Northwest tour 2008

Seems like it all went by like a flash but here I am, back home from one of the more fun road trips I have done in my life. Although several plans were put on hold and many improvisations were put into place, it still ended up being good times. It started off on Wednesday the 31st in Orange County where we packed Wes' dad's Honda Civic up (I mean PACKED) and prepared our passports, bikes, snowboards and luggage for a 1.5 week journey that would take us up California, through Oregon, Washington and finally into British Colombia, Canada. We left Orange County at around 8pm, Wes forgot his cell phone so we turned back to get it...luckily we were only a few exits up the freeway when he realized this! Anyway, we drove up the 5 with little delay, avoiding LA traffic and getting past Sacramento and into the northern part of the state by 2am. We stopped somewhere south of Redding, CA where Wes met his dream girl at the local McDonalds. We took the usual 2-hour power nap and proceeded into the lovely state of Oregon. Upon crossing the border Wes got a little love letter from the local OHP We headed up to Portland where we checked into the Holiday Inn (seriously). What was cool is that we could see the towering image of Mt. Hood where we were to snowboard later in the trip. We decided to head into the city via the "MAX" which is their version of the metro or trolley.
The city was pretty nice, clean and there were really no homeless people...a bit different from San Diego and Los Angeles. We walked around for hours checking out all the stuff, spreading the word about CON clothing and looking for a place to eat. We hopped on the MAX again and headed to our one-star accommodations on the North end of town. In the morning we got on the road again and headed North towards Seattle. It was real cloudy and almost raining, a huge contrast from the previous day which seemed like the temps were in the high 80's!! We hung around Seattle for some hours then realized that we had another 10 hours to Whistler since the main road had been closed due to a rock-slide!@ We got back into the Civic and headed to Canada!
From Seattle we went North to Bellingham where we veered east off the 5 onto rural highways which lead to Canada. The landscape was pretty flat up until we crossed into British Colombia where the coastal mountains rise up pretty impressively (gnar-like). But we had no idea what this alternate route to Whistler had in store for us. It was the gnarliest highway I had been on in awhile, and I have been on some pretty gnarly roads. Constant threat from rock slides, one-lane sections, one-lane wooden bridges (as in wooden planks) , 15% grades and thousand foot cliffs were only the half of it. We finally rolled into Whistler at around midnight and we could not be more stoked. We quickly found Dan & Steph's condo and settled into our Ski-shed (room). The next morning was prime for sleeping-in and we did so, I quickly got the urge to go check out the mountain, Wes the same so we headed over to the main area where the bike park was located (Whistler Village). This place was unreal, it was almost like a dream seeing the famous site of the Whistler bike park in real life...seriously. Anyway, I feel like I am straggling and I am getting tired of typing so I will cliff-note it a bit...
We scored free lift tickets thanks to Distilled Magazine and headed up the hill for the first time on Friday afternoon, awesome. A-line was everything I had dreamed except the lips were steeper and the gaps were smaller than I imagined. Second day, sweet. Up the lift 3 times, 3d run up on Garbanzo my frame decides to fail. Epic Fail. Now what? I had 2 more days planned of riding and this shit happens? great. Call a mountain patrol guy who takes me and my useless piece of aluminum down the hill. Call it a day and devise a plan for the next week and a half we have on the road. I decide to rent a bike the next day, a 50 something pound Rocky Mountain that needed some upgrades before it was enjoyable to ride. It was good, and I had a good time on it.

Whistler

I'm heading up to Whistler today for some riding. Yeah, no racing. Just riding. Should be good times indeed.

Mt Snow

The U.S National Championships went down this past weekend at Mt. Snow Vermont. I started off my Journey at 8am at Lindbergh field in beautiful sunny San Diego, about 9 hours later I was standing outside of Albany international in 90% humidity and 90* Fahrenheit wondering: "what the hell was I thinking?"

Mt. Snow is different. The mountain itself is unique, the terrain tends to be open, mossy, slippery and rocky. This year they changed up the course a bit and unfortunately added many pedaling sections which made the course stupid flat in sections and gave the peddler an advantage. Practice was going great Thursday and Friday, although I was getting flats at a steady pace I was digging the high-speed rough course (when not pedaling). Friday night the skies opened up and we got some rain. Saturday morning practice was good, surprisingly dry and tacky well, not really in the woods but it was ok. Saturday practice ended and I felt good, although I was unfortunately feeling a bit under the weather. As the day went on I could feel myself getting sick, this was not good. Sunday morning came along and I definitely was feeling under the weather, I tried to ignore it and focus on my riding but it was next to impossible. My body felt week and I was having a bit of trouble breathing and alot of trouble pedaling. I seeded mid-pack with a very conservative run, most of the guys played the rain card as heavy rain was forecasted for the afternoon. Race time came around and I found myself in the gate. I hit all my lines with good speed in the top section and found my way to the first pedaling section. Not bad I held my speed through the open sweeping turns pretty well. I hit the middle pedaling section and had no juice. The next couple of pedal sections I had absolutely no gas. I got to the lower tree section and caught up to the guy in front of me. I thought I could pass him but I had no power left and my concentration was less than good, the result was me missing some lines and slowing down...geez. I got to the bottom and unclipped and looked horrible for the finish. Result=mid-pack performance, not what I was looking for in this race. Overall I was pretty disappointed in this trip out to the East coast, I was looking for a top 10 finish as I thought I was in good physical shape. But my lack of health I think hindered me in achieving this. Bummed. Thanks To Eric once again for his support and thanks to JAK the Cannondale factory mechanic for being an Italian.

Cool video from the race, I'm in the intro pinning it! haha

http://www.kmtb.com/bbs/zboard.php?i...egory=1&no=217

Downtime

Pretty quiet right now. I have been riding a bit more throwing in a couple of XC rides during the week and riding my Judge whenever possible. Right now I am in preparation for the US National Championships that will go down in approximately 2 weeks at Mount Snow Vermont. My goal is to finish top 10 but of course I would like to think that I can get a top 5.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that the weather stays dry!!

Anglefire

Angelfire was great. Always one of my favorite events/venues of all time. I don't know if it is the relaxed atmosphere, the great terrain or the tacky dirt but something about Anglfire keeps bringing me back for more!

This season the promoters decided to get creative and cut a couple of new sections on the mountain. This added a bit of length to the course but unfortunately slowed the speeds down and also cut down the amount of turns on the course as the new section was pretty much straight down the mountain. No worries, there was a chairlift and life is good!

Eric Saletel showed up in the Sobe/Cannondale rig and set up shop in the pit area. This proved to be a critical part of my success this weekend as it provided a place for me to clean and work on my bike as well as store it when I was not riding.

Long story short...It snowed for all but the last two days of the event, unfortunately cutting our ride/practice time short. When the sun did show itself however, the course came alive and was fast and very fun. I seeded in the number 20 spot as I had a very mellow run and made some mistakes. I must admit that I was not happy at all with my result and was a bit uneasy about race day.

The morning of the race did not make things much better. I woke up early because practice was at 8am, I made my way to the lift and was in shock! The lift line seemed to stretch for miles! I only had an hour for practice and apparently people who were near the front had already been waiting for almost 30 minutes. It was clear that I was not going to have time to practice so I decided to scrap my practice plans. I went to the pit, dropped off my bike with the #1 mechanic on the circuit (Eric) and went to the condo. I hung out/slept/ate for about 5 hours. When the time came to get ready for my race run I was a bit uneasy. I made my way up the lift and tried to relax.

When the UCI official called my name I sort of cleared my mind, as I got positioned on the start gate I just thought of the course and felt a bit of confidence come over me. The race run was great. My aim (as it always is) was to be as smooth as possible and get to the bottom as fast as possible. I saved my energy and pedaled very little because the course was long and I did not want to make mistakes in the lower, faster portion of the course. I came down with a great time and I was happy to see some of my team mates and friends at the bottom just as excited about my time as I was. At the end of the day my time was goo enough for 8th place! My best pro finish at a National to date!

Angelfire 2008, the low-down.

This year was quite different than last; it snowed for 2 days straight! Although the snow made things very interesting the stoke was still high this weekend. The course was a bit different this year as well, I believe that the new course was not catered to my riding style but I still managed to make due. More updates to come very soon.

Angel Fire 2008

It's that time again. Time to break out the Downhill bike for some real downhill racing. And once again I am looking forward to boarding the chairlift and taking a few peadal strokes out of the gate then coasting. This is a very important race for 2008 as the top Americans will not only gain UCI points but will also have the ability to automatically qualify for Worlds team. Here we go, Angel Fire 2008.