Team Giant Report, Ashland 12 Mile Super D
Sometimes you’ve just gotta stick your neck out and MAKE things happen. I’m really torn these days on the topic of just what kind of racing is going to provide the most satisfaction, and, more importantly, entertainment… The Ashland 12 Mile Super D has always been on my list of important stuff to do. This year it looked like I’d miss it yet again as I needed (and wanted) to be in Colorado Springs for a stop on the US Pro XC Tour. But wait! The Short Track was on Friday and XC on Saturday. So, if I could find a flight from Denver to Medford, OR (like the 8:15 departure, midnight arrival I found for cheap on Alaska) I could feasibly race 12 miles of alleged radness in the Siskiyous on Sunday morning.

Fortunately, the race organizers in CO must have known what I was up to as they shortened Saturday afternoon’s XC race to four laps. I’d totally have time to take a shower on the way the DIA… And wouldn’t have to get quite as tired… I cleverly finished off the podium so as to avoid waiting around to receive “awards”. Felice was kind enough to ride shotgun while I drove to the airport, we had plenty to talk about in the form of the obligatory afternoon thunderstorms circling the high plains. I was pretty sure the biggest, blackest one was attacking the airport region. It was. Have you ever ducked when hailstones hit your windshield? I did about seventeen times in the last few miles on Pena Boulevard. The odds against my flight departing on time were confirmed when I stepped out of the car in driving hail to hear the wail of what could only be a tornado alert siren. Awesome. Somehow though, DIA pulled through and by the time my flight departed on time two hours later the skies were clear and a beautiful sunset had commenced. Bullet #1 dodged. My half-hour layover in Seattle was just enough time to grab a delicious Veggie Burrito with Pork and a secondhand newspaper. Then, the inevitable pilot’s voice over the intercom asking one of the flight attendants to “Check the latch on the rear service door.” Evidently the Door Ajar light was on in the cockpit. This took Maintenance 45min to sort out. I finally landed in Medford at about 12:40 in the morning. Fortunately, my roommate and weekend time travel enabler Chris Moor was there with the Thule truck to pick me up. In the truck was the freshly built Trance X he had sorted out while I was screwing around in CO. High Five, Chris.

I was going through a pretty serious internal struggle as I tried to fall asleep in the face of residual XC race caffeine at about 2am. To wake up in a few hours for a dawn patrol practice run or just give ‘er blind at race time? An hour of illogical circular deliberation I fell asleep with no concrete decision. The call was made when I woke to the “non practice schedule” alarm at 6:45. A boiled egg from the Best Western and we were on our way up to the Mt Ashland Ski Area, elevation 6800’ or so. It was foggy. Real foggy. Good think I wasn’t up there a couple hours earlier, it would have been COLD… I got the new bike all set up and learned that I would be starting behind my favorite Bend Local, Timmy Evens. This led to some good-natured banter about which side I’d overtake him on and such.

Turns out it was the left, a little while after I almost died on a right hand turn. The second on the course, to be exact. Fortunately, the Sam Hill approved inside line approach I’d envisioned (without any actual information to base said vision on) left just enough room to skid outside, hook up and rail out at speed. Rad. Timmy had warned me about the first turn on the track and a Miles Rockwell crash in practice but not the second turn. This got me to thinking for a moment about the next thousand-odd turns I had to figure out in the light fog… Ah well, I signed up for it, might as well pin it. And pin it I did. Pedaling really hard when I could, which was often, and trying to use my trail direction sensing powers the rest of the time. This, as I’d hoped, worked out really really well, which is a testament to just how AWESOME the trails around Ashland are. On a well-built trail you don’t really need to know the lines, they just sort of present themselves just as you see each section of trail. Stay loose and don’t over-analyze and things will work out just fine. This approach was helped by a perfect amount of moisture in the soil enabling late braking and over-committed cornering, and not hindered THAT much by 40mph foggy fireroad corners and lack of knowing anything at all about things coming up. In all, a perfect ride down perfect trails.

Eventually, after freezing up and portaging around an obvious rock gap onto a fireroad I got into a completely different ecosystem, the moist forest trails of the ridgetops gave way to a brushy Oak forest that HAD to be near the valley floor. The trail became a steep affair riddled with switchbacks and cute little tabletop jumps. Super fun to flick, air and skid down at speed. Just as this section spit me out on another old road bed I buzzed under a tent that must have been the finish line and asked “Am I done?” to which someone replied “Yes”. Fair enough, guess I made it. And without blowing anything or dying. Amazing and a whole hell of a lot of fun. Jason Moeschler and Myles Rockwell, the two guys I was expecting to get beat by, were standing there looking pretty fresh and rested, as if they’d been there a while. Jason was pumped with his run, “My legs felt just how I wanted them to and I hit all my corners perfectly, GPS says 33:47!” I figured he’s fast and didn’t blow it, so he probably got me. Ah well, at least I had a better time than I recall ever having and didn’t die…

We bench-raced for a while as finishers trickled in every minute or so and eventually hitched a ride back to the top with Ashland Mountain Adventures. My old buddy Mike West swung by to see about riding some other trails down the mountain while the rest of the racers did their runs. He didn’t have to ask twice. He, Cannondale Kevin and I set off walking through snowbanks to Time Warp, a very appropriate trail for me to be riding at the end of this fairly ambitious weekend. If I only knew how rad it would end up being. Everyone, go to Ashland and ride Time Warp right now with someone who pins it. You’ll have fun, I promise. Then you’ll turn RIGHT and head back to more sweet trails. We went LEFT and on a tour of the Ashland Creek watershed. Scenic and eventually let to some secret trails and the Hitt Road Chainless race course but not before ten miles of “how lost are we getting” traversing on old logging roads… Every race day should have an adventure, right?

We made it back to the top tired and happy for the third time that day and I jokingly asked the first person I saw, Kiwi Paul, “Did I win?” To which he replied “Yeah, mate, by two seconds!” Sweet. Guess that worked out. Unfortunately I had to beat Moeschler (one of the nicest, smoothest, fastest guys I know) to do it, but that mean my time of 33:45 a new record for the course by almost two minutes. The dirt must have been faster than I gave it credit for…

The ski lodge was packed for the awards ceremony and raffle, which I’m used to being a sparsely attended formality for those who got prize money. Not the case with the 12 Mile Super D. The place was packed and almost every raffle winner and podium finisher was present and stoked when their name was called. Good to see.

Sam Koerber (3rd on the day) and I thought we had a crew together for a victory lap down the race track (with some detours for jumps that were bypassed in the name of speed earlier) but everyone wilted with the afternoon rainstorm. We kept it EAST COAST and shredded sloppy wet dirt to the valley floor once again, vowing to race this kind of thing somewhere on the Right Coast in the near future. Good times.

Photos-

The Mount Ashland start on a foggy morning.


Me kicking it out of said start and into the unknown…

Team Giant Update- Ten Reasons Why CO Rules
I just spent ten days in Colorado without wasting a single one. Here’s a bit of insight into just how each and every day was made special in it’s own little way…

June 4- Off The Couch kayak racing isn’t the best idea. Or, how to make lemonade out of getting smoked… Lizzy English and I drove to CO on a whim so we could compete in the Homestake Creek Race at the Teva Mountain Games. She reckoned it’d be a good way to run the brown and make some cash. I figured I was from the East Coast and could shred manky some low water Class V kayak racing. We decided riding bikes in Salt Lake with Tom Daigle on the way over would be a better use of time than “practicing” on the creek. Turns out if we’d “practiced” more than one run just before racing I might not have tipped over in a few inopportune spots and she might have paddled fast enough to make gas money. Oh well, at least we know the lines at 72CFS for next year… Some people were amazingly fast and precise, so that was a good example for us, embracing the lazy kayaker ideals isn’t always the go.

June 5- I’m way better at bike riding. Carl and I pre-rode the Teva Games XC Track, which used some of the 2001 World Champs terrain and was strangely familiar. Unlike the perfect first tracks we found on some freshly melted out North Loop across the Vail Valley. Fortunately, our awesomeness at riding through the woods was catalogued for the next people to ride there by perfect dirt with perfect tracks freshly laid. I hope they appreciated the amount of backing it in that went on…

June 6- Racing at 8000 Feet isn’t THAT bad… Somehow after a week of driving, playing and generally not being very professional, which is normally a sure way to suck at racing in the mountains, I didn’t ride like a total amateur in the SoBe X-Country Bike (such clever names and promotion at the Teva Games). Sure, Jeremy and Todd beat me by a solid five minutes, which might be a bad sign for Nationals in five weeks, but at least Carl and I stayed ahead of most of the other Colorado Superstars and made some gas money. Then got really tired. Maybe it is hard…

June 7- If you don’t like the weather, just drive somewhere else. Sunday dawned grey and lazy for the Fun Giant Team. Lizzy had left at the crack to solo the 16-hour CO to OR drive in a day, taking Whitewater out of the equation for lack of equipment. Just as we got Vail Valley singletrack beta from Jay Henry it started to hail. So we loaded up the rental and bolted for Rad Ross’s place in The Grand Valley. Surely it’d be sunny there. It was. And the Schnell Family was eager to pawn off a couple pounds of last fall’s Elk on us in the form of burgers and sausage. Combine this with an epic evening shred down the Ribbon Trail and Gunny Loop and you can indeed turn gloomy mornings into perfect afternoons with just a little petroleum product consumption.

June 8- Dude Day is a necessity to offset the sissiness that is racing bikes in tight pants for a living. We declared Monday Dude Day in honor of the fact that Ross can’t ride with a broken hip but sure as hell can hang out in the garage and work on motorized things. He baited us into the resurrection of some old, supposedly “80mph” Go-Karts with the prospect of racing said Karts on the local track that afternoon. Only after spending a solid few hours with little knowledge and even less specialized tools did we give up and call the track for professional advice on our project. They were closed. New project. After the Trek/Volkswagen team folded Ross Had to give his 2008 GTI back and retaliated ideologically by getting a super sweet Enduro Downhill racing gig and buying a cheap old sleeper Audi Turbo Sedan. It obviously needed a better exhaust system so we installed that before heading off into the sunset and the general direction of Gunnison.

June 9- Turns out mechanics SHRED trails too… Our arrival in Gunnison was well timed. Joe informed us that one of his favorite rides was melted out. Doctor’s Park. We climbed a dirt road along Spring Creek for a few miles before turning down a side road that dipped through said creek. Carl immediately looked concerned as the rest of us started taking shoes and socks off. Joe promised it’d be worth it and it was. The steadily falling snow (note June 9 above) didn’t deter us from the five miles of shred that awaited. Starting with high-meadow bombing that fell away into steep rocky switchbacks and eventually dumped us next to a small creek at concerningly high speeds gleefully gapping moto’d whoops. Not to be outdone by, um, itself, the last mile dropped to the valley floor through a series of perfectly built switchbacks interspersed with granite rock-drops and gratuitous skidding. Joe and Mavic Dan led the way, riding fast enough to keep me cackling with laughter the whole way down. Kick-Ass defined. To top it off, after I did a little Gunnison River Whitewater Park shredding Dan had us over for the kind of barbecue you can always smell somewhere in the ‘hood but are rarely walking down to sidewalk to. This time it was indeed our destination. If we could have only known that the chili-peppered chicken scent would give way to S’mores before the night ended before we walked through the door… Thanks, Dan and Kathy.

June 10- Dave Weins is still the MAN. The local trails in Gunnison loop around an area called Hartman’s Rocks. It’s a plateau of Granite. People ride dirt bikes there. And pedal bikes. This makes this place yet another example of how it doesn’t matter how the wheels are propelled, so long as there are two of them the trails will be spot-on. Who better to show us than our favorite Tour Winner Slayer, Dave Weins. I’m pretty sure that in three hours of the man pushing the pace we rode most of the 50 miles of trail at Hartman’s, roosting most of it solidly. Weins was pretty entertained with the riding style I’ve picked up over the years of traveling. Commit to most things that appear to go and use the air as plan B when necessary, which was often on this gloriously entertaining day of riding. I love it when a plan comes together at the last possible second over and over again. Maybe someday I’ll get to race there for a Growler…

June 11- Pit stops and punching the clock. I leaned to kayak in Maine. There was this kid, Dustin Urban, who was a bit of a ninja in his kayak.. We paddled together a fair bit and had a good time before our lives diverged. He went to Princeton and I globetrotted. He also got really good at kayaking, a Bronze Medal from last year’s Freestyle World Cup came as proof. Somehow Dustin ended up in Colorado, working on the South Main community project in Buena Vista. A outdoor-oriented village centered around the Arkansas river. It being on the way to Colorado Springs I swung by to meet his wife Katie and Son Heron, and, obviously, have him teach me a new trick or twelve. We shredded and it was fun. But, duty called and the trek to a “Dealer Ride” and dinner in The Springs continued. Little did I know it would go down as the best Dealer Ride and Dinner in history. Kelli made the call to ride Williams Canyon off Rampart Range Road. This ride wasn’t known when I lived at the OTC many moons ago but has become a stalwart. That’s because it’s friggin’ awesome. Good call on the sloppily wet, rocky, perfect trail dropping through a rad sandstone canyon, Emmett. The fact that Amanda’s Fonda Mexican Restaurant was a mile from the end didn’t hurt…

June 12- Short Track racing is still hard. It’s been since last August that I’ve toed the line for twenty minutes plus three laps. This one was sugar coated with a helping of flowing fun singletrack where one could coast and rest a bit, but that didn’t go very far to making it easy. I tried to make it extra hard midway through with an attempt to bridge up to the lead duo of Jeremy and Todd (noticing a theme?) that didn’t last very long. Carl and I used our usual team non-tactics to finish 4th and 5th. Good exercise at least…

June 13- Somehow the Sand Creek Series folks figured out how to make a time warp XC Course for our race on Saturday. Unfortunately, I was too tired from the week of rad riding to capitalize on the fact that you somehow climbed for about 15 minutes per lap and descended for almost that long. Perfect. If you’re Max Plaxton, who roasted said descent to the win. I, on the other hand, was engaged in a (not very) epic battle with Sam Schultz for the final podium spot on the third lap. Since our battle wasn’t that interesting, we were just riding around together, I decided to start entertaining him with skids in corners and clever rock drop lines. On one of these I burped my tire. Oops. He laughed either way. Then I had to stop for a NASCAR pit change at the hands of Joe Staub which slid me back to seventh spot. Fortunately, I got a glimpse of Carl in his own battle for 8th with a bunch of dudes. They had all been “drinking” for the whole race though, which he’d decided for some strange reason to forgo. 12th was his negative reinforcement for that approach… Good thing for him we only raced four laps, good thing for me too as it meant I got a shower on the way to the airport for the second Time Warp of the day…

Anyway, CO is a nice place for bikes. We’ll be back soon for Nationals in Winter Park mid-July. In better shape hopefully… Carl is counting calories and I’ve just purchased an Altitude Tent system from Altitude Tech, it’s ON!

Here’s some pictures-

At least Joe had to walk across Spring Creek too…


It snowed in Doctor’s Park


We had good Pizza in Crested Butte. I turned into a food coma warrior in the comfy couches…


Shredding at the Buena Vista Whitewater Park on the Arkansas River


Carl and I look like we’re working effectively together in this Short Track shot. We’re not.


Lizzy English fires up “Champagne Boof” during the Homestake Creek Race. Sick.


Oh yeah, cut and paste this link to Teva Mountain Games Film School student Stephanie Pearson’s first-ever video production project which I was somehow chosen as the subject for. She did a good job…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be-sHD-A4pM

Team Giant Report, Bump n Grind from Alabama
Bump n’ Grind
I like going new places. Filling in the gaps on the map so to speak. The Deep South has somehow survived to this date as one of those grey areas. I have to admit that I didn’t know exactly where Birmingham was within Alabama, or, to be honest, exactly where Alabama was in relation to Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas… No disrespect intended, I just haven’t driven through there in my treks across the country. Must have too much northerner in me. Fortunately, we had a fantastic southern couple to show us the ropes once we landed. Regional Giant Rep Will Hibberts and his wife Ashley volunteered to put us up for the weekend. We all jumped at the chance to not stay at a hotel and eat out at chain restaurants but didn’t realize the treatment we were getting ourselves into. They have a beautiful home and Ashley stocked it with enough food to feed, well, a bike team, for the weekend. She also prepared a beautiful pre-race dinner on Saturday night. Mmmm, Ahi. The weather was even beautiful. No rain and not THAT hot.

Will and his riding buddy Jim took us out on a tour of Oak Mountain State Park to shed some light on exactly why every Southern MTB rider calls this their favorite race. The seventeen-mile loop around which most folks do two laps is exactly what a “Mountain Bike” race should be. Racing around something you’d go ride anyway, which is exactly what we did. The boys were nervous about keeping up but they shredded, Jim knew all the secret shortcut lines and would whoop in approval whenever we found one on our own. Our stoke for the big loop was dampened a bit by the fact that, in the name of spectator involvement and UCI regulations, the Pros were slated to do a 5.8 mile loop closer to the start finish. This took in plenty of super fun sidehill singletrack and techy climbs but also took in a fair bit of pavement. I insist that you can race MTBs on any surface, but a mile paved drag to the finish, downhill, is a bit much… All the regulars were bummed to not see what kind of lap times the big guns would post on the Blood Rock loop but we’d try to give them a show anyway…

Turns out Carl and I didn’t provide much of a show until the finish sprints we both contested. He for 13th and I for 7th. We both uncharacteristically won our little battles. I did it with less style over Troy Wells that Carl over his four sprint-ees. While they all braked for the high-speed double left into the home straight Carl kept accelerating and ran it wide onto the perfectly bermed grass, passing everyone at half again their velocity and taking it home with a gap jump over the timing mats. Well played. If either of us had been able to get out of our own way on the paved sections of the course to maintain contact with the (imperative to be in) lead group, we could have used our kick for the win, or at least a respectable position, but we’re MOUNTAIN BIKERS, goddamn it, and we’ll get drop dead (or get dropped) before we’ll try super hard to keep up with a bunch of guys who think racing aggressively on pavement is appropriate. Until the bitter end that is, then we’ll sprint for basically no reason. Kelli is a girl, so she’s way smarter, she rode hard the whole race and got to stand on the “Podium,” as a reward. Lucky.

I like the south, people were FIRED UP on bike racing and Giant bikes, the food was great and we got to go swimming in the reservoir after each day’s riding or racing. Hopefully we come back next year and get a crack at the proper race course, I’ve got an inkling that some locals might have concerningly fast lap times…

Photos-

Sitting on the deck is nice. Even more so when you’re offsetting the nerdiness of discussing your Zoot Recovery Tights by eating barbecued shrimp.


We played Gran Turismo 5 every night for rally practice. We’re not very good…

Ryan and I should have trained on the road together more in Bend this month, then we mightn’t have gotten dropped on this one…

Carl looks fast in the woods, doesn’t he?

Team Giant Rally Car Racing Report, Oregon Trail
Adam Craig and I have never had so many people think that we ROCKED! When we decorated the car with our initials separated by a lightning bolt, we thought we were clever. Then when people saw the AC/CD car at the Oregon Trail Rally last week, maybe they thought we were clever. Or they thought we were with the band, AC/DC. I'll admit, I've been mistaken for a roadie before. But not that kind of roadie…

Oregon Trail, the 4th stop on the Rally America National Championship tour, would be the first race in a long time for Adam 'n' Carl's Giant Team4fun. The trusty Wheels of Teal had been through a transmogrification of sorts. In the last year, she'd changed from a lowly Group 2, two-wheel-drive, 130 horsepower car into an Open class car with 300 horsepower and 4-wheel drive. Over a base coat of sweat and tears, a coat of white paint was applied. And on top of that, some stickers. Now we'd see if she (we?) were ready to race against the quickest cars and drivers on the continent...

Day one started at Portland International Raceway with some short stages on mixed surfaces: tarmac, gravel, grass, and motocross track. After lots of time at registration and many apologies to the staff for us being summarily late and unprepared, and after the vehicle "scrutineering" where they surprised us by saying that our car was "good to go", we returned to our RideLife tent and awaited the start.

PIR is the best rally spectator event around. The four short stages start at 7pm and go into the dark. You can see every car on every stage in 3 hours while eating a hotdog. You can wear your nice shoes straight from work, and you won't rip the oil pan off of your car trying to get to a "spectator area". It's also great fun for the competitors to check out other racer's lines and for the Service Crew to actually see some action, other than battered cars limping back into the service area.

Speaking of service crews, we had the largest and most experienced crew we'd ever had. AC's dad, Harvey, flew out and joined Old Man Decker in the pits, for a combined 100+ years of automotive wrenching and sandwich making experience. PIR was a great place for the Dads to get to watch the WOT and all the other, less white cars compete. And it was fun for Adam and I to check out all the fancy new equipment in the Parc Expose. Lots of New STIs and Evos and people with fancy unstained racing suits with their names embroidered on them. There were even some old Group B cars from the eighties on display for us to ogle. From back when men were men and cars were 2000lbs with 800 horsepower.

The stages went well on friday. We did some nice drifting on the tarmac with gravel tires and ended up 2nd overall in the regional competition. How it works: the regional competition is for racers that don't do the entire national series. Each of the three days of the rally is scored as its own race. The national competition has no daily victor, each day is part of the three day rally. So if you don't finish a day, the regional racer fixes his car and starts again tomorrow. The national racer packs up and goes back home to the money-tree orchard. Did I mention that the entry fee is 1200 US Dollars for the national? 1800 with late fees. 650 for us regional guys. I recently heard that "Rally racing is a disease only cured by poverty".

Day two: Gravel roads in the hills twixt Hood River and Mt Hood. Seven stages on some spectacular roads. Stage 2 was one of the most memorable stages I've ever driven. It started out with 3 miles of very rough roads that had both of us exercising our sphincters as we tried to avoid the larger rocks, which were painted bright orange. Then it opened into beautiful grasslands with smooth, fast corners and exciting 80mph blind crests. We managed an indicated 115mph on one 350m straightaway. I don't think I liked this stage while we were racing it, but in hindsight, it was fun. Kinda like some mountain bike races... As the day wore on, our notes reading/absorbing improved and we began to set some good times. Every stage, the turbo would stop working for 5 to 25 seconds when we least expected it, leaving us missing about 2/3 of our prancing ponies. Annoying at the time, but even that seems like it was fun. Now, a week later, from my couch. Still don't know what was causing that.

On day 3, we went to the driver's meating (meant to misspell that) and learned we were 8th overall among national and regional competitors. We also learned that there were ribs cooking and we could reserve a rack that would be done at noon. AC and I did the right thing and put 20 down on a hot lunch for the Dads. The stages were the same as yesterday, but backwards. Amazing how foreign a road is backwards when you have it memorized the other way. Before the first stage, I asked Adam if he smelled a whiff of gas, as I did. He said no. His first car as a kid was a sandrail, so the gas-smelling part of his nose may be worn out. By the end of the stage, even he could smell gas, as it was filling up the floor under his feet! We were in the eye of a shiticane! I pulled the car off and we hopped out. He grabbed the fire extinguisher as I looked under the car to see fuel pouring off of our hot exhaust. Crap. Rally might be over. I started tearing underbody protection off while Adam took the panels out of the back seat to see if we could find the leak. He turned on the ignition as I had a look. Massive geyser of gas from a split fuel line between the body and the tank. We stole some line from the cooling system up front, borrowed some pliers from our rally pal, Brian as he passed, and had the thing back together in 20 minutes. Showed up 3 minutes late to the next stage, and were penalized 30 seconds, but we were back in the rally, if smelling a little gassy (not in the usual way). We returned to the service area at noon with a long list of things to fix and only 40 minutes to fix them. Just as my dad was arriving with our ribs. I'll never forget working on the Engine Control Tuning and looking up to see Harvey checking the dipstick with one hand, while eating a rib with the other. Turns out those were some top-notch ribs. I think I may have been removing a wheel while eating a rib about 2 minutes later.

By the end of the day, we were 1st overall in the region, both for the day and for the three days combined. Our times put us in 8th overall for the National as well, not quite in Dave Mirra territory (he was 5th), but not too far off. Travis Pastrana destroyed us and everybody else. And he gave a lot of thumbs-up before leaving the awards banquet early to fly off to film season 2, episode 1 of his MTV Nitro Circus show.

As for AC and I, we're back to riding bikes now. Gotta get in shape! The Tour Bus rolls in to Alabama next weekend for the 3rd XCT National Mountain Bike series race. Prepare to be ROCKED, Birmingham!

Happy Trails,

Carl Decker

For a bunch of sweet OR Trail Rally Photos check out this fellow’s blog-

http://mattpoppoff.blogspot.com/2009/05/oregon-trail-rally-2009.html

Team Giant Update, World Cup #3 from Houffalize
It’s all been said about Houffalize, Belgium. Basically it’s everything a Mountain Bike XC race should be. Not a small Ardenne Region to rest on it’s laurels though, Houffa is trying to break into the gravity scene as well. For 2009 they quietly upgraded the Belgian Series FourCross of last year to a full-blown World Cup and added a Belgian Cup Downhill race. I was unaware of the existence of a DH track until I noticed an eight (or so) year-old BOOST it off a step down jump on a rad BMX race bike. I rode up the street to investigate and found what was obviously the finish of a racecourse. Hmmm.

It wasn’t until later that evening, following a delicious Pizza dinner with the other Giant Euro team riders, that I got a bit of beta on the event. Bryn Atkinson and Jill Kitner were out for pies as well and we caught up for a few. Turns out the boy had raced the DH that day and won 3000 Euros. He kept specifying EUROS as the units of local currency, suggesting that one could buy a Tank in his native Oz with that kind of coin. Cash aside though, I asked, seriously, how was the track? Evidently Bryn had been doing practice runs with Filip Polc who was caught with his DH pants down and only had his Hardtail 4X bike. He was keeping up, even riding sections faster that Bryn on a proper DH sled. Always one to be positive, even he said that it was a bit weak, and at just over two minutes, a bit short. But hey, it is a “Bicycle Race” after all. There were rumors flying around on the weekend of a Houffalize World Champs bid for 2011, I guess the DH will need a bit of work, or relocation… Jill handily won the “slightly undersized” four-up race in a solid field while Jared Graves cleaned up the 200 or so men in attendance. Maybe he and Bryn can go in on a tank with all those “Euros”…

I could have sworn on the start climb up the Rue de something-or-other that there should be plenty of elevation for a proper DH course. There was plenty of elevation for a bunch of cracked out Benelux riders to go smoking by my “realistic about racing for two hours on a tough track” ass… I reckon I crested in about 60th. Giving me a great view of a bunch of said locals doing their best to ride like spazzes and lie on the floor as soon as possible. Fortunately, Oli was holding things down up front, he crossed the start finish line in 7th on lap one. About two minutes ahead of me and my new best friends. I settled into the task of having pretty average legs and focused on steadily riding through traffic while having a good time hitting some jumps and being amazed at how much easier the Anthem X is to ride fast that the Hardtail I normally campaign in this little town. I eventually caught up with our young Norwegian teammate Anders who was riding solidly in the 30’s. We spent most of our day there while Oli battled up front, holding down the fort so to speak. Eventually I came around and picked my way up to 29th on the last lap, having the last laugh, so to speak, on some random dudes, and some guys who I really don’t like getting beat by… One of those guys wasn’t Oli, who I passed at approximately double his rate of travel with about ten minutes of racing to go. I ended up completing this part of the race about three minutes faster than ol’ Beckinsale, who was overteaken by a further 30 riders in that amount of time. Goes to show the depth of the field… So basically, Oli and I reckoned that we each had a good solid tour of the field and got to see a bunch of riders. He could expound upon how pretty much everyone from 14th through 65th rode the last lap and I could explain how 30-odd guys could pass someone on one climb only to eventually be caught and disposed of by said person with a bit more, um, reality… I finished where I started after two hours in 29th, and Oli, well, he wasn’t so fortunate…

Thus ends the spring World Cup swing for me, I’m on a plane back to America now, wishing it was a clear day so I could look for polar bears in Greenland, or maybe see some swollen brown rivers as a sure sign of polar ice cap melting. Guess I’ll just go to sleep instead. I’m looking forward to three weeks at home which I’ll put to good use somehow I’m sure. First up is a trip to Cali for come creekboating, then we’re racing Rally Cars at the Oregon Trail Rally on the 15th-17th of May. In between all that I’m going to ride my bike a bunch and get in proper shape for the best World Cup races of all, that being the ones on the Right Coast. (Maybe I’ll work on my starts…) Till then, enjoy the spring, or is it summer now?

Cheers,

AC

They like their bike racing in Houffalize. Everyone comes out.. Even the Brits…

And I like the commute to the race every morning, coasting into town checking the flow

Carl's been practicing... Check out some Rally Action at-

http://www.vimeo.com/4158230

Team Giant Report, World Cup #2 from Germany

Offenburg 2009

Felice and I made it out of Africa on Election Day, which was something that the locals had given us mild concern about the prospect of. The African National Congress party’s man, Jacob Zuma, was determined the clear victor just as we were crossing the northern border at 39,000 feet. He’s got a bit of a task ahead of him, maybe even more so than the average national leader these days…

It was nice to land in Frankfurt the next morning and be in familiar territory again, I knew where the rental car shuttle was taking us and exactly where our lodging, the legendary Frienwonhung Worner was located. The Frau, Rita, met us at the door and handed over the keys with only a “Voo ist Elke?” (where is Elke) offered as idle conversation, she knew we had a handle on things.. (Elke is in Durango, just finishing up some classes and getting ready for a pleasant summer away from the bike circuit) Warm sunshine was forecast for the week and we settled into good living with a trip to the Grocery store for all kinds of fresh good stuff to cook up and snack on. Cleverly avoiding getting sucked into the wafer aisle…

Joe arrived with a shiny new bike frame to build up for me to race in the name of testing and progress. We’ll just say it’s a really sweet new bike with shocks for the time being. It’s shiny and has a few hardware advancements that make me really happy when I ride it in the woods.

This happiness must have spilled over into Sunday’s race because things worked out really really well. The kind of good that Josh Edgar had to casually remind me would take care of itself as we skied the winter away… He was firmly in support of not really properly training much, reminding me of the year we attended The University of Maine and rode roughly none, kayaked roughly a ton and I had the season that prompted Giant to hire me. He assures me this kind of thing is going to happen this year too. Except I’m really happy with Giant after this new bike delivery…

It all seems to be on track. I stared with numberboard 49 and ended the first lap somewhere in that region, as it’s pretty challenging to pass tons of guys early on while they’re busy riding like dicks and crashing. I did note good sensations in my legs from the gun though, and was able to investigate these prospects on lap two as I settled into riding fast through traffic and having a generally good time. I caught up with Beckinsale and Sam Schultz at some point and asked them how things were going. Oli was pissed that he didn’t think to respond: “Put a Donk on it” in a nod to our morning www.vbs.tv viewing… This trend of riding forward continued, during which I noticed that the lead group was closer and closer on sections of the course that doubled back. Hmmm. Kind of like last year. Except last year I was a bit fitter and a bit closer, thus able to make contact. My rise through the field eased as I caught Ralph Naef and Wolfram Kurstacht (who would charge on to 5th and 2nd) in around 11th place. Wolfram was slowing us up on the descents a bit and affecting my jump trajectory so I figured I’d ease off and have a better time. And get re-passed by Kabush and Jaroslav. Sam eventually caught up again too, which was pretty awesome to see. He and I were battling for 41st position here two years ago. He got the upper hand and had his best World Cup result to date. As we came into “The Snake Pit” together once again with a lap to go I told him it was just like old times… Then I kind of put the wood to the youngster, gotta keep ‘em honest… Aussie Chris Jongeward did me in the last kilometer for 13th as a dose of my own medicine… Sam ended up 16th, a career best again and a damn fine ride from the next youngster to come out of the US Olympic Center Residency program that ushered me along. High Five. Some guy named Julien Absalon won for the third year in a row, I guess he lives nearby…

Unfortunately, the UCI doesn’t seem to have Josh’s faith in my casual winter training program, they’ve clearly been visiting my website and figure there’s no way I could possibly be riding decent having recreated a ton and completed only one twenty hour week of training and one interval session thus far this season. So I’ve been the “Random” doping control at the last two races. Really? Maybe it’s a compliment, they know I’ve got better things to do than cheat so are testing me to keep the prospect catching an actual cheater unlikely… Either way, it sucks having to try and produce a “sample” after racing, sweating and thoroughly dehydrating your body for a few hours. All joking aside, I’m glad they’re testing three riders from each World Cup as a solid deterrent for those who are looking to take the easy way out. One of these days they’ve gotta buck up and let us publicly stone anyone who gets caught. Or maybe have a skidding contest on their face. This new bike does sweet skids…

Photo Commentary-

Felice took a photo of me practicing my tuck exiting the Snake Pit on Saturday.

I tried to use this technique to overtake Jaroslav Kulhavy on race day, not much luck with the tuck…

If you zoom in on my face you can see exactly how I feel about having to cool down on the trainer for 10min before heading to doping control. Not impressed…

Team Giant Local Racing Update- South African Style...
          
Since I’m hiding out in South Africa while everyone else is at Sea Otter I figured I should do some racing too, preferably in wide-open terrain to mimic the Otter experience I’m missing out on…  Fortunately, there was a Kawazulu-Natal Series race at Cumberland Nature Reserve just outside Pietermaritzburg.  The local guys I’d been riding with tipped me off to it, nice of them since Felice reckoned I’d win on the drive over at dawn on Sunday.  I’m going to need to brief her on the Team Giant shit-talking and prediction policy… 
 
As we rolled down a dusty dirt road that’s a sure indicator of quality local racing it became apparent that a whole bunch of folks were headed out to race.  We filed down to a little valley, parking under the canopy of some pretty cool trees.  I need to figure out what those things are called, you know, the ones with a canopy fanning out parallel with the ground and only a couple meters thick?  They look like umbrellas and do an even better job of blocking the inevitable sun.  The valley was already packed with bike riders.  Five-year-old kids and retirees marked the ends of a spectrum of cyclists that included everyone imaginable.  All were pumping up tires, drinking coffee, exchanging stories and generally having a good time as the sun rose and race time drew near.  I didn’t really have a good grasp of how many riders there really were until we all toed line at 9am sharp.  A major dirt road was packed with riders for about 500 meters.  That’s a lotta people.  The “Classic” distance wave took off first, a few hundred people out for one big 45k loop around a Cane Plantation, through pine forests and back to the nature reserve.  A couple minutes after we casually rolled off the line the 25k and 10k groups, accounting for another couple hundred newbies and casual riders, made their way out to cut us off at the pass.  Dang, people in KZN are into their MTB racing.  I was chatting with a local guy on the roll-out and he said things have been blowing up in the last few years as people get into MTBing for a bit of fun and to stay off the busy roads.  Good to see.
 
As I was feeling all warm and fuzzy inside on the state of SA mountain biking I heard the telltale sound of a tire going flat.  That sucks for someone I thought.  Oh wait, that sounds like my tire.  I must have run over the perfect little rock at the perfect angle and perfect amount of weight on the otherwise graded and watered gravel road we were riding down.  Shoot.  I stopped at the first turnoff and shook the Stan’s miracle liquid around to seal the hole, then borrowed a floor pump from some guys who were late and just on the way to the start when they saw us coming.  Problem solved.  For a few minutes.  Then more leaking and more shaking around and pinching.  More leaking.  Finally, the perfect combo of shaking, opening and closing the hole and a blade of grass sealed the leak for good and I could set out riding through the Cane with a couple hundred of my closest bike racing kin.  Ah, playing catch-up is fun.  I almost caught them all, just Craig Paul (my local trail tour guide) stayed ahead, hidden amongst the traffic of the 10 and 25k racers as we rolled through the plantation to the finish…  There were SO MANY people on the track, it was great to see ten-year-olds riding their BMX bikes down a pretty fast sandy track, bouncing around and not at all worried about it.  They looked like Carl must have in his first race at about the same age.  Others were walking their significant other’s bikes for them and not speaking.  The full gamut of cyclists, all making the final push to the fruit stand and shade of the finish. 
 
I didn’t linger long at the finish though, another local fast guy, Andrew, and I had roosted a super fun singletrack winding through a creek bottom together during the race and figured we’d better go ride it again before the prize-giving proceedings took place.  It was the call of the day, I’m continually amazed at how much lovingly constructed and maintained singletrack is in the hills around here.  I’m starting to figure out how all the South Africans I know are such good bike handlers, they’ve got good stuff to practice on, the better you can drift the more fun you can have around here. 
 
It seemed like everyone who raced lounged around in the shade as the stragglers filtered in and results were tallied.  Eating pork products from the lunch truck, catching up with their mates and telling war stories from the day..  Local bike racing is a great thing.  We eventually got our prize money and rode back up the singletrack and down the Tar Road to Maritzburg, finishing off a perfect morning of bike practice.  Felice had the vision to start our Refrigerator emptying task by using the extra milk to made Crepes for lunch.  What a great idea.  We had all kinds of filling experiments from the usual peanut butter and jelly to baked beans, cheese, salt and pepper or yoghurt, mixed nuts, jam and chocolate.  Oh man, that was a good lunch.  I think she’s going to open a Crepe Stand in Bend.  Not sure if 1140 NW Portland is zoned for business but I sure hope so…
 
Other than mint local racing, I’ve just been taking it easy and riding a ton down here, catching my fitness up with the rest of the World Cuppers and my cinema and literature appreciation with that of an average human.  It’s been swell. 
 
Here are some make-up photos-
 
Giro Painted me some sweet new Captain America lids.  This particular Zebra isn’t impressed…

 
Felice and I went waterfall hunting, we found one…

 
Martin was impressed with the Guy Weedwacking and racking the trail at Giba Gorge.

 
Oli had quite a nice recovery ride on Sunday before flying back to the UK, scenic waterfalls and Zebras.


 
-Oh, there’s more Gold on the cyclingdirt.org website, check out Carl and Kelli’s Pre-Sea Otter commentary.  They rode fast there, good work holdin’ down the fort, kids. 

http://www.cyclingdirt.org/videos/coverage/view_video/234912-us-pro-xct-2-sea-otter-classic/171497-carl-decker-kelli-emmett-pre-sea-otter-xc 

Ten Reasons Why South Africa Kicks Ass
Our esteemed Giant Global teammate Oli Beckinsale and I agreed, over the course of an entertaining afternoon of riding around Pietermaritzburg, that this report would fall under the “Ten Reasons Why SA Kicks Ass” format since so many of the reasons were filled out in just that afternoon…

1. Zebras. Yup, we’ve been riding around in a little park down the road that happens to have a few black and white striped horses hanging out. They’re pretty cool, Mohawks and all. Seem friendly too, or maybe have just given up their inherent wildness on account of living in a park on the edge of town. Africa is cool.

2. Concrete Paved Singletrack. The aforementioned park also has a 2.5k loop trail that’s 100% covered in concrete pavers. Good grip when it’s not raining and fun obstacles engineered for walking. Unfortunately the warm-up with the Kona Boys involved a bit of moisture and no Zebra sightings, maybe that’s why we all got so smoked off the line…

3. It’s summer here! Ah, nothing like a fifteen hour flight across an ocean and the equator to change your weather… It’s between 20 and 35 degrees Celsius everyday here, raining a bit at night to keep things green and fresh during the day. I’ve been loving the long winter in the Great White North but it’s kind of nice to just put on a jersey and shorts to ride all day in the sun. Maybe a little SPF till the tan comes around but other than that it takes about four minutes to get ready to ride, leaving much more time for sleeping…

4. Monkeys. They’re all over the place. In the backyard here at our Duvet and Crumpets apartments, behind the Team Giant pit area at the race, along the roads and trails we’ve been exploring. Evidently the locals are kind of over the monkeys stealing stuff and making noise but I’m still thoroughly amused.

5. Robots. No, not human-like machines cleaning your windshield. Traffic Lights. I’ve gotten a bunch of directions since I’ve been here, all of which involve driving on the left side of the road and passing at least two “Robots”. “You head down to the Robots and turn right on Victoria, then up two Robots and left on Boon” or whatever. It’s settled, I’m going to make up some random names for stuff here and see if anyone notices. Maybe wireless internet can be “Magic” since it seems to be impossible to find…

6. Cheap meat. A nice ten-minute walk up around the corner from D n C brings us to the local dining strip consisting of a pub and two restaurants. The first one is called Pesto and is your standard good Italian. More important is the other though, The Butchery. Yup, they make meat. We went the last three nights in a row. We each had a nine-dollar Filet (pronounced Fill-it) Mignon the first two nights and agreed it was the best steak ever. Last night we figured branching out was in order so we got a full rack of ribs for a starter instead of the usual carpaccio. This left us free to have fish for a main and seriously consider carpaccio for dessert. Mmmm.

7. Fresh World Cup racing. Right, we’re here to race bikes. It’s always kind of the UCI to throw us somewhere exotic in the southern hemisphere for the kickoff. Everyone is pumped to be somewhere new and warm on account of competiton. Unfortunately, I guess a bunch of guys came down here early to get in shape and used to riding in a sauna. Which means that even before my bike rattled itself to a pretty strange, yet serious, mechanical mishap on lap two I was already getting kind of smoked. That just took me from the 30’s to the 100’s… Ah well, nothing like playing catch up to snap you out of your heat induced haze of slowness and allow some actual decent bike riding. I passed tons of dudes on the way to 49th. Kind of a waste of a perfectly good #6 start position, that, but hey, maybe I’ll constructively play catch up in Offenburg and Houffalize too. So much pressure starting on the front row after a long winter… Now I’m just another guy. Oli did good work keepin’ er steady though, starting 27th and moving up to 22nd by day’s end. He got a sunburn too. The thousands of FIRED UP spectators could have told him that though, they see pale British guys down here on vacation all the time… Next year we’re gonna try to come down early and do the Cape Epic in preparation, mostly so Oli can get a tan.

8. Culture. It’s real interesting down here in South Africa. Watching the news has been a good education to the kind of stuff that goes on in the rest of the world. Mucking about outside has reinforced the fact that we’re in a different world here, in a good way. People seem super nice for the most part but there is definitely evidence of the way things used to be…

9. Relaxing. All this culture and introspection hasn’t gotten in the way of some much needed recreation quarantine though. It’s nice to be back in the swing of bike season, travel somewhere cool, relax and ride some bikes. I’m looking forward to the next week down here of exploring some new terrain, sleeping a ton and catching up with the fitness required to be competitive in the World Cup. The long winter has me ready to go, once I actually am ready…

10. Good proper mountain bike riding. A strange number rang into my mobile phone yesterday evening, I answered, hoping it was important on account of the cost it would inevitably come with… Turns out it was Martin Franger of the Giant Swiss Team who was staying in Durban to train for a few days. We agreed to meet at the Gabo Gorge trail center and ride for as long as we could. Turns out we rode for a goodly while on rad singletrack in the sunshine. A few stops to hunt for monkeys were in order, as was a pause to high-five the guys who were grooming the trails we were riding. Weedwacking back the ever-advancing foliage and raking the berms and switchbacks. Thanks, guys, well worth the twenty Rand (about two bucks) it costs to ride for a day. It’s pretty amazing to see such a well developed riding culture down here, you read about it every few days in the newspaper too… Guess I’ll try out a little local racing this weekend in Kawazulu-Natal and get a bit deeper into the scene. Someone will say “GO!” at least…

I've got a bunch of relevant photos but the innerweb here sucks so it can't handle the awesomeness I'm trying to attach, sorry...

Team Giant Update- Fontana and 'o10 Fox Camp
This will be a good story for those who don’t think being a Professional Cyclist is full-time job. Not to be confused with a full-time job that isn’t sweet, of course… In my old age I’m trying to broaden my value in my chosen field while also keeping myself entertained by doing new things and meeting new people. This balance of racing and new stuff was achieved perfectly over the last week in California. First up was some good old-fashioned bike racing, albeit with a face-lift, at the first stop of the new US Pro Cross Country Tour in Fontana. From there Carl and I headed up the coast to the Santa Ynez Valley for Fox Racing Shox’ ‘o10 Product Launch at the Zaca Station MX Track. Kick ass.

Racing was fun last weekend. I was a bit concerned over my indifference to it in Chile but things came together. Maybe it was the familiar faces (like Northwesterners Spencer Paxson and Eric Tonkin) and location (Southridge Urban Park) or just the fact that the cobwebs were out and the mind was reset, either way, good times were had. Even if they involved Carl smoking me in the Super D finish sprint just like Barry did last year… Fortunately, Kelli didn’t have to sprint anyone so Giant was victorious in both Super D events, which you can gauge the level of D involved by their winning bike choice- the XTC Advanced Hardtail… Maybe we should go to Europe and race some proper Enduro DH sometime, where you would actually DIE if you rode a HT, as opposed to winning… It was still a good way to pass an otherwise quiet Saturday afternoon though, and there’s something about a person, any person, saying “GO!” that makes you get some pretty good exercise until you cross a finish line of some type. I might have to get my roommates to start saying GO when I leave on a snowy training ride and scratch out some kind of finish line in my rocky front yard to end at, I’d totally be in shape in no time…

Right, on to proper XC racing. Holy crap, there were 120 Pro Men on the start line in Fontana. Combined with a generally large crowd of amateur racers and curious passers-by it was looking to be a solid afternoon of racing. It’s a good thing that some of the backside trails we’ve always used and hacked into even more oblivion were shut down over the winter and the resulting revamped course was super friendly to the casual onlooker. Straight up a bit of a gut-busting climb, down a cool techy descent which included a “Pro Section” at the bottom for us to strut our, um, stuff? Then up to the water tower and back around the block via the Super D course, we were lapping in twenty-odd minutes and having a generally good time along the way. Team Sho-Air manager Ty Kady was following us on a Kawasaki Dirt Bike with a Helmet cam and doing a seemingly good job of capturing the action first-hand. I was actually able to see some action first hand for most of the race as somehow an extra week of training had me racing in the mix. I rode around in the top five after the first lap, having a genuinely good time roosting the Anthem X on the descents and trying to ride smooth and fast on the techy climbs. It was almost like being on a fun MTB ride that happened to be a race. Perfect. Highlights included hitting some sweet jumps while Ty followed on the moto without crashing in the kind of karmic slap you could expect while showboating and getting solidly punked by the Subaru/Fisher duo of JHK and Sam Schultz on the penultimate climb battle for third place. 5th for me, some Canadian guy won… Carl was 12th I think, he must have been too in shape from all the “training” he’s been doing in San Diego to pull off his usual accidental 6th at the first one of the year…

We stopped at the Giant Intergalactic HQ in Thousand Oaks on our way to Fox Camp to catch up with all the folks we didn’t see at Woodward. Which was the entire product department. They’d been in Taiwan for a couple weeks putting the finishing touches on the 2010 Giant line. I’m not really at liberty to say, but we’re going to have some cool stuff, from subtle refinements to complete overhauls and a few things that have been a long time coming. Keep your eyes peeled this summer…

Fox Racing Shocks makes cool stuff. For lots of fun activities involving wheels. From Desert Racing Trucks to Quads and Dirt bikes, even Snowmobiles and Jet-Skis, Fox has you covered. For the first time ever, they held the 2010 product launch for all of their lines (except snowmobiles) in one spot. This gave the media an opportunity to see the kind of cross-pollination that makes their designs so unique and effective by actually experiencing each of the segments back-to-back. Translation- I got to shred on a bunch of rad motorized stuff in between going for some entertaining bike rides in the hills. The first night we all had dinner with some informal presentation of products and Fox’s approach which culminated in founder Bob Fox taking us through the early history of the company he founded with Poker money to produce Motorcycle Air Shox in 1975. Some good anecdotes about racing (and winning) the Indy 500 and entering the Snowmobile market gave us some entertaining insight to where the current company got it’s start. Nice guy, that Bob Fox. The next day everyone had an opportunity to learn about the suspension product in their area of expertise and then play with whatever other toys they needed to glean product parallels from… In our Bike world we sent editors out on 2009 product for a spin around a fun loop including an old DH race course and some flowy meadow singletrack for session #1, then switched to the ‘o10 product during lunch for the same ride in the afternoon. This let them feel the difference first hand between the current product and new Boost Valve rear shock and FIT damper fork technology, which I’ve been riding very happily since last fall. It’s good stuff, making flipping lockout knobs and switches even less necessary is a huge step in the right direction.

But really, who wants to talk about bike suspension when there are a multitude of options for motorized fun. Lunch time was long enough for quick spins in the Ford Raptor pickup or Side-by-Side ATVs, and after the second ride session it was a free-for-all with Motos and Quads ripping around piloted by your average bike rider. Perfect. And nobody died.

Wednesday was the highlight day for us Fox Team members as there were no media folks to muddle our motorized experience. Fitzy and I did community service first thing in the morning on quads, mud bogging our way around the heavily watered Motocross track to work the moisture into the dirt. Once it was passable, Neezer set me up on a brand new Kawasaki KX450 MX bike to reap the fruits of our quad labor, and, er, learn about the parallels between Moto and Bike rear suspension… I spent the next couple hours riding the beautiful hillside track, remembering all those childhood MX techniques with a dozen others who were kind enough not to land on my head. I got the hang of it eventually, at which point it seemed prudent to stop before I started trying to figure out just how close to the top of fourth gear you needed to be to jump the 90’ step-up on the hilltop… Holy Crap riding motocross is fun. And HARD. Carl and I left the track with adrenaline in the red and did a sweet road ride up Figuroa Mountain to cap off the day. That was yesterday. Today I’m the sorest I’ve ever been in my entire life. I guess I should start riding MX all the time, who needs to go to the gym when you can just fluidly control a 240 pound, 60 horsepower bike for a couple hours and get the same thing, plus have one of the best times ever.

Anyway, looks like preparation for World Cup #1 is almost complete, I head to South Africa on Monday to find out how alternative winter stacks up in the grand scheme of things.

AC

Oh yeah, check out this sweet new website for all kinds of race footage and rider interviews from Fontana, and pretty much every race this season. Great job, Colt.

www.cyclingdirt.org

Photo Commentary-

Monkey dropped by to slide us some Troy Lee/Honda Supermoto Team practice tires and show off his sweet new trailer ball…

I must have ridden fast to get away from this snake.


No wonder the Gary Fisher team tactics won out on the last lap, I should have been screwing around less and pedaling more…

Jumping motorbikes is fun.

Team Giant Update, Weekend in Chile
Chilean Weekend

It’s quite often that the race season starts off in South America for the US National Team. This makes sense, I suppose, it being the end of summer down there and a perfectly logical time for most of the Pan American Nations to contest the Continental Championships. Us North Americans are usually a bit soft but it’s good racing to kick off the season nonetheless. I was curious to see just how un-bike-fit I was after a long off- season and winter full of skiing. I figured having not completed a twenty-hour training week yet would mean I was at least fresh…

Turns out you have to possess at least a basic level of cycling fitness to take advantage of freshness. I figured I could get in shape in the two days before the race though, the sun was shining and the ski areas we were staying at the base of hadn’t seen snow in months so there were no distractions. Day one involved the obvious climb to the ski fields where the Downhill Championships were taking place on a Friday afternoon. Sam Schultz and I did a bit of spectating, although we were ill equipped compared to many of the (plentiful) local fans. The trackside barbecue is a step up for sure… Chris Van Dine ended up winning the Men’s DH while east coast old-schooler Lars Tribus snagged silver in the Masters and Rachel (we’re not on full name terms yet) slid into the Bronze in the ladies race. More importantly, the DH’ers pointed me down the “La Parva” trail, which starts at 9000 feet and classic ridgeline singletracks it’s was to the valley floor. I was good though and only rode halfway down, thus only having to climb halfway back up, gotta stay fresh, you know…

Saturday we did some knobby tired tarmac drifting down to about 4000 feet where the Cross Country events were happening to check out the track. I’ve gotta say, I’m impressed with the progression of South American MTB racing. I once again brought the Hardtail, thinking it’d be a steep fireroad climbing contest like the days of yore, but for the second time in a row, was wishing I had the Anthem X to roost some challenging, interesting, proper Mountain Biking. Our track consisted of tons of slippery hardpack off camber stuff and the obligatory barely rideable descent separating nicely graded thought-provoking climbing in and out of a river valley, which was actually crossed a couple times via very, we’ll say “period” bridges… Very nice. If a bit hot and dusty… We rode around a few times, chatted with some very excited Chileans about the upcoming race and set off climbing home. Fortunately, the van picked us up at about Curva #15 (out of 40) so we didn’t get TOO in shape for the race and had plenty of energy to watch another amazing sunset over the city of Santiago before eating another delicious home cooked meal at the Posada de Farellones.

Race Day rolled around with me feeling a bit lacksidiasical. I just wasn’t super fired up to go out and give ‘er. I guess the long relaxing winter dulled my edge a bit. My solution: Crash fairly hard and completely for no reason about four minutes before the start to get FIRED UP! I had installed some sweet 2.15” Michelins and aired down to 24 and 25psi in an attempt to smooth out the bumpy track and transform my Hardtail into the Trance X I’d been riding all winter. This backfired on exactly the first slippery off-camber turn I drifted whilst warming up. Straight to the deck, just like Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski on the same exact turn a day earlier… Nothing like being called up to the start line first (on account of having the best UCI ranking in the field) completely covered in dust and bleeding solidly from your knee. Class. My attempt to get fired up didn’t really work either, I was kind of laughing to myself as someone in the crowd blew a decoy whistle and everyone charged off the line while I was still looking at the “Offical” whistle blower, who just shrugged and blew his too. No matter though, I settled into the teens somewhere and set about the entertaining task of riding with guys who go uphill like mountain goats on crack and downhill like your average tenspeed-riding bum on crack. Eventually things sorted out and I was able to start riding alone, giving me time to swap to non-dust-covered Giro Rivets and actually stop to lube my chain mid-race so as to not listen to an incessant dust induced creaking for another second. I did, of course, absolutely slay it in the field section every lap. There were hundreds of race-goers hanging out and going crazy for each and every rider on the multible climbs and descents in this particular pasture. If they’d only been lining the entire course I could have been bothered to give ‘er on some other sections as well. Last lap I started seeing dust so I grabbed a coke and reeled in a Costa Rican who responded with “no mas” to my “Venga con mi, amigo” encouragement. I could see Canadian Max Plaxton up there and figured we could hit some sweet jumps, but he must have seen me and started actually pedaling as well… Oh well, I ended up twelfth I think. Sam Schultz put his winter of “Training” in Arizona to good use with a second-place finish, it’s good to see the young talent starting to come into his own. Must have been those 29” wheels…

We didn’t really get results though, there was no time was we finished racing seven laps at about 4:30 and had a 9:10 flight home to catch from Santiago. Willow and I packed our bikes quick and hitched a ride down to the river to have a bit of a bath and dry off in the late day sun. Everyone was packed and we were rolling by six, making it to the airport just after seven. Nice work team. It seemed a bit ambitious but now, writing this on my flight from Dallas to Portland and thinking about how nice it’ll be to take a nap and go for an afternoon singlespeed ride 24 hours after I finished racing in South America and it seems totally worth it. After all, I can’t be wasting days, I gots to get in shape!

Thanks for reading, hopefully next weekend’s US Pro XC Tour opener in Fontana goes a bit smoother… The forecast is for snow this week though…

Team Giant Report, BC Ski Trip straight to Team Camp

Selkiks to Tehachapi

This winter had already been a refreshing exchange of bike time for other types of play-time. I figured before proper bike season reconvened I’d squeeze in one more trip in the play-time category. The opportunity for this presented itself a few months ago in the unlikely form of an old New England kayaking buddy. Greg Hanlon literally wrote the book on Steep Creeking (Wicked Brookin’?) in New England, we’ve paddled and mountain biked together on plenty of occasions as I criss-crossed the northeast in my formative years. Never skied in each other’s presence though. With this information in mind I naturally jumped at the chance to join him and his wife Sue, along with seven of their friends, on a week-long ski trip to the Mount Carlyle Lodge in the Selkirk Mountains of British Columbia. It was a good call, obviously, despite an uncharacteristically thin and volatile snowpack in the interior Canadian Rockies.

The time leading up to our meeting date in Spokane flew by and I found myself scrambling to make it to Hood River to pick up some essential supplies at Dakine and go for one last essential MTB ride at the Syncline before dark. The next morning I rocked up at the airport to a motley and highly excitable crew of prospective shredders. Tom, Mike, Jim, Ellen, Jake, Tom, Greg, Sue and Thomas were all there with all their gear and a visible stoke to get to the hills. We completed the obligatory last Mexican Lunch somewhere in the northern sprawl of Spokane and hightailed it for BC. A few hours later we were strolling down the hill from the Alpine Motel in Nelson, looking for some local culture and maybe the pub. Skies were clear and it clearly hadn’t snowed in a long time. No bother though, other than Mike’s stand against ever “skiing tracks” everyone seemed happy to be out in the mountains and we all enjoyed a good dinner after a huge grocery shopping session.

The Helicopter flight into the Carlyle Lodge wasn’t until Sunday morning so we had to figure out something to do on Saturday. How about go skiing? Fortunately, Whitewater ski area is just up the street and has great backcountry available from it’s parking lot. We linked together a great tour with surprisingly good snow and bright sunshine. The day finished with the two aggressively type A personality’s of the group, myself and Thomas (the swiss guy) finishing with a classic coulouir off the summit of Mount Werner.

Next morning we were at the “Helipad” (really just a field at the end of the Kaslo “Airport” eagerly preparing our gear and awaiting the distinctive thump thump of the heli approaching. By the time it did approach, Greg, who would be our hutkeeper for the week, had helped us divide up all of our supplies and we were ready to start the flights in. A sling load went first, which contained all of our food and a bunch of propane to keep us warm and dry for the next week. Perfect.

Our home away from home for the next week ended up being pretty, well, plush. Nestled between Mount Carlyle, Prospector and Misty Peaks at 7200”, which is just about treeline was our Lodge. It was about the size of my house, sleeping comforts for ten, propane stoves for heat and cooking, running water fresh from the snowpack up the hill, a sauna down the hill, a teched out outhouse and even a Pee Stake. We unloaded our food, high fived and set about doing some Avalanche Beacon drills to sharpen up the group skill set. After a bunch of that and some business stuff with Hut Boy it was off for a ski.

Thomas, Tom, Mike and I set out for high ground to get our bearings before an impending storm closed in for a few days. We found them on the summit of Mount Carlyle proper after a good scramble up a rockfield. Not a bad place we’d chosen to spend a week, 8000’ish peaks all around and with skiable lines in all directions. We picked on that was marginal off the summit to satisfy our exposed steep hardpack needs for the next few days of pow shredding. Back to the cabin and time for dinner. This was shaping up to be a good week.

Monday morning we woke to 6” of fresh snow and decently clear skies. Another day to tour around and figure out just how awesome it was in our ‘hood. Turns out really awesome, dropping down to the Mount Heyland Basin we found and climbed a classic 1500’ couloir, getting shut down by steepness and rotten snow just shy of the summit. No matter, a bunch of steep turns in a 15 foot wide granite walled chute returned us to the valley floor. While chatting with Greg in the Sauna later that night we learned that particular line hadn’t been skied according to anyone’s memory. Tom, Thomas and I figured we’d call it “Daigle and Day-Glo” in a nod to Tom’s last name and my obnoxious green pants. Swiss guy didn’t do any of the bootpacking (although he did break the majority of trail all week) in the line so no naming rights for him… Pretty sweet day out.

Then it snowed. Lots. We skied a couple feet of Pow in the trees for the next few days, having a pillow hopping good time in the process. Then it got clear. This drew us back up into the high alpine, although cautiously. There were a few weak layers in the snowpack with lots of fresh on top of them. Natural avalanches were everywhere and we had a few skier triggers but overall were able to ski a bunch of rad stuff with real nice views for the last two days of the trip. Fun.

And before we knew it we’d eaten most of a week’s worth of food for a small army, played lots of Cribbage, ran out of booze and skied from breakfast to dinner for seven days. The Heli flew into a storm on Sunday and plucked everyone from the lodge (Except knee injury victim Jake and I, who skied/snowmobiled out to ensure our exit regardless of grounded choppers) and dropped us back in reality, a week on and no idea whatsoever what had happened in the world recently. It was a time warp that I hope to experience annually.

The reason I had to make it out of the Selkirks on a schedule had nothing to do with not wanting to spend the rest of my life holed up there but more the fact that Team Giant Camp started on the Tuesday in SoCal. Talk about paradigm shift…

The location for Team Camp was new this year. Instead of the usual program involving a few days in the Giant US Offices neighborhood of Thousand Oaks, CA we retired north to the Tehachapi Mountains separating the San Joaquin Valley from the Mojave Desert. This off the beaten track corner of Cali is home to Woodward West. It’s an action sports summer camp featuring all kinds of skateparks, gymnastics, freeride and DH mountain bike trails and a bunch of other ways to have fun and excite yourself. We’d be here for a solid week training, taking photos and video, hanging out with some media folks and getting used to our sweet new bikes. Not a bad plan, if a bit different from the previous week in BC… The days flew by here in a similar fashion though. We did it all. Skatepark and Foampit sessions at night, photos, bike setup, rides, massage, meetings, eating during the day. Carl and I worked on our 360’s into the foam pit, pretty much getting them dialed… I got to ride a proper X Games Vert ramp a bit. Scary and rad. The freeride, DH and Slalom tracks out the front door provided entertainment for any spare moments, complemented by our Canadian Freerider buddy Kurt Sorge who showed us what was up… He never came on “must find singletrack at all costs” ride missions with us so we could return the favor though. Come on, Sorge… Some of those missions proved fruitful. Ones like exploring the Keysville trails north of the area we can talk about and ones that involved finding sweetness close to home we’ll keep a bit quieter… You CAN find good trail pretty much anywhere, just for the record. There was even a classic rally car practice area close by that we made good use of. Maybe a bit too good a use of, I’m pretty sure the Wheels of Teal will be back in action soon though… Oops.

After an action packed week, everyone left camp with a smile and a bunch of new stuff to get us through another successfully entertaining season of racing and riding bikes. Hats off to that.

Thanks to everyone who makes it happen. I guess it’s racing season again!

Fall and Winter 08/09 What-Not
I’m going to try to stick to the X Reasons format for this extremely long-range update on the life and times of this glorious extended “Off Season”. There might end up being thirteen reasons or there might be four. We’ll see what my memory sees as noteworthy. It’s been a good time, to say the least, thanks to California on a lot of accounts. I’m sorry to admit it, but Golden State dishes it up…

#1. Pretend Dual Slalom and Freeride Career practice. As an example of my tardiness on this newsbyte, you can actually read the article in the current issue BIKE magazine that I was a part of in Humboldt County, California, this past October. This helluva good time pit stop on the way home from (trying to) race the Jeep KOM Dual Slalom Series race in San Luis Obispo involved ripping rad NorCal singletrack with some local shredders who just build and ride. Good people, great trails. Check it out, and don’t ask about the outcome of the Slalom racing, lets just day I don’t have the courage or skill for it. Yet…

#2. The North Fork of the Yuba River. When hydropower projects need to be worked on but there are still downstream water flow demands (in this case California central valley rice farming) previously de-watered stretches of classic Sierra Foothills whitewater are rejuvenated, if only for a short period of time. Not nearly long enough to restore sandbars to their natural shape and wash away non-native brush in the riverbed, but enough time for fortunate kayakers to run ten miles of classic Granite whitewater through an otherwise strangely dry fall. I ran the NF Yuba a handful of times and had a great day each and every one of those times. Especially the one that ended with an impromptu party at the takeout, complete with trundling and rock throwing contests…

#3. The East Coast for a week. I had the opportunity to go to DC for some Olympic Afterglow stuff (see photo) and took the chance to head up to New England for some classic fall bike riding. The trails on Mount Waldo were in all time shape and so was the Highland Bike Park in New Hampshire. I got to shred there for an entire day with some old high school buddies, Matt and Brian (who were PUMPED), my original Mentor Beau Lambert and the two guys who own the park. They knew all the lines and all the speeds to have a holy crap good time all day. We rode till the lift stopped, then did sweep, then shredded the pump track and dirt jumps until there wasn’t enough light filtering through the changing foliage to see your landings. Classic east coast stoke! Go there.

#4. SuperMoto Racing. Somehow my buddy Eric Eastland not only sold me a sweet KTM Supermoto racebike, he also tricked me into racing it at the AMA Supermoto finals at Infineon raceway in Sonoma, California. I rocked up with full intention of slummin’ it. Late to Tech Inspection left little time to fix some nagging stuff (Thanks to Troy Herfoss of the MDK/KTM team for helping me with parts, and for winning the series in stylish fashion) and even less time for “practice”… I gridded last in my heat race and finished third from that, unfortunately, my pit crew chief, one Carl Decker, noted that a kid racing the mini class on a 65cc dirt bike was not only clearing the 50 foot gap jump but also was lapping a half second faster than me… I totally got fourth from last in the Amateur Main Event though and put a solid three seconds a lap into Junior… And didn’t die. Then we went to a rad Ozomatli concert in Petaluma and on a rad Marin singletrack ride the next day with some damn fast old guys. Successful weekend.

#5. Giro! I ended up working out a sponsorship agreement with Giro for not only their best in class Helmets but also Gloves (which are rad) and Eyewear for 2009 and ‘o10 and hopefully forever. I went down to Santa Cruz for a singletrack shredding session and photo shoot for some good old fashioned advertisements and to see what Giro is all about. Turns out they’re all about having a good time on bikes, or skis, or whatever it is you’re into. Nice guys who are keen to work with me and get a good message across. I’m stoked. You can also check out the aforementioned issue of BIKE for ad installment #1. Bikes are fun.

#6. Downieville!! An unusually dry and warm fall meant no early season skiing but left the door open for a whole bunch of high country riding in perfect dirt along the west coast. This gave me cause to finally ride those trails we always hear about in Downieville. We were on the way to the North Yuba but had bikes and figured we’d catch a weekend shuttle to Packer Saddle and check out the downhill. Turns out it’s one of the most diverse, entertaining trails I’ve ever ridden. I supposed it would be fun to race down too… Timmy Evens and I did our best blind race run right off the bat and ended up cackling like Hyenas on many occasions, usually to celebrate not having just died… At one point we passed a happy family of DHers stood by the trail, I stopped just long enough to should something about the Awesomeness of the situation and high five them all before blazing off into the old growth once again. Rad. I’ll be back to race this summer for sure. And to ride. I even went so far as to convince Josh to drive down with our dirt bikes on his two days off that week and we railed about 120 miles of singletrack in two days with motor assist. I’m still faster on Second Divide on my trusty push-bike though…

#7. It snowed. Finally. Towards the end of December. Robbie, Josh and I fired up the snowmobile and headed up to Ball Butte for some early season lines. Short, steep and fun. Josh did a pretty sick huck with his climbing skins on to enable him to continue traversing a bare rock ridge. Off to a good start…

#8. Montana. For some reason there are never bike races in Montana that I end up going to. Since I’ve never really been there I jumped at the opportunity to spend the holidays in Whitefish with the English Family. Fortunately Lizzy’s Mom got a snowmobile for her birthday/Christmas so we got to spend lots of time being lost and stuck and a little time skiing great snow. Fortunately we saved enough energy for the best party concept ever. Take a backyard freeride park come Slopestyle course, sprinkle it with things like burn barrels and homebrewed beer for warmth and live local music for entertainment and you’ve got a winner in any town. We shredded the Jib contest and were rocking out to my new favorite local hip-hop group Custom Holmes when the cops inevitably showed up. I’d like to spend more time up in those parts, maybe even in the summer. At a bike race?

#9. Mount Baker!! Anyone who’s a decent cartographer can figure out that Mount Baker is directly on the way to Bend, OR from Whitefish, MT. Nestled in it’s own special little microclimate in the northwest corner of Washington, it’s always worth the trip. On the way there we stopped at one of the dozens of Little Areas That Rock. Lookout pass straddles the MT/ID border and happened to be serving up heaps of Mashed Potatoes on this particular December afternoon, we used huge rockered skis to our advantage and buttered those taters good… After that the drive along the emotional rollercoaster continued. It’s not until you get within a few miles of Baker that the rain changes to snow and your fears of getting skunked are appeased. It did and we were pumped. Two days of pow on some of the raddest terrain around, accompanied by none other than Luke Pennington (after we dug out his ski that blew off on the first air of the day, under the chair, naturally…). That place rules and has a great crew that appreciates it to the fullest.

#10. Bike Riding. Instead of riding in January while the weather was sunny and warm and the skiing was all hardpack I decided to get back to my roots. Took out the old race skis a bunch of times up the road at Mount Bachelor and roosted icy groomers at speed. I hadn’t realized it because the mountain is usually cloaked in pow, but when they groom it out there’s a decidedly east-coast feel, nuking down twisty rolling corridors through the trees, airing off knolls and having a generally good time with the wind in your ears. Loud wind… But, we’re off-topic, I decided that the first day of training would be the first nice day in February. This happened to be the first… I got straight out to the high desert and realized the trails were in all-time condition so that’s been the MO for the last couple weeks, riding rad desert singletrack and, now that it’s winter weather again, getting in some good shredding on snow at places like Paulina Peak and the Putt Putt Panorama, avoiding the crowds…

#11. Epiphanies. While putting on my ski boots during a blizzard in the parking lot at Squaw Valley, California over the weekend I ran into a friend of a friend who asked; “why aren’t you racing?” I responded “where, why?” and was informed that the Tour of California road race was going on. I immediately started laughing as I realized that those poor chaps were racing in the same residual Cyclone moisture that we’d been shredding for the last couple days at Squaw. Getting rad while a bunch of guys get really wet. Here’s to a winter of having fun and re-charging for the summer I’ve been waiting years for, 2009! The last time I had a fun, easygoing late winter was living at the University of Maine with Josh Edgar in 2001. That summer I broke through and got fast enough to battle with Carl Decker for 8th place at most Nationals. Here’s to the same kind of prep for the same kind of breakthrough, except maybe at Downieville, or the World Champs…

Thanks for Reading, here’s some photos of random stuff, some that I talked about above, some that are just nice to look at.