Why Me and my woman are not making out right now.

because I am in the doghouse for something... i dunno I wasn't really paying attention. She is in the doghouse for not giving me "the Roster"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! F!

Duncan and Brad are homos

K bye.

catching up!!!!

sorry for never writing in here. im so lame. So here is a quick catch up on my life. I separated my shoulder the weekend before national champs in snowmass. i drifted a super fast corner and highsided myself and plow drove my shoulder into the ground. soooo, i missed national champs, which sucked. but I wtill went and supported the team and learned alot. I recovered in Twin Lakes, and 4 weeks to the day i raced the garbonzo 15 minute downhill in whistler BC. it was awesome. i spent 9 days in whistler racing and training with the team, and then flew to new jersey for jeep 48 straight slalom race. I got eliminated first round which bummed me out, but was happy to be there. After that i drove to north carolina with teammate chris herndon, and spent 3 days there till we went to snowshoe, west virginia. we raced there last weekend, herndon to 2 wins, i took 2 seconds to him. we made a littel money and swept the weekend in dual and downhill. It was way fun. we saw a country band play too...the best!!!! that's it! now im in NC again and fly out in a week for the world cup finals in Scladming, Austria. after that its to angel fire for a 12 hour downhill, then interbike. i'll try and write more!! sorry again!!

Homeland - back to the mothership

Duncan Riffle brough up a really good point right after the World Champs last week in Italy. He made the point that our whole lives people are telling us to go travel and get some diversity in our lives, see new people, new cultures, and new food. However, as we have all found out, all the food is the same no matter what European country we were in. Duncan said, "what about New York or LA? In any city in the states you can walk aroud the corner and have Italian, Indian, Chinese, Mexican, American, Indonesian, Japanese, ...anything you can think of. Why do we need to travel half way around the world to eat the same stuff everywhere we go??" We decided, as we already knew but was hitting home really hard because we were all so excited to come back to the Motherland, that the U.S. has the best food in the world...no need to go anywhere else!! So if your reading this and thinking about travelling..dont. NO I'm kidding, I strongly advise travelling, just be ready to miss the good home cookin of the U.S of A!

My time in Europe has been really awesome. I wouldn't rather be doing anything else. Seeing the world from behind the bars of my bike is the only thing I want to be doing with my life. It's amazing. I was just thinking during a ride my bike took me on today, how crazy the places are that my bike has taken me. Just last week it took me on a wild ride down a rooty mountain side in italy, and only a few days later had me cresting tree line climbing some gnarly road in the mountians in Colorado. Where would I be without my bike? I sure wouldn't be racing world cups, or riding remote ridge lines, or pushing new downhill tracks by my house. My own two feet are far too boring for that. My bike has some pretty cool adventures...I'm stkoked I get to be along for the ride all the time. Thanks bike....your the man!

I'm loving my time at home now for a few weeks before Team America gets going on some new trips around the world. I'm getting some much needed re-fueling time in Colorado. My African American Brother, Jonty Neethling is here. We are reliving last summer as we plan to hit as many firework shows as possible and ride flat out for the next two weeks. The motocross national is at Thunder Valley in Denver tomorrow night under the lights, which we are pumped on. Watching those gys rally always makes me think I can go alot faster on my DH bike.

We will be back on the road here soon, hitting the National Champs, then into Canada, and onto the remaining WC's. We may not be in the States, but we take Freedom wherever we go, Full tilt Red White and Blue!!!!!!

Later!
CB

US Open, Andorra, Ft. Bill, now in London on my way to World Champs in Italy

Yo yo yo!! Ok, big time slack off in the blog department. sorry. I'll try and be brief with the recaps from the last month of racing.

It has been pinned, all over the place, super fun, lots of competition, lots of riding on tons of different terrain.

First off, the U.S Open was rad. it was my first time at the race, and the experience could not have been better. the guys at Diablo Freeride Park are super cool and treated us so well. The DH track is technical and rocky, which I really liked. I qualified 16th and ended up 14th in the final, which I was pretty happy with. I think I was only 3 seconds off the top three, or top 5 I can't remember, but right in there, and my run was pretty good but could have been faster for sure. I hate excuses so that's now what it is, I'm just excited cause I know I'm on pace, I just need to put a good run together and I'll be right in there with the best of em.

Slalom was cool, really short. i qualied 7th, with teammates Cody Warren in 4th and Chris Herndon taking the number one spot in qualies. the race shaped out to be bad for me, I broke my chain out of the gate second run in the second round...so I was done for the night.

Straight from the US open Cody, Nate our mechanic, and myself flew over to Barcelona, where we got a car and drove up to Andorra for the second World Cup. The track is like nothing I have ever ridden...just a big rough mud rut the whole way down. I struggled pretty bad. sat. practice i felt pretty good, but my race sucked. I think it was my worst race run since I was a junior. No crashes, just slow slow slow. but I want to forget about it so moving on...

Ft. William, Scotland was the week after andorra, I flew up there and got to see the track early. they quickcreated alot of the track to try and smooth it out, but the weather didn't do what it has always done...rain. no rain meant to moisture for the quickcrete, and big holes developed everyhwere that made the track rougher i think.

My second practice run on thursday was probably the fastest one of the weekend. I felt like I started from where I left off at the World Champs there last year.

Dissapointment struck when I missed my start for the finals due to some miscommunication from the UCI officials. i'll leave it at that cause if i start going about how mad i was and how pissed I am at the UCI then this blog will be too long.

Now I am in the London Heathrow prison of an airport on an 8 hour layover to munich. We will get to Val Di Sole, Italy tomorrow morning and start the preparation for the World Championships. I'm stoked to be going again, this is my 3rd year in a row on the U.S. team, and I hope and plan to make it count!!!!!!!!!

Look for another update after worlds!! Later!!!!!

Maribor and Home and Driving!!!

Hello!! sorry I have not updated anything in so long. I tried to update after the race in Slovenia, but all the internet was in a diferent language so I couldn't.

Maribor went well given my circumstances. I get very very sick, and was having a hard time staying awake and coping with walking down the street much less racing a downhill world cup!! there were 320 pro men in the semi final, and i qualified 47th, which I was stoked with, because I was just happy to qualify in the top 80 period. 75 percent of the field that started qualifying went home, and only the top 80 guys raced in the finals in the afternoon. My final run was not so good, i had a few mess ups, and ended up 56th. not what I was look ing for at the opening race, but hey, i'll take it and hopefully get some at the next race.

I went home for a few days which was really nice. Dad come down and shuttled me and dave ziegmann on a dh track, which was so much fun. i wont get to ride at home much more this summer so that was a treat.

I then got picked up by our team manager and mechanic, Nate, and we drove the specialized factory racing rig out to new jersey for the us open. nate was in the truck or 5 days straight, and myself for three...and we are both over it ha ha!!! we are in Washington DC now doing some photo shooting, and then we will race in the U.S. Open this weekend. On monday we fly to Barcelona for a race in Andorra,and the next weekend we go up to Ft William, Scotland.

I hope all of you are doing well!!! sorry for not updating again! I will get another one in here as soon as I can after this weekend!!

Later

Pre World Cup Rd. 1 Maribor, Slovenia

Hello!

I have taken the last week or so since sea otter to prepare myself for the first world cup. This race has alot of weight to it due to the World Championship selection precess. The Worlds are early this year due to the olympics, so the selection comittee has just a few races to base the team off of, and maribor is the most weighted one. And its a world cup so it's just important in general.

My most generous father has been driving 4 hours round trip to come down to Colorado Springs to shuttle me on the DH track. The time on my new Specialized Demo 8 has bees so good. I am strating to feel at home on it, and am starting to be able to push the limits and throw down some fast times.

I have also been pushing myself really hard on the XC bike, dong some intense interval work. I feel confident and exscited to fly over the big blue and git-er-done!!! more updates and photos of maribor when i'm there or shortly when I return to the States on the 13th of may.

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!