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.

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