September of shred.

The month of September was full of riding and racing for me, not only Downhill but a fair bit of Cross Country as well! It started off with the Cal-State finals at Mammoth Mountain, CA. Legendary venue, this place has literally seen the sport of mountain biking “grow up." There is no mountain resort that I can think of that possesses more bike racing history (Maybe Snow Summit or Mount Snow) than M.M. Anyway, the downhill course was very fast and challenging. What made it even more interesting was the 30mph winds that are so common for this high-altitude venue. One of those gusts caught me on the first day of practice as I attempted to negotiate a drop at the beginning of the course. I went down pretty hard, but the injuries were minor. Race day was good for me, I managed to rack up 9th place with a very sloppy run. Just to give you an idea of how close the racing was, less than 2 seconds separated me from the podium!! This race was great and I hope to race it again in '010. I also did the 24hours of adrenaline @ Hurkey Creek. I had done this even many times when I was younger and...ahheemmm, in better XC shape! But I could not resist the opportunity when my old buddy who is now a Cat 1 road racer asked if I wanted to join his team (of roadies!). I thought, wow, a downhiller in a roadie XC team...sounds good. It was, I didn't slow the team down much as we finished second in our division (5-person co-ed) and scored a podium!!! Stoked! Also, Dez was out there and he was killing it! He finished first in the solo division! Can't forget Interbike. I strolled around Sin City for a couple days, checking out the bikes and other attractions. Had a chance to say hi, to Matty J and check out the new booth, lookin' good.

2009 Cal-State race at Mammoth Mountain

RACING RETURNS TO MAMMOTH!
Wow, what a sick event. Truly stoked to have a race at Mammoth once again after nearly a 5 year stretch of no races.

I feel compelled to state that I got a speeding ticket on the drive up right before the I-14 merges onto the US 395, this was the only "bummer" of the 4-day weekend. The weekend was filled with riding, not only did we practice for the DH race but also "freerode" the mtn. and rode Cross country on some amazing single track. Too much went down to explain, but in the end I came across the finishline with a 9th place time thanks to a particularly sketchy run. Saturday night a bunch of us convened at Jen Wolf's (pro female racer and Mammoth local) house to watch Steve Peat win world championships!!! Pretty damn inspiring to watch all those racers from around the world give it their all for what has to be the biggest race of the season. Props to Cody Warren also for reppin the 619 and placing top American at worlds!! It was amazing to have the opportunity to spend a sick weekend with a bunch of friends racing and riding bikes at a legendary venue!

2009 US National Championships

The 2009 U.S National Championships were held in Sol Vista, Colorado this year as opposed to Mt. Snow which had hosted the event for the last 3 years. I was excited for this race, I enjoy Colorado very much...the area is just awesome in general. The downhill course was quite challenging and as the weekend progressed, the course conditions deteriorated. The pro downhill course featured three large jumps which seemed to be the talk of the event, everyone pretty much agreed that they were "huge." Practice was a bit of a challenge for me, I was feeling a bit ill the first couple of days and was just not feeling the track. Saturday came along and I finally got the jumps down and feeling semi comfortable...Unfortunately, my fork blew it's rebound cartridge during my second run and my practice time ran out while FOX repaired my damper. Sunday came along and I was just focusing on a clean run, perhaps thinking a bit to much about the monster jumps as I took the rest of the course rather conservatively and made a couple of timely mistakes. It was great to see everyone out there, including most of the gravity side of the CFR team! Overall, I think this race and venue were good for the "sport" of downhill mountain biking...the course was obviously geared towards the spectators and it showed, there were hundreds of people gathered during the pro finals to watch us launch the massive gap jumps! Despite this, most every pro racer I talked to though this was the best track they had ridden in years, a win-win situation in my opinion.


Please check out the video of the 2009 US national Championships, I filmed some of it:

www.Channelmtb.com

Recent footage

ChannelMTB.com teaser of some footage we have been putting together:

http://vimeo.com/5555046

Short Clip

of me hucking myself un-smoothly.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Fonse03/?action=view&current=MVI_2581.flv

A bit of Video footage

http://channelmtb.com/

Angelfire Chilli Challenge DH 2009

Baja 500

The Baja 500, what can I say? The first time I went to this race was in 1986, yeah I was about 2 years old. Later in life the 500 was an exciting weekend, not only because of the race itself but because it always fell on the second to last week of school which meant that summer break was so close I could feel it. Recently, I had taken a bit of a break from the off-road scene because of bike racing and also the fact that my dad does not race off-road anymore (I should say at the moment). This past weekend was an amazing reminder why this race and just the fact of being in Baja is one of my favorite things to do.

It sounds so cheesy, especially saying it over and over again, but Baja is an amazing place. I don't care who you are. You can read all the magazines, watch Dust To Glory thousands of times, spend all your time on forums, or chat rooms and listen to every BRO in Cali talk about it...BUT if you have not been there, in person, there is absolutely no way you could understand or comprehend the stuff that happens down there. As a fellow that was staying in our hotel found out first hand, go to Baja unprepared and inexperienced and Baja will bite you. This man was in his 60's from Ohio. Had never been to Mexico, let alone Baja and decided to race a motorcycle...solo. Bad Idea, it gets a bit worse. He did not pre-run the course, with the exception of the first 35 miles, which are probably the easiest miles of the race. He ended up back in Ensenada with a wrecked bike and alot of stitches, thankfully he was ok.

Skipping all the details becasue it would take pages and pages to go into detail on the weekend's happenings...Nick and I left Ensenada at a leisurely 9am, pretty much the time between the motorcycle start and the Trophy trucks. We got to Ojos Negros surprisingly quick given the amount of traffic that is always present on race weekends. We at at the Ojos negros cafe, a hearty breakfast for under 10 bucks, for both of us! What a deal! I heard the sound of a helicopter approaching and I knew it was time to go. We drove down the highway a bit and found a open spot to park the truck and wait for the race truck to come by. Most of the Trophy trucks, class ones and class 10s came by before we started hearing Bobby on the radio calling out mile markers. "709 race at mile 30" I looked at Nick and we both said "dayym". The truck was already at mile 30, which meant they were 5 miles from us and making very good time! STOKED. A couple of minutes later the truck zoomed by on the pavement between two other class 7 trucks, they were kicking some ass, 35 miles into the race! We quickly hopped into the truck and I drove to the next chase point @ K77 after they go by "El Alamo". When the truck went by there they had passed 2 other trucks! awesome! At this pace they will be in 1st place in no time! We hung out at the highway, waiting to get word from Bobby that he was out of the truck (@RM100) and everything was good. We got word and we headed towards Valle de Trinidad and San Mateas pass eventually down to the Borrego junction. Borrego was packed with spectators as usual, trying to get the best view of the legendary Borrego jump. We started picking up Jeremy on the radio and as he read off the mile markers we realized, again, that they were closer than we thought. We quickly started looking for a spot to pit. The area was so packed we could not find a clear spot, it did not matter however. We got word from Jeramey that they had lost the right front tire. We told Jeramey to give us more details, and if they needed us to go in and help them (they were only 3 miles from the highway). Well, we got word from Jeramey and it was not good. Stripped spindle nut and broken spindle @ the tie-rod...truck is out of the race. BUMMER! What is worse is the fact that we needed to "extract" the truck from the desert, which in this case is easier said than done. The terrain in that area is very rough and there is only one way in and out; the race course. I'll skip all the details and just say that it took many hours or working, thinking and driving to get the truck out to the highway. Thank goodness for the Baja locals who helped us counter weigh the truck which allowed us to "drive" out. I think I have written enough...All in all we did not finish the baja 500, but the weekend was so much fun that it did not matter too much. Epic weekend in one of the most epic places on earth!!

Angelfire re-cap

Time is a funny thing. It sneaks up on you and before you know it, a week, a month even a year has gone by. Time is made more apparent when you engage in annual events, such as this Angelfire race weekend which I have done now for the past 4 years. You see people who you have not seen for months; maybe years…you see how they have changed and what new things they are doing in their lives. You talk about what new sponsors, bikes, gear they have been using and where they have been racing. Even people who you might have known for years seem a bit different when you relate their current state to how they were a year ago because the setting, the place, the environment makes it so. Either that or I am just getting old and time is getting distorted for me. Either way, I had an awesome time with some of my best friends up in the high-altitude town of Angelfire!
The journey started off on Wednesday afternoon at my home in Chula Vista, CA. The crew met up and loaded the trusty F250 which has made the 2,000 mile journey 3 years in a row. Hank Cadle, Wes, Daniel, Jon Buckell and myself loaded “white lightning” to capacity and charged the Southwest desert non-stop. We arrived in Taos, New Mexico at about 8am to hit up the local WalMart for supplies and famous Taos burritos at the “Chow Cart.” The skies were gray and nasty; it looked like rain was definitely on the horizon. Arriving at AngelFire a couple of hours later, it was apparent that the rest of the day would be pretty rainy…unfortunately this was the case for pretty much the whole weekend. The pro DH course at Angelfire is rather long but can be described in a few short words; rough, rocky and hard to race. You must practice and get your lines down but also keep in mind that, at the end of the weekend, you will need to go as fast as you can down this 5+ minute insanely rough track…In addition to all this, the weather also plays a factor. Most of the practice sessions were held in wet, slippery track conditions while the forecast for race day was dry. You must keep in mind that it is not worth doing a whole lot of runs in conditions that will be nowhere near the conditions on race day. Of course most of us were hammering out runs because it is simply fun! Practice went well, I was stoked to get on the hill with my fellow team riders Nick Van Dine, Ryan Cornielsen, and Darian Harvey. I would say that Cannondale Factory Racing (CFR) had a strong presence on the DH course!
Monday, Memorial Day came and it was time to lay some solid, non-stop runs down on the course. Most riders were wondering how they would do such a thing as they had not done a non-stop run all week! For my seeding run I did my usual conservative run making sure I hit all my lines, I got a bit carried away and had to remind myself that it was the seeding run, not race run. I made a mistake in one of the rock sections which was no big deal; I did not go completely down so I lost little time. I came down with a decent time and I knew I could definitely improve on it come race time. I coasted down to my pit (NEMA international) and cleaned up the bike and put her away, ready to race. Surprisingly, people told me that I qualified in the 8th place slot! I was quite happy and knew I could put something good together.
Race time came along and I felt good. Calm and as confident as one could be before descending the jackhammer-in your hands-like course. As I got into the gate I just cleared my mind and waited for the beeps, after the 5th beep time stood still and I started my run. As far as I could remember, everything went well except for a mistake in that same rock section. I came down with a time 10 seconds faster than my seeding run, I was pretty stoked! At the end of the day my run was good enough for 14th place, definitely a disappointment as I wanted to improve on last year’s result.
This trip was definitely something I needed, it put a lot of things in perspective, mainly the fact that I need to ride my bicycle a lot more because it is awesome!

First photo by: Wes Pracht mtbphoto@gmail.com

Second photo: Shaun Spomer www.Littermag.com

Angel Fire 2009!

Here we are again, my favorite race of the season! This year the forecast is looking rather moist which should make for an interesting week! Crossing my fingers and hoping for dry weather on race day, wish me luck...here we go.

DH bike is done!

Finally received my parts which enabled me to finish the build on my new DH bike for 2009. Thanks to Daniel for helping me rebuild my old fox 40, I'm still waiting on the 2009 fork to come in.

So I went out to Teds with Daniel, Spencer and the Olimons for some Saturday shuttlein'...pretty good day, we got a good amount of runs in and I settled into my new bike. It was the first time I had ridden DH in about 2 months so I was a bit rusty...ok, very rusty! haha.

Spring 09

Well, after a log winter of snowboarding and hardly touching any kind of two-wheeled machine, the time has come to get back to cycling.

Don't get me wrong, I love snowboarding and the snow. Being up in the mountains is awesome, and hopefully I can move up there one day. I mostly rode the local mountain, which is Bear mtn. here in lovely SoCal. I did get the chance to ride Mammoth and June mountain a handful of times which was great. June is an amazing mountain when there is fresh powder and I am stoked to report that pretty much every day I rode June, there was powder. Finally, I got to go on my first-ever winter vacation. Yes, over the years I choose to save all my vacation time for summer activities, however this year I got out to Sal Lake City for a week of snowboarding. Some people will think I am crazy but I was genuinely not impressed with the snow and the riding up there. Still, it was a good week.

I decided to pick up a XC bike, more of a trail bike actually. It seemed to me a good time for me to get back to my roots of sorts, just ride singletrack and have fun. I decided on a Cannondale Rize and I could not be happier. The bike rides well and is a nice balance of climbing-ability while still being pretty good on the descents. Anyway I took her to Noble canyon for her first real ride and was impressed. As of now I am waiting for the rest of my parts to come in so I can complete building my DH bike and get to business.

Couple of clips from a ride that went down this past Sunday in San Diego. Amazingly, there were no winds and the ground was still a bit tacky, just like our kits. I might put some more vids up later.

Some random hucker: http://vimeo.com/2823135

Kevin: http://vimeo.com/2823034

A Swede and a Mexican: http://vimeo.com/2823097

Hella NorCal: http://vimeo.com/2823152

A bunch of other riders out including some Canadians driving around in a flat-black van, random US national champions and some Swedish dude...I'm too lazy to post the rest, maybe later tonight.

Good to ride again with old friends.