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 1^st Cam McCaul, 2^nd me, 3^rd Aaron Chase, 4^th Phil Sundbaum, 5^th Clint McMahon, 6^th 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!

Photo Credits:
Bikeguy@charter.net

It’s super hot at home and a lot of the jumps were beat because it was so dry so Alex Reveles and I decided to drive up to whistler and stay with some of our friends that have a place up here. We left at 11 pm and drove straight there without stopping. It was a rough drive, I ended up driving 18 out of the 20 hours while Alex just chilled. One of our sponsor’s Camelbak hooked us up with lift tickets for the mountain and air dome while we’re here. I got to check out and ride the 2008 crankworx slopestyle course. Its looking real good. I think the comp will go off this year. We’ve been up here for about two weeks now riding every day so were leaving for home in a couple of days to get ready for our next trip. Alex and I are heading to the east coast for a FSA/Gravity team trip. The trip is going to be a week long at Highlands MTB park in New Hampshire. Were going to build and shoot stuff for our next Gravity ads with Harookz. Then at the end of the week there is a slopestyle contest. Dave Smutok built it so it should be good.  

We got to Leogang Thursday afternoon in time for practice but the weather wasn’t looking to good for the weekend so everyone was keeping their fingers crossed. Thursday’s practice was canceled because the jumps were to wet to ride so a lot of us went over the local go cart track to kill sometime. There was some good racing that went down went down. The next day was full of rain so everyone just chilled at the hotel and drove the hotel workers nuts. On saturday the weather was starting to get better but the jumps were still super wet so they worked on them trying to make them rideable. We had about an hour session on the jumps until more rain came. Since it was already Saturday and we couldn’t even practice they decided to call off the contest. For all the local riders it wasn’t that bad they just packed up and drove home while the rest of us from half way around the world had to sit in the hotel and stare out our balcony’s at the sickest jumps that we couldn’t ride. kind of a bummer.  They decided their going to hold the contest at the end of the year when the weather will be better. After that weekend I had as long 22 hour flight home. Now Im home for a couple of weeks until I go down to woodward with some friends to ride.