After I got home from New Hampshire I left the next day for crankworx Colorado. Greg Watts and I flew to Denver where my versus teammate Wade picked us up from the airport. We spent the first night in Denver at Wades place. Wednesday morning we drove from Denver up to winter park for the first day of practice. Once we got there we checked out the course. The start of the course was the same as last year with a lot of new stuff in between. This year the end was an elevated quarter pipe that you stepped onto aired out and then stepped off. The course flowed a lot better this year. The next day we had another two-hour practice and then it went straight into the big air comp. For the big air comp we sessioned the four pack of dirt jumps in the middle and the step down to quarter. They where giving two best trick awards, one for the top and one for the bottom. Up top Greg killed it, he stomped a flip double bar spin and a flip whip. On the lower section Cam landed the first ever flip superman off a step down. In the lower section I landed a flip table then I tail whipped over the channel on the quarter to a three off the deck so red bull decided to give me an award for best red bull line on the lower section. The next day was the big show. We started out with practice where I took one of the hardest falls I have had in awhile. I went to tail whip the channel on the quarter and I missed my pedals and fell off the elevated quarter to my head and then my back. I decided to still and ride and after my first run I was sitting in first place until Cam McCaul came down and bumped me into second, then right after Brandon Semenuk came down bumping both Cam and I into second and third. We were the last three to go since we qualified top three. We all had one more run left so we went back up to try and better our runs. I cleaned the run I wanted putting me back into first place. Then Cam came down putting together a nasty run but I still barely held onto first. The last rider to drop was Brandon. He put together one of the best runs I’ve ever seen bumping me back into second. So the final results were 1st Brandon Semenuk 2nd ME 3rd Cam McCaul 4th Cam Zink 5th Jamie Goldman 6th Tyler McCaul 7th Kelly Mcgerry and 8th place went to Gregg Watts. After the slopestyle they had an after party for everyone in the village. The next day we got our stuff together and drove down to Denver to catch our flight. Next week I’m headed up to Whistler for Crankworx. I’ll post some more pics while I’m up there. -later
I left Sunday afternoon for a Gravity team trip to Highland MTB park in New Hampshire. Our goal for the trip was for each team rider to find something on the mountain to shoot for our next gravity ads. Most of the team made it out (Phil Sundbaum, Alex Reveles, Eric Porter, Dave Smutok and I) and Harookz came out to take the photos. The first part of the trip was kind of a bust. It was raining and some tornados even came through so we ended up hanging out in our hotel room for the first half of the trip. We found a firework store so it kept us entertained for a while. It finally stopped raining on Thursday so it was time for business. I just learned superman back flips at woodward so that’s what I wanted to shoot for my ad. I found a cool step-up in the woods that I practiced on for awhile and landed my first super flip on dirt. We got some good pics but I wasn’t stoked on the how the jump looked in the pics so I cruised around the mountain and found a big drop to about a 20 foot double. The next morning we woke up and worked on the jump since it rained the night before. We got the jump dialed in and I got my ad done that day. Look out for it in the next decline. The next day was the first annual Claymore slopestyle contest. Since the team was busy getting our ad shots done we didn’t have time to practice but we made due and the final results were 1st Cam McCaul, 2nd me, 3rd Aaron Chase, 4th Phil Sundbaum, 5th Clint McMahon, 6th Tyler McCaul. Dave Smutok is the builder of the course and it was one of the better courses I’ve ever ridden. It ended up being a good trip beside the weather issues. If you haven’t heard of Highland MTB park check it out. It definetly competes with Whistler. The have tons of awesome trails and all kinds of jumps all over the mountain. I just got home and Ill be leaving tomorrow for crankworx Colorado.
This past Sunday, July 20, was Northstar at Lake Tahoe’s 2nd race of the series.
The course was Boondocks, a black diamond trail, that is almost as sandy as the beach. This trail has a nice rock drop, a steep rock slab, tight turns, LOTS of rocks, and a few jumps. A perfect course for the Versus Trigger.
Saturday morning we watched a bit of the W.E. Rock Crawling event at Donner, then headed to Northstar for some practice time down Boondocks.
On Sunday, the race started at Noon. My drop in time was 19 min after the start. I was up on “the rock” with the beeps about to start, when someone yelled out, “She has a flat!”. I looked at my rear tire and it was completely flat! Instantly disappointed, I pulled off before my run started. The timer told me I would be able to race at the end. That gave me over 2 hours, and I got excited again…I get to race!
My race run ended up being worse then my practice runs…I ended up in 4th place, with a stack and dropping my bike in 3 super sandy turns. Pretty sloppy!
Although, not stoked on my race run, I had a blast. Northstar did a great job with the race and everybody seemed to really like the course. I’m looking forward to the next Northstar race!
This years NMBS #3 race was held in Los Olivos, California. The course itself was pretty fun, it was some what fast and wide open. Had a couple of jumps here and there, and also had this pretty cool tree section, which dumped right into this flat out sprint to the finish. At first i was a little worried about the flatness of the course, and being on an 8.5 inch bike, i was definitely at a disadvantage to the other competitors on there smaller travel bikes. After practicing and walking the course a few times on friday, i was prepared to race on saturday. When race run came around, i couldn’t wait to bomb my trigger down this trail. The race run went pretty well, the trigger ate up the little man made rock garden, flew through the berms, and seemed to eat up every bump that it came in contact with. Then when it came to the flat pedal section, the trigger pedaled great like I was on a shorter travel bike. After sprinting to the end, I had finished with a 2:05, nearly 4 seconds faster than the nearest competitor in the expert men 19-24 class to put me on the very top of the podium.
by: Chase Bohn.
