spring time riding

well, it has been a long time since i posted on the old blog. i've been doing a lot of spring riding...mostly at post canyon. you have to ride post when it's not covered in snow. my buddy mike from vancouve b.c. came down and rode a couple day...so long story short, spring riding has been great. so much riding that i haven't been taking any pictures. the camera has been collecting dust!

I did forget about this day that dirk took some sweek pictures. Lighting and fog was perfect for taking pictures.

A couple weeks ago we planned to go out and ride one of the local downhill trails. the first four runs down were great! we then had a bb que and hung out before riding after the lunch break. on this run i had a fun little injury. after casing one of the jumps i ruptured my right achilles tendon. so i guess this blog is kinda turning into my recovery blog instead of my riding blog? I'm having surgery this coming friday the 5th and i'm not sure how long i will be down after that. I'm gonna give this thing hell and be back healthier and stronger than before!

11-23-08-BLACKROCK

Went to Blackrock on Sunday with Derek, Darren and Argyle.

on the way down, the sky looked sweet and the sun was coming up. We met up with whiplash, josh, doney show, some of the young brothers raul and agony rob.

The trail conditions were great considering all the rain we have had recently.

Darren was showing us powty. This was his first time back to Blackrock since like May, so it was good to have him back.

Derek goochered up his leg pretty good on one of the sunday stroll ramps.

The camp had some extra money for a big fancy sign...probably to keep out the bikers!

The door man at this restaurant was pretty aggro looking. we decided not to go there, but go to mexican food back in dallas....mexican food is always good after the ride!

The day was great other than a couple small crashes. Argyle went down hard on sunday stroll just before derek crashed.

We go to post next week!

11-16-08-Syncline

Well, we did Syncline part two yesterday and it was awesome! the weather was even better than it was last weekend, the crew was bigger and the ride was crazier!

when jake was doing his morning download, i did the following:

the morning started at jake's house, i found this little figurine guy and a bowl of nuts. i made it look like the guy was throwing the nuts and left them all over the kitchen. he threw them, not me! this guy looks like trouble.

jake had a new set of wheels built...see below. tubeless and i of course predicted three times that he would have some type of trouble with them. what do you know, he had three problems with them. i am a tubeless tire see the future guy.we picked up derek on the side of the road and a guy mike followed us out there. when i snapped this shot, i was talking on the phone, taking the picture and driving while drinking coffee. talk about multi tasking!when we arrived, the crew was waiting and ready to head up to the top of the hill!

let's see if i can list all in attendance. me, mike (trick master), jake, andy, derek, the guys from chris king, johnny thunder, dirk, robholio, jason word, raul, chris calmeth coven, his buddy, kevin, his buddy the new guy, fat larry and skinny april. not sure if i missed anybody, but i'm sure they will pop up in a picture somewhere. i'm sorry if i missed you! i don't think there was anybody there named the tim.

raul had his new camera rockin this run, i haven't seen much of the footage, but i'm sure it will be great!and oh yes, team aggro was in attendance! they we a bit hard to see. their jerseys were syncline camo.

i got this shot of kevin as he was passing me towards the bottom of the hill. i thought it looked cool???this was one of the chris king guys before he ate poop.

kevin had a wimpy crash . no blood or lost teeth. he seemed awful happy and pleasant about crashing. i seem to alway be pretty pissed when i crash and get fired up for the riding. no injuries on the day. robholio didn't even break himself on coyote canyon. we did three runs with a bunch of people at syncline and then a few of us went over to post and did a couple runs around family maing. i think we are going to try and go to blackrock this coming weekend! i got some ok footage yesterday, but i hope to have the cable camera ready for next weekend at the blackrockS!

11-09-08-Syncline

Got up early this morning and headed over to Fat Larry and Skinny April's house in Hillsboro. We rode out through the normal horrible weather on the west side and out through Portland. When we met up with Josh, Raul and Carlisle in Troutdale, the weather was still looking bad! From there i jumped in with argyle and i joke on the way out that the weather would start to get better at cascade locks.....and what do you know, it got better at cascade locks! from there the rain got lighter and lighter until we arrived at the hood river bridge and could see blue skies over the bingen side!

This video was taken on the first run. i think we were all shocked at how dry it was. We did run into donkey show and mrs. donkey show about half way down the first run. they didn't want to shuttle with us, so they only got in a couple "laps" but i'm not sure where they were riding. we met up with a guy justin that i've ridden with a bit out at blackrock...super fast racer guy, but won't really hit any jumps.

the weather was great, we nearly killed some xc riders that thought it was a good idea to stop in the middle of the trail on a downhill section, just around a blind corner. i think each of us had a near smash the guy in spankex experience around that corner. some people have no common sense on where to stop.

raul and i did a bit of filming with his new camera and we may have gotten a few keepers from todays ride. next weekend we have the drunkfest/bike fest 2008 back in syncline. until then...

oh, i also got the old mint green 888 re painted by mormon craig...it looks sweet!

10-26-08 post canyon

post was great today. i picked up raul and his new camera at about eight o'clock this morning and headed east. the drive out was crazy windy. one of the windiest days i've seen on the way to hood river.

we started at family man where josh quickly introduced his head to a tree and he was then seeing crazy! he took a few advil and we headed towards the top of the mountain. the riding was going fine...new guy brian from the east coast lost one of the pulleys on his rear changer at the first jump. we rigged some wire together and he rode the rest of the day on it!

we made the usual stop at the chorus jumps where everybody was coming up short on jumps. robholio cased the second booter on the right side and still went for the third one...boy was that a bad mistake! he exploded his rear wheel and goochered his gnar pretty good. i think there was some blood coming from the junk after that crash. there was a huge divot in the laning of #3 where #hoolio hit it. a guy from hood river was supposed to bring him a wheel, but i never again saw rob or the guy with the replacement wheel.

we saw a bunch of other guys with broken wheels, broken forks and hurt bodies...it was one of the weirdest days out there.

when we were driving up, we noticed a new trail that somebody had carved into a hillside of a recent logging operation. so we had to hit it....boy was this trail steep. it was very soft dirt and went straight down the side of a hill!

after the ride, terry and josh headed home; brian and todd m headed home.....raul and i headed to cascade locks for some of the best pizza i've ever had...sorry paddington's and walking man. the oregon pizza...we finished a large between the two of us. it sounds gross, but it was salmon and shrimp pizza with cheese and maybe mushrooms. GOOD FOOD!

i'm not sure how many more days we will have to ride post canyon this year, but today was one of the best weather days out there! we have blackrock to look forward to all winter!

10-18-08-post canyon

weather was great when i left the house this morning. a bit of rain in the air, but i knew the skies would clear as i headed toward Hood River. I arrived at fat larry and aprils house at 7:30 and we headed out to post.

when we arrived in hood river, we realized we were a bit ahead of carlisle and mormon craig, so we headed back to the 76 station to get beer. we hooked up with some blackrock locals when we arrived at the gas station; we headed back out to the trails...that was about the last time things were going well for the blackrock guys (Louis and Erick) Erick is the guy that crashed going off the cheese grater a few months back and had blood coming out of his goocher...there was eight of us total; fat larry, april, frank (xc bike guy) erick (bloody thingy) louis (don't you want to know what my name is dad) carlisle, mormon craig and myself.

so about 500 feet or so into the ride down from the top ole bloody goocher crashed on a small jump and wacked his head harder than i've ever seen anybody hit their head. This guy scrambled his brain pretty good...just asking the same things over and over, like every 30 seconds! his buddy louis thought that it would be a good idea to get him to a hospital, but guess what.....louis crashed and broke his right collar bone! could the two of these guys had any worse luck? they left the group near drop zone and headed down to their cars...i hope they made it home o.k.

so other than these two guys getting hurt we were having a great day/ride...drinking a few beers sharing some good stories...till we got down to seven streams trail where a lady had crashed off a ladder bridge and messed herself up good. the paramedics were carrying her out in and on what looked like a body bag. they said it looked way worse than it was and that she would live to ride another day!

mormon craig and carlisle were riding awesome today, car hit a bunch of new things that he had never hit before and mormon craig was back hitting the jumps on chorus. the day was a bit weird and i once again did not take any pictures. i need to start working on the filming for this years videos.

10-04-08

10-4 good buddy...was this ever a crazy day.

stef and i headed to the yearly fat tire farm video showing of the latest New World Disorder Video; we picked up Hack on the way there. I was warned about the crazy stuff that happenned the year before (I was in Hawaii, so I missed out). I had no idea that it was going to be this crazy.

we arrived a bit late and fat larry and april were already inside...one problem, they had our tickets. since we were just about the last people in line, we had kinda crappy seats, we were not all in one big group like years past. maybe that kept the mayhem down till later. video was great, bigger jumps, crazier stunts..the normal progression. after the show was over, and the raffle was done, we were still milling around the theater, fat larry and hack were drinking a little much. i was talking with raul near the stage when fat larry thought it would be a good idea to jump on my back. i told him to get off me when he didn't....he did the jamie assisted front flip onto the nice sticky theater floor. after smashing his head in the floor a couple times to get him to calm down, josh came and broke it up. oh, but that's not the good part.

we headed out towards raul's house, gonna go hang out and have a few drinks..but it came to an abrupt burrito beer vomit hault when hack decided to release his stomach all over my wife's car. not just in one small spot like a baby thowing up some milk, but like the walrus in 50 first dates...everywhere projectile vomit. after everybody got out of the car screaming, the only cleaning product i had was window cleaner...not sure why that was in the car? got it as clean as possible with what we had and headed towards home. we called raul and said sorry, "not coming over." on the way home i thought about stopping at the gas station on the top of sylvan hill to try and get some other cleaning supplies, but it happenned again. projectile! this one was better than the first, it got into fat larry and april's mouth...they started to hurl, my wife was hurling...it was like the scene from stand by me. after everybody was done hurling, we got back in the vomit comet and headed towards greg's. he said he needed to get out of the car about ten blocks from his house, so i abliged and let him out.

when arriving back at larry and aprils house, i used their brand new steam cleaning for an hour or so to get the smell and chunks out of the car and headed home spraying febreeze about every five seconds. the next day i spent another seven hours cleaning the car, opening door panels, cleaning window control switches, shampoo carpets and cleaning every nook and cranny of the car....it still stank. tuesday took it to a detail shop $350 dollars later it still stinks when you hit the brakes...the smell comes from some place in the back seat. i'm going to try and take apart the doors today and see if i missed any chunks.

no pictures of the day.

hopefully next year isn't so crazy!