Sea Otter Classic in the record books

Well, the Sea Otter 2008 is over... has been for a while, I've just been travelling and recovering and too lazy to update my last week in cali. Sorry. The race was really fun, and really stressful, and really cold, and really hot all at the same time. Thursday was hot.. and muggy, and we had 3 hours of downhill practice. It was good, we got our new race clothing halfway through and by the end of practice we had racers and fans yelling AMERICA!!!! it was really neat to see how stoked everyone is on the team and the support of american racers. I crashed in a fast berm and got my only jersey dirty and for the rest of the weekend people were asking "did you crash"... nope i jusst decided to roll in the dirt and grass in my brand new beautiful kit... yes i crashed...Friday was more dh, and i was riding my medium travel dh bike. it was feeling retty good but on the hurt wrist it was getting a little rough. after friday downhill practice we would only see the track for a little while sunday morning before the race. saturday was the famous sea otter slalom. it was the windiest day i have seen there. people were wearing goggles in the pits because of the dust in the air!! needless to say it made the slalom interesting. It was like riding into a wall in some of the corners. I qualified bad becuase I screwed up i qualis, so i raced the number 5 qualifier Mike Haderer. I threw down a good run in the first run (in slalom you run both courses once) and was putting pressure on Mike and he ended up crashing, giving me the full 1.5 second advantage on the first run. second run i rode cautious and made sure i didn't crash, and I advanced. i was stoked for sure. next round was the legendary Kirt Vories. he was riding well all day and I was pupmed for a good round. first run he beat me by .8 of a second. second run I rode the best slalom run of my life and beat him by... .7 of a second.. so the overall went to Kirt and he advanced to the round of 8. I was bummed to be out, but to give him that good of a run and be that close was a geed feeling. Sunday morning I made a big decision to switch to my downhill bike. i had never ridden it in my life and in a couple hours would be racing it. Not smart in racing eyes, but i knew it was the way to go. on my fourth run on my bike, it was the race run, and i had mt best sea otter dh finish ever...24th place. not bad considering the circumstances. I was really impressed with my good friend matt fisher for his ride to a 21st place, and AAron Gwin, with his 10th place.
Thanks to all the guys on the team and Nate for all the hard work, and brandon sloan for housing us for so long!!! i'm home in colorado now training for Maribor. i leave on my 6th. i'll update while I'm there.. should be sick!! later!

Aptos XC with the Specialized gang

This morning Brandon, Buck, Chris, Curtis, a few other specialized boys, and my self went for an XC ride in Aptos. We parked right next to the post office dirt jumps, and headed up... and up, and up. It wasn't all that far I guess, but I was on my new SX bike, so the seat was low and the gear was pretty hard, so I was up out of the saddle climbing for alot of the climb. It was a stady climb for almost an hour. We got to the top and looked out over the pacific, got ready for the descent, and Brandon headed us out on a fast fire road. I was freezing... 93 degrees yesterday and freezing today.... but anyhow, we got off the fire road, onto a super tight traversing single track that was pretty hard to go fast on. that lasted about 5 minutes, and then the trail opened up into what I have now ranked as one of the best descents I have ever ridden. It was flowy and fast, intertweaving through tall redwodds and poison oak. I thnk it took near half an hour to get down, with just a few short sprints up some hills. Curtis was out front, then brandon, then myself, then Buck, and it was sick!! I have not had that much fun riding in a group in a really long time. all those guys know how to ride a bike, fast. My new bike finally felt right under me. by the end of the ride the bike felt like home...a good thing to feel like coming into sea otter. I'm so stoked to be able to ride with such a great group of guys. It is now deffinately on my to do list any time I am in Nor Cal from now on.. Definitely in my top 5 best rides ever!!!! thanks guys!!

Firestone Classic Dual Slalom

Umm, I hate to be negative about bike races, but yesterdays dual slalom was the slowest and most unorganized race I have ever attended. Granted it was the race organizers first go at it, it was still agonizingly slow. we waited two hours from the first round of elimination, to the second round.... and the field was only a few over 30 riders.....TOTAL!! from beginner junior to pro men there was a turnout of 30 people, and the race took all day... So frustrating.

However, the track was fun, and fast. I think it was around 20 seconds per lane. I qualified first, Chris Herndon crashed in qualis, and there was a huge class of 5 pros and semi pros!! I had a bye run, and in the next round when I finally got to race against someone, my chain snapped on a fast sprint before a quad, and I ate it.... pretty hard. It wouldn't had been a bad crash, but with my already sprained wrist I was trying so hard not to hurt it, but ended up hurting it anyway. It's not as bad as when I did it at first, but it's kinda sore again.... So frustrating. The first time I hurt it was cause of another person, and the second time I hurt it was cause of a bike issue.... just not having good luck this early season!! hopefully that's all done, out of the way before the real racing starts this week at sea otter.

Herndon also crashed out the second round, and Brandon Sloan who we are staying with also slid out in his first round... So our saying was, "we came, we saw, and we got conquered"... ha ha we showed up to a race with 30 people and left battered and bruised. But that's why we do these early races, to get all the cobwebs out and get into the swing of things. So all in all, it was fun. Lots of driving, I got my new bikes last night at nate's house, and sea otter here we come!!!!

GAMUT pump track session

Mr. Gamut Juan has built himself quite a nice pump track... and there was quite a crew out there this evening. Tyler McCaul and some of his Aptos friends showed up along with a mojority of the Specialized staff.... Not really, but alot of faces were there and some shredding got on. Steve Wentz was trying rediculously technical lines as usual and pulled most of them off first try.. Pretty impressive. Chris Herndon was right on his tail, and even though we were at a pump track Chris managed to slap and get some blood showing... good to see nice work there Herndoggy. It's fun to see so many people stoked about riding their bikes around an 8 second track. The mosquitos started swarming as the sun went down and it was back to Sloans' house to watch dvd's of the TV show "Lost". I thought that show was retarted yesterday, and now we are all hooked.... not good!! for all of you who have watched it, I'm going to marry Kate.

Off to Santa Barbara tomorrow for the Firestone Classic. I'm not going to be racing but Herndon and Some of the Specialized chicks will be, so I'm going for moral support, and to be the photographer ha ha!

In the photos we have Juan the pumptrack man himself, herndon after his slap, and the whole crew.

Dirt Jumping Yesterday

I could right about it, but i'm too lazy, so you should click on Chris Herndon's name in my links list, and there is a full description of our day.

Today I went XC riding... more intervals. I thought I may get eaten by a cougar or gored by a wild boar, but not to be. I made it out alive and tired. nobody went with me. Just old mate Leroy (my truck) and I. more Gamut pump track tonight!!! Pictures later I promise for reals this time!!!

Santa Cruz XC Riding

Curtis Keene and Chris Herndon took me cross country riding in Santa Cruz today, and now I know why so many people rave about that place. It truly is amazing in there. Not only are all the trails totally entertaining, but the woods have a special feel.. pretty magical. The redwoods are so differnet from anything in colorado.

Curtis and chris were pinned on the downhills.. it was rad. I had to take it easy over the chattery stuff cause of the wrist, but i'm feeling better than ever on the bike thanks to my Coach at CTS, so thanks Colin!!! looks like we are going dirt umping in the am tomorrow and more xc in SC in the evening. hopefully i'll get some photos of us SIDEWAYS!!!

new-bee

Hello, I'm new at this whole blog thing, so this is my first post. to all of you who know me.. hi. To all of you who don't know me.....umm, hi too. So I guess the deal is that if you want to know what's going on in my life and racing, you can check here and it will give you some idea of what i'm doing, how racing is going, where I am, and some photos too.

I'm currently in California training for the first world cup round in Maribor, Slovenia. I sprained my wrist pretty badly in Fontana, so i'm nursing that trying to get it back up to strength. I spent the last week in Auburn with my good friend Ryan Condrashoff and the family he is living with, the Benedicts. Auburn is pretty rad, close to the mountains and still great riding all year long. I'll show some photos.

I'm now in Morgan Hill hanging with the Specialized boys and girls getting ready for Sea Otter in 8 days. If your going to sea otter stop by the Specialized pits and say hello and heckle Chris, Curtis, Cody and the rest of the guys for a while.