Cal State Woodward

Dang! By far the most dusty and dry course I have ever ridden! The corners were loose, there was pedaling pretty much 90% of the time and the course was a little longer than a minute...It did not matter one bit because we were riding and racing bikes so it is all good! Not much of a story to tell, just peep the pics snapped by Westley.

Sea Otter

Well, here we are. At the beginning of yet another season, and even though there was a major race before this year's Otter...it still feels like the unofficial start of the season. I can't stress enough how absolutely great it is having a pit when racing. It makes a huge difference.

Wes, Brad and I pulled an all night driving mission as we did the previous year and arrived at the Laguna Seca raceway in the wee hours of the morning. A quick nap in the parking lot and it was off to the registration tent for our packet pick-up. I was of course extremely tired so getting all of this done was a bit of a challenge given my tired state. While in the tent I met up with most of my Cannondale team mates including Heath, George, Cody, Derek and Jon Clark. Before I knew it I was chillin in the Sobe/Cannondale pits with the wrenchman himself Eric Saletel. We did a quick tire swap and it was off to the DH course for some practice. The course was a bit different than years past, they built a couple of larger jumps up top which made clearing the step-down into the first major burm alot easier.

It would be impossible to describe all the happenings of this past weekend, too much happened. From the shenanigans at the house to Joey pitting the golf course with his "sub-par" golfing skills, to brad's never ending hyperness, Josh's hilarious jokes, Erics non-stop sarcasm...it was just a overall sick weekend.

Of course I could have asked for a better result in the DH but you all know that it is my fault that I am not in good shape. I did feel however that I was able to give it a little more than last year and that I rode better because of it, regardless of what my time was.

Mountainbike racing is a fricken awesome thing.

Weekend of thrash!

Yes, I did get my new DH steed, I named her "Roxanne" because that's the song that was playin on the radio when I took the bike out of the box:

Specs:

Frame: Large Cannondale Judge DH

Shock: Fox DHX 5.0 with Ti spring

Fork: Fox 40 Rc2

Wheels: Mavic Dee-Max/Mavic 823 on Industry nine hubs.

Drive: Shimano SAINT cranks, Shifter, Brakeset and Shimano SHADOW XT derailer, Shimano DX pedals

Guide: E-13 LG1

Post: Thomson Masterpiece

Seat: Selle San Marco Aspide Ti

Bars: Sunline V2

Stem: Sunline V1 50mm

Thanks to Zumwalts for letting me assemble the bike at the shop.

It was over 90*F all over Southern California this weekend, so what do I decide to do? Ride my bike of course!! I drove up to the OC on Friday night to meet up with Hank Cadle and Bradical Oien for some Shuttles on the ultra-secret Monster/Iron Horse DH trail in Lake Elsinore. It was over 100*F easy and we hammered out as many runs as we could...Alongside Mr. Sam Hill and Brendog, they of course could not keep up with us so we didn't really ride too much with them (just kidding).

Sunday was a Dirtjam at the Clairmont jumps (miracle) where we sessioned the jumps from 11am till dark@@@#$!@!!! All kinds of people were down there having a great time and flowing the sick jumps. Lots of pros in SoCal preppin' for Sea Badger.

Fontana?

Well, the fontana "national" wend down this past weekend. Good news! I didn't get hurt there as I have for the past 2 years!! Stoked on that. Also, immensely stoked on the team set-up (as in the trailer, wrench ((eric)), and stuff). Nothing much to write about for this race; it was dusty, loose, and surprisingly rough. Unfortunately for me I only had my Perp with a single-crown fox 36 which made the rough sections a hand full. I felt good on the little guy by race day but unfortunately my legs didn't follow suit. Yeah, Fontana requires that you pedal most of the time including the flat, tedious, infamous wall section.

Pretty stoked on the team members too, a bunch of cool cats. Have not been able to snatch photos of me riding (although it must have been pretty easy to photo me this past weekend, aha) mainly 'cuz Wes went snowboarding instead of the Fontana race (good choice)...but I was able to get a shot of the team set-up which is again, SWEET. Just a couple more fo-DH races and on to the chairlifts, I can't wait.

Photo by Eric Saletel