike dialed before riding at night, or any time really. Regardless, the Red Raja and I we’re determined to ride so we took off ( latter than planned) for the trails. 20 feet from the gate the young upstart’s chain broke. Turned out it just fell off so I thought maybe the ride can be salvaged. Not to be. His chain came off every 5 feet it seemed , so after fooling around for about 2 miles we called it and sent him down the fire road and the Raja and I rode one last trail. Waste? Nah. It’s always good to get together with some friends and ride. Even if you stop every 5 feet.