More US Open

Here's some video from the US Open. My video sucked. Check out Freecaster.tv for more action sports videos
Check out the video @ 1:08 which features Nick Van Dine(riding) and Peter and I (green shirt. trail right)

Products from the U.S. Open

Walking around the mountain the GDT staff found some new MTB products
The day before We headed up to the Diablo for the US Open I saw this on the E13 site

Here it is

Eastern Woods Research has a new bike coming out

Nice brake support

At last............the new kid on the mountain.

This shop is going to be great! Rumor has it Aaron Chase and George Ryan may help build a pump track on the side of the shop. Ridetopia has Brodie Bikes for Rental and for sale.
$65 for all day rental w/ protective gear. Deal!!!
Brodie and SIC have jumped in to support this shop.

Stop to Ridetopia and say "What Up" to Jason and Pam

oh yeah Ridetopia sells motocross bikes and ATVs, too.

U.S Open Dual Slalom 2008

The U.S. Open @ Diablo Freeride Park had a rad Dual Slalom race.

Here's some video from the pro class.
Finals J.D. Swanguen Vs. Jared Rando
J.D. Swanguen is one quick kid!!! Jared Rando took the W.

Finals round 2 Finals round 1

The battle of Dorel/Pacific/GT/Cannondale

Here's the best battle of the day. Jim thorpe's own Nick Van Dine Vs. World Cup Racer Bryn Atkinson
In Round 1 Van Dine beat Bryn Atkinson. Atkinson was so pissed he lost he threw his bike on the ground.

Round 1


J.D Swanguen Killing it.

Slick Rick and Jen's Wedding

Yea, So Rick go hitched to Jen.
I'm tired from working on bike by myself so enjoy the pictures with limited captions.

Rick truly defined the word "Baller" by getting delivered to the wedding by boat with a bag piper piping.
(he's walking up from the dock, his parents live on a river)

Waiting

There's Jen

Rings and stuff

It's official

Dan, not under standing what a farmer does?
(Rick's bro is a Organic Farmer)
Paul laughing, Andrew drinking

The dance

To kill time, Incognito, Lisa, Ddub, and I went of a road ride.
People in VA. are nice down there. Everybody waved to us...Un-like Delaware where people wave the middle finger and tell us to "get the fuck off the road".

The cyclist

Gangsta picture. Dan?

Mr. Mihills wine cellar. Every bottle is bar coded and the room has it's on computer with bar code scanner.
Whats that in the bottom left corner?

Dog Fish Shelter Pale Ale!!!

Congrats Jen and Rick.
Don't worry Rick I'll find the phone number to your room while your on your honeymoon to ask you.
"where are the headset spacers?"

Massanutten Yee-Ha! 2008

On Friday morning I meet up with the Bosch and we loaded his truck and headed to the Gravity East Series # 1 : Massanutten Yee -Ha DH race in Va. We stopped in Maryland to meet up with the man behind the Racer's Edge, Mike Hartlove, and loaded the freshly graphictized Racer's Edge trailer.After a 3 hour drive from the Racer's Edge compound we ended up @ the Pit area @ the Yee-Ha. We set up our Pit next to the now former Rocky Mountain rep, Joey. Joey is really friendly and has every tool I forget to pack! He was my contact man with RMB when I work for Eastern Mountain Suck, he also has the fastest kids on the east coast circuit right now, Neko and Logan.
We prepped our race weapons and headed off to practice.

Pretty sweet Trailer.

The course was pretty gnar, wet and muddy. This track was raced in the 1997 UCI DH World Cups.
So I had to make sure my ride was clean, tight, and lubricated for the race!

Pretty Sharp looking room. Notice the piece of replacement dry wall to the upper left of Peter's head. We never saw it until we looked @ the photo on the camera. Photo's don't lie!!

Dined on some sweet vittles @ Hank's smoke house. I had the catfish fry!

Cruisin the parking lots back to the room we drank with some fellow racers from the deep south. "Blue" the guy in the orange hat was probly the oldest guy racing that weekend.

Aww Phat Man. I met him on the mountain at the start line. I heard him coming with his cow bell. He has a cow bell attached to his SIC handle bar to let people know he's coming.
"Moo bitch get out the way"

So we were all to loud security came and told us to keep it down and to not drink out of bottles.

Leaving for my race run. the_SHT is now Gravity

So, I didn't win. I placed 19th out of 27. I crashed 3 times.

Neko is one fast 15 year old. He won the Junior class.
He placed 2nd @ the worlds junior qualifier the weekend before. Even if he had won, he's not old enough to be on the team. The world just isn't prepared for Neko yet!

Jurgen Beneke took the pro class.
I was just reading an article about him and the feud with Mark Weir and the Downieville Classic in Mountain Bike magazine last week. It was pretty cool to meet somebody that is a World Cup Champion.... and I just read an article about. Beat Weirs Ass Jurgen

Picture from my race run. In between crash 2 and 3

My Goal for the 2008 DH season:
Finish with a good time with no crashes.

Derailedonline.com Results (pdf)
Derailedonline.com Pictures
Pictures
Really good Pictures

5:18:08 of destruction

So I completed my first DH race of the season
I finished 19th with 3 crashes in 5:18:08.
For my last crash I had a big audience. I got a big "OHHHH" from the crowd.
I knew I was going to crash so, I hit the ejector button to save myself.
I got back on my bike and sprinted hard to the finish.
All three times I crashed my bike was down the course, so I just had to run to it and get back on it.
Here's what happened to my bike during my race run.

Dent in down tube by head tube junction

Bent rear brake lever.

Bent derailleur hanger

Freshly built front wheel from yours truly. Now doing the wheel wobble dance. Time to rebuild! At least the wheelset I built for the Bosch stayed tensioned, round, and true even with a dented rim wall.

My First T-Town Swap

On Saturday I went to my first bicycle swap meet. I cleaned my basement out of all my used bike shit and put it in a box.

I went w/ my buddies Todd, Darren, and Myself.
Notice the mustaches!

In the cooler we had a bunch of 3 Muskerteers minis. we truly were the 3 Muskerteers with our radtastic mustaches.

I had a lot of junk in my basement. used chains, cassettes, forks, brakes, etc. I also had stuff to sell for Slick Richard, D Dub, and Fitzy. Todd had all his tires and frames, etc from his pro DH days. Darren had some random bike stuff and 2 complete bikes that sold with in the first 45 mins. He'd leave the tent and go shop and I would pretty much hand him $$.

We had some Wilmington bike people stop by. Italian bike snob Nugetbutter stopped by briefly. We had no Campy or Colnogo so he kept walking.

My Swap meet coach Mr. Garrison told me bike people come out of the wood work for these events and rummage though your stuff. This dude, no joke, crawled into our tent and started haggling with Todd as he was pricing his junk.

We also had another strange individual stop by, Fergie Ferg.

Fergie liked my Twenty so much he had to ride it. After the test ride he decided he didn't want it because the top tube wasn't long enough.

In the end the swap was a "Great Success"

What I learned from my first swap experience. People buy used chains and cassettes. Always! Always! Inspect the product before you buy!

My favorite transaction of the day
Dude: "These are tubular! I though they were clinchers! I'm building a touring bike. Can I get a refund?"
GavaganDeathTrail: "Sorry bro, there are no refunds. Inspect before you buy"