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.
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.
the time has come to get back to cycling.
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.
results were not a factor.This was the first race in what I see is a resurgence of gravity racing in SoCal...even though we have lost the legendary Snow Summit venue in Big Bear, we still make due with the hills that we have out here. This is very evident in the names of the pro riders who raced this past Sunday (World Cup winners and podiumers (sp) National Champions, ect.). Pretty excited for the future of racing here in SoCal and in the United States. Oh yeah, on a side note...there was a Cannondale demo truck at the event but he packed up and left as soon as I showed up on Saturday afternoon...bummed about that.Check out the Progressive Cycling Association (PCA)site: http://www.pcamtb.com/ for more info. Photo credits go to: Wes Pracht (mtbphoto.com, mtbphoto@gmail.com)
t 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.
