Canoe Trip 2008

Whiteface 5K was over… I quickly rushed back home to Danbury to pick my stuff up and headed out for my Birthday Holiday!.. I was going on a 5 day Canoe trip up in North Minnesota with my Uncle and Cousin!!

We arrived in Minneapolis on Monday morning and stayed the night in the Hotel in Ely where we prepped all our gear for the next 5 days in the wilderness!… I was pretty well prepared as I have been ready for about 2 weeks since I knew I was going! We got up early in the morning and ate a great breakfast and then we headed out to the lake where we luanched off!.. The weather for that day was a Cold front was coming through so we knew that it was going to be raining and many times that day we got stuck in the middle of these big lakes with pouring rain… But, we were having such a blast!! we ended up the day finding a small campsite that was hidden enough from the storm. We ended up eating ham and cheese sandwiches for Dinner as it was just way to cold and windy to cook anything out there. I think that night from all the padaling we had done from the day and being so cold and wet I went to bed at 5PM and was out till 7AM the next morning.
Day 2 of our trip was much better… with it still being a little windy and cold I put on my long pants and long sleeve shirt which was about the warmest gear I had!! I don’t think I took off those clothes for the entire trip…hahaha.. nasty.
We saw a bear on the banks of one the lakes which was really cool!.. it was a nice easy day as we had the wind behind us so we made our 2nd campsite in record timing and so I got to fish in the afternoon with my new travel fly rod!!… which by the way is so nice… I used to be a big fly fisher before I started riding bicycles for anyone who didn’t know that!.. I caught that day 3 small mouth Bass which we ate for dinner!

Day 3 of our trip I woke up really early and it was freezing!!!… I went out in the canoe and went for a little more fishing and caught another 4 fish!.. I let them go because I didn’t feel like gutting them and cooking them… We had such a nice day!! Our campsite was so nice it had almost a veranda.. it looked like a good honeymoon spot… we had a good day with a bit more of Portages… which were pretty brutal as we had to carry between 4 of us 2 canoes, 4 large 80-90lb gear bags, padals, clothing bags…. we eventully had it down to an art in the end but took a while to get used to it!.

Day 4 was our longest day by far.. we ended up doing 15miles and 16 portages! we were so beat by the end…. I think I may have damaged my shoulder that day. The Weather though was the best it had been all week… no wind and super nice sunny weather… we got some fantastic pictures that I will get up soon..
We ended the day in our second to last lake and we all went fishing after we set up camp… My cousin was so funny… he had the bass rod out and was catching all these tiny small mouth bass that we had to throw back.. I was catching pretty much the same. We had found this great spot and was perfect for fish. It was set back off the main lake and was filled with small bass… anyways we were sitting there not catching much and all of a sudden my Cousin starts freaking out saying” I just saw a huge Pike!”… as he said that it took his lure and with a burst of energy it snapped his line… his face was priceless!

Our last day was a pretty short one as we only had about 4 hours to get to the end of the last big lake. My uncle had thrown out his rod in hopes to catch something good..he wasnt catching much either but small bass… as we were crossing the large lake he hooked into another bass. I could see that when it jumped it was small and in wasn’t fighting very much… all of a sudden it started giving a better fight… I thought” hmm must be bigger than I thought!”… anyways this fish was giving a pretty good fight and it took us about 10 minute to bring it in… all of a sudden as it got closer we realized it was a small bass… but there was a 36″ Pike chowing at it and was not letting go!! This fish was HUGE!!! My Uncle couldn’t really see as he didn’t have his glasses on and so he was telling me to put both of them in the net… I looked pretty puzzled as I thought… what part of this fish should I put in??… his head???!! maybe bash the fish over the head would be better!! hahaha… anyways the Pike let go and we had a very unhappy mangled bass….
So that was quite exciting!.. we ended up getting over to the pickup point and got all our gear out.. we were pretty tired and chilling out when a bird started to take my trail mix… these birds were so cool!! they would fly into my hand and sit and eat… crazy birds…

The Canoe trip was an awesome experience! It was really great to be out in the wild with nothing around.
My Uncle did an amazing job of looking after us with food and organizing the whole thing!

Check out the pics… I should have some more up as soon as I get some!

Cheers

White Face 5K

My last official race is pretty much done! The Whiteface race as many know is a 5 K Downhill race and is packed with awesome sections all the way down the mountain.
The times were roughly the same as last years except that this year I was more Fit and focused.

The weather was great the whole week! I ended up staying with the Mullaly gang who are a great family full of talented riders. We camped out near to the venue and went swimming everyday at the local swimming hole which is always a ton of fun!

The race itself was great… I just built up my new Proto Makulu DH bike up and let me tell you it performed so well!! just made it effortless and so smooth with the Cane Creek DB on the rear.
I came into the race with a ton of confidence and no stress as this year I knew how to race this race.. As I watched everyone off the start line just pin it and sprint the whole first straight I knew they would be so tired by the first woods sections which by the sounds of it was the case. My start on the other hand was so laid back that I got on the bike and just almost took my time off the start.. the result was being so calm and relaxed the whole way down and by the last woods sections I felt so strong!
I ended up taking the win by a cool 20 seconds I think..! Lovely!.

The race afterwards was the chainless DH race and I knew this was going to be such a fun event. I got to the top and most of the riders had put their lycra shorts on over their shorts and put their peeks on their helmet on backwards….. so Funny!… I was all about business though and I wanted to see how close I could get to my time of 7:24… which wasn’t to far off since I knew what kind of times I could do in each section using the Freelap Timing Systems in practice…with that in my mind I put on some armour because I knew I may need it for this run. My start was great I teared down the first straight and jumped onto my bike…(Chainless)
The next couple of corners from the start were fire roads and very dry and slippery and I was drifting all over the place and almost lost it in sections… I kept calm and super focused and I was concentrating on just keeping my speed up as much as possible… The only thing that slowed me down was I caught up a rider and since I couldn’t pedal around him I knew I had to wait for a chance so I may have lost about 4-5 seconds there…. my time in the end was a 7:44 so 20 seconds off my other time with the chain… it just shows you how much pedaling you really needed to do… kind of cool…. also my time was fast enough to take 2nd in the main event… even cooler!

Anyways it was just an awesome weekend! straight afterwards though I had to rush back to CT and pack all my camping stuff for a 5 day Canoe trip in North Minnesota!!! going to be sweet.. I will see everyone later and I should have a story up on my adventure!

Cheers..

Jeep 48Straight and Dominion race

As many know the jeep race is usually an invitation race only but this year they have it as an open format!
Friday was first day of practice and I felt really good! Track was getting a bit dry and blown out but was still a great track as Slalom goes. It was about a 35 second track with some decent step ups which were pretty fun!

Qualies went pretty smoothly… I felt pretty confident that I could qualify and so I did… 12th. which isn’t to bad..
Saturday was pretty good.. we were all given the VIP treatment which was pretty nice.. free food and drinks and we all had to wear Jeep jerseys on for the race.
My first opponent was Cody!!… friking eh.. as most of you know Cody is a great American rider with both of us at the same level of riding capability. I knew Cody was on it looking at him in practice he had all his lines down and was all about business when it came down to racing.
First round he was on the slightly faster lane and he had me at the finish line by .2 of a second.!!! so we were close! The second round I knew I would have to push it a little harder…. I did!… made a silly mistake in the first corner and drifted to far and had to cut the second berm so I lost some momentum…. STUPID! I was behind and I was trying everything to catch up! I had my feet out and killing the corners and I just couldn’t real him in…. so he took the round again an advanced.. bugga! oh well… I still made $250 just to qualify!.. pretty cool.. Cody in the end went on to win the whole thing so I felt much better about that!

It was an awesome event and I’m tempted to go and follow them all!… we will see.
Sunday was awesome I got up early fr the Dominion race and got some practice runs in! about 5 I think before we had to go and race… my bike was feeling awesome and I was still ampted to race since I only made one round yesterday… so I killed it! I did feel a little chilled out at the start as I was just happy to see everybody out there… but ya I won by 7 seconds! so I was happy… then I realised that I made $250 qualifying for the jeep race and made $700 for the win at Diablo.. it was a pretty darn good weekend of racing! I was pretty stoked!… to top it all off I did some good riding with some friends afterwards and then set a NEW record on the Alpine trail with my FreeLap Timing System!.. some of the locals are going to be pissed I think.

So ya all together it was an awesome weekend just hanging out with everybody.. racing and playing around..

Next race is WhiteFace! the 5K DH race that I placed 2nd last year to Derick Nobman by half a second!!! on a 8 minute track!!!!!!!!!!!!!!… I have a bone to pick with that place now.. I’m ready now!.

Anyways I will see most of you there!

Cheers….

Monte Sainte Anne

Well Monte Sainte Anne was pretty tough… It had rained constantly over the past 2 weeks and with the trail building crew working on section it had made the track just a touch muddy…. when I say a touch I mean like thick mud! Even though it was fairly muddy the track was still pretty awesome!
I must admit though I had a pretty tough time trying to feel comfortable on this track. I had difficulty staying on line in some places and with a bad knee I kept hurting it everytime I put a foot out so it made my mind set a little negative I think… not a good thing as its pretty important to have fun riding. Even with that in mind I kept telling myself to just chill and play with it a little.
First day practice was not very good as I started the day out a little late getting my bike ready and I rode 2 runs with mud spikes which were not a very good decision as mud spikes felt awful on the higher speed sections and by the time I had the dry tires on I had missed the practice!.. woops.
Second day practice was better the dry tires felt great on the first run but as the day progressed the mud got thicker and I had decided that some cut mud spikes were going to be better but had no time to put them on.
Race day on the Downhill was dry and hot! The track dried up pretty quickly as it had been super muddy in the woods and even in the open sections. I put the dry tires back on once again and went up for practice and it was ok I still felt like I needed more time to get my lines checked in but didn’t have the time. I found that I was still trying lines out in my qualifying run! Not a great thing to do… I ended up qualifying 31st which wasnt bad as I had kept my qualifying run very chilled and I knew I could get a faster time than that.
I felt for my Finals run that I should be fine and I kept running my lines through my head trying to remember them all. I had a decent start and I was giving it a lot more this time but not giving it to much as I knew it was a long track. By the time I got nearer to the bottom I knew I was having a pretty decent run and wanted to start pushing it as I got closer to the bottom. As I approached one of the last woods sections I was on the gas and I kind of miss judged the turn just a bit and I missed a small bridge going over a creek and tried to jump it but unfortunately I landed on the side of the bridge and I went over the bars and got all twisted up.
I got up pretty quickly but soon realized that my bars were pretty badly twisted and that they would need to be straightened so by the time I got back on the track I had lost quite a bit of time so I just had fun with the last couple turns of the track…. Ohh well.. bad runs had to happen sooner or later hey! It was pretty funny as my bars were not quite straight still and I felt like I was crossing up everywhere!… you should try it… feels pretty funny when you are charging into heavily rooted and rocky section with your bars turning sideways! even jumping was crazy!

Anyways it was an ok race for me… not good as I need a good result for a World Cup! Hopefully this next week will be good for me as the next World Cup is in Bromont where I had won the Canada Cup about 2 months ago?.. fun! We shall see how it goes!

Anyways we shall see everyone later!

Cheers

Mt Snow National Champs!

The results are in!!!… I had such an awesome weekend of racing. 2nd in the Slalom, 1st in qualies for DH without a chain and then 1st in the finals for Downhill by almost 3 seconds..
In fact it was a great week for Morewood Racing as we had 3 other 1st places for Morewood Bikes including 1st in expert men 19-29 by JR Quick! good job there..

Slalom….. In fact I almost didn’t even race the slalom as I was thinking I may just save it for the Downhill race on Sunday but lucky for me my trainer Colin Izzard from Charmichael training came up to watch the race and let me tell you he was such a great help. He told me that with the amount of training we have done that this should be a walk in the park pretty much.. He was always at the top with some drinks for me after each run and kept me in a positive mind the whole time.
The Slalom track was pretty fun the track was a very sandy kind of dirt so when it started to rain during practice the track became super tacky!!
I was feeling pretty good that day I had no stress and wasn’t nervous one bit as Slalom is usually a fun event for me but, with my training this year I was having such great starts and felt so strong throughout the track that I kept moving up through the ranks. It was only when I advanced against Chris Herndon who was the fastest qualifier and by far fastest in the practice that I started to think to myself that I may actually get to the finals!… with that on my shoulders now I had to tell myself that racing is “fun”… there is no need to stress. I ended up in the finals against Eric Carter and out of the gate the first run EC pulled an amazing start and left me about 2-3 bike lengths behind but I slowly caught up in the turns but EC had the advantage. Second start we both pulled the first straight at about the same until we got to the first rollers where I was manual doubling and EC was pedaling manualing! he pulled another 1-2 bike lengths on me there but I didn’t care as I enjoyed the first corner so much and seeing EC take a foot out made me feel great as I knew that I was pushing him for him to pull that move! In the end I didn’t finish to far behind him but I knew he had the win. I was still super stoked to have placed second as it was by far the best Slalom result I have had and I had so much fun racing against EC who has been an idol of mine for a long time!

Downhill… With a great result from last night in the Slalom I felt there was less pressure on me as I had thought no matter what I have already enjoyed racing in Mt Snow.
My bike was well prepped and ready as I headed up for practice. First practice run was good I was just riding smoothly and calm and then second run was also pretty good except that I had cracked a brand new rim because I decided to try a little less air pressure… 27psi was not a good idea for such a rough track with big sharp rocks. I didn’t have time to change out the wheels as I had qualifications starting pretty soon so I headed up.
I kept my qualifying run super easy and I didn’t pedal that hard as I wanted to try and save energy for the tight woods section. I passed Cody Warren on the middle road about half way down who had stopped intentionally to try and beat the rain that was supposed to pour down in the afternoon.. lucky for me it stayed dry! I waved at him as I went by.. he waved back..
I came up to the rocky highway that had claimed so many rims before and skipped into it pretty confidently but, as I got into it my chain broke off and started to skip around so I thought that it was good as it was one less thing I needed to worry about now. I ended up free wheeling to the finish with a time of 5:06 which put me in first place! I was pretty surprised let me tell you.
Now with the added pressure that if I can keep my chain on and just stay relaxed for the DH I could win. I fixed my chain up changed my wheel set and headed up for the finals
In the gate I kept running through my mind that no matter what I have already had a good week and that stress prohibits you from going faster. Like Sam Hills said ” Pressure…. I don’t do Pressure”
My finals run was good! I kept relaxed and managed to stay calm and not pedal to hard as I wanted to get stronger nearer to the bottom, also stay focused and clear headed for the faster sections.
It all worked out pretty well I felt really strong still as I got to the bottom…I kept asking myself if I had given it enough as I had lots of energy left over still? I came through the finish line and all I heard was ” Here is your new National Champion!!”… I thought to myself… No way… that was fun!
So it feels pretty good that I am the 2008 National Champ for DH !
I want to thank everybody for helping me out especially my Dad who has always been super suportive from day 1.

The Ellertson Family who has given me a place to sleep since beginning of May and helped me stay relaxed after races.

Like to thank my trainer Colin Izzard and Charmichael training who has beat me up so much this training season and I’m glad to see why I went through it all!! Thanks!

My Sponsors: Morewood Bikes, Control Tech, Ethirteen, 661, Royal, Cane Creek, Industry nine, Mavic, Maxxis, Lake shoes, Crank Brothers, Formula brakes.
Bike worked so well all week and with a racing weight of 37lbs it helps having the lightest DH bike at the races.
I have tons of pictures and I will post some up on my website… check em out!!

Cheers see you all in Monte Sainte Anne!

Nationals in Vermont

Wednesday was a busy day….. I had to pick my Dad up from Albany early in the morning and I hadn’t even packed our trailer up.! I was a bit late picking up Richard but it was great to see him again.
We made it out to Mt Snow and unpacked our trailer and set up the pits area like old times… Its weird because I have been out here by myself for so long and I have gotten used to setting up everything by myself.. I kind of missed having my Pops helping out with everything…. so its good not having to worry about everything.

Anyways I ended up walking the DH Wednesday afternoon and let me tell you it was a bit of a hike! I left at 5:30 and got back at 7:45 I took my time walking down checking every possible line… so I know the track now.
Track is pretty sick! Top section is all new covered in thick moss makes the track a little difficult to know where you are riding..
Middle section was the same as the previous local races so it was great after trying to learn the track a little bit I get to the middle part and have some fun.. like a mini break. They ended up cutting the last section from previous races and rerouted the track across the ski slope…. even more tiring now!!! but way more fun than a boring road..
So all in all the track is sick still..
Thursday afternoon DH practice started and the top section as predicted was pretty slippery covered with invisible rocks… lets just say I ended up having to replace my new carbon bar from Control Tech as I had hit a couple hard HARD! hits.. pretty amazing how strong those bars are.. So I still feel pretty confident with them.. Track is going to be quite tiring… I’m guessing the track will be around the 5 minute mark.

Right cant be too long as my battery is dying and I keep getting interupted with people saying hi to me… I must be popular!! hahaha… no.. its just good to see all my riding buddies.! Brings this race back to memories.

Anyways … Cheers! check the pics out..

Windham National

Well the results are in!… I got 2nd in the Qualies and 2nd in the finals! I guess I’m pretty happy.
Overall it was a good weekend of racing.
Qualifying was pretty fun. All week it was dry and hot out in NY but the day of race it started to slowly rain upon us and by the time we started qualies it had soaked a few of the open sections but had left most of the woods sections still pretty powdery on the bottom so as you come out to the slopes you had to be pretty careful not to slide out and ruin the run…. on top of that I forgot to wear tear offs on my goggles so by the time I got half way I could hardly see.. made things interesting.! I ended up catching up John Hauer about 2 woods sections from the finish who had a pretty gnarly crash I believe and was coasting so I did get held up a little and then when I passed him I ended up taking a line a didn’t know and flatted but I kept pushing to the finish as I was only one flat section to the finish so I might as well…?? When I came through they had told me I had the 2nd fastest time so I was pretty surprised as I had felt that I had winged it really so I had realised that I could take the win in the final!.. I was only 2 seconds from top qualifier Kieran Bennett.

In the Finals it had stopped raining a little so everybody was trying to figure out which tire combo to race with because if it rained a little more then it may have been wise to go with mud spikes but if it didn’t then it would be the dry tires and the only spots that would have been little slippery was the open sections…
Right before the Finals though it looked as though it was raining on top of the mountain so I had made the decision to go with the mud spikes… I quickly realised though as I was riding the ski lift up to the top that it wasn’t raining……. oops. No worries.. The spikes still may be ok!!.. I said to myself to stay calm! hahaha.. it turned out that the spikes were definitely not the right tire as the track had dried a little more from the qualifying run… and the Semi pro Race runs… but, you can see why I made the choice to go with Mud tires as if it was raining like it looked like it was and since I was second last and the Semi pro’s had raced the track it may be slimy and muddy!! but, in fact the track didn’t change much… dang.

The top half of my run was probably the the sketchiest I think I have ever ridden!! I slipped off the start … I came to the first off camber drop and slipped off the rock with one foot and landed hard but, I was still on the bike though and got up pretty quickly and kept going.. down the next steeper section I ended up going a bit fast and my mud spikes dug a bit to far down in the soft dust and threw me up high off the next drop and I hit a pretty big root and rock which kicked me up and I ended up hucking to flat…. haha! I did actually laugh…! the next steep section was coming up and I was telling myself to just Calm the Hell Down!!.. I was feeling pretty pinned! I ended up almost stuffing it into the next steep section because the tires dug a bit deep into the rut and because the rut had been blown up by the last 2-3 riders it headed straight for the stumps and bushes…lucky is all I can say… yep.. the next part I felt like whatever happens now I don’t care!!! I made it that far so what is the worst that could happen!… I felt good the rest of the way down besides the few rocky section I felt a little squirelly and I felt that I was fighting the bike I little…. I ended up coming to the finish line with a big huck and almost looping out to the finish!! pictures of it are up on the web somewhere..

I got 2nd!!! again!…. Keiran got me by 2 seconds.. again!.. oh well.. Its a good result still so I’m pretty pleased with myself.!
My leg was pretty sore still from the crash but I am giving it some pretty good rest now…. I will be ready I think for Mt Snow.

Anyways I shall see most of you up in Mt Snow this next weekend!

Cheers..

Windham day 2

Day 2 at Windham was great!… track was a little more blown out today after the Expert went through but overall it was pretty good.
This afternoon we had Dual Slalom Qualies which went pretty good. I messed up a little on the first run but did pretty well on the next run and I ended up 4th which is good! I will try and improve tomorrow on the race.

We ended off the day with a good home cooked meal that one of the Junior Experts mom kindly enough invited us to…. ended up watching bike movies of me crashing… lovely..
Here is some pics from todays qualification!

Cheers!!!!!

Windham National practice

Well I have had a bit of a vacation from posting on my Blog….. I have just been training quite a lot! Actually they have been more of death rides and afterwards I just want to play my new PlayStation 3!! Pretty awesome..I’m such an addict…
Anyways I arrived at Windham NY for the Nationals today and got setup with my trailer and tents and headed up for practice! The track definitely needed to be walked before actually riding… dam… track is actually pretty sick!! The track is pretty steep and windy, Its been a dry week I guess as the track is pretty much powder.
The first 2 runs I took today were pretty much walk pace… no jokes.. you had to have lines on this track to go fast. After a few runs with some mistakes I started picking up the pace a little.

As for the Slalom track they have a good idea but the dirt is a bit rough.
The course winds through the half pipe and has some unique obsticles. The track looked like it was done in one day though… it was rushed pretty much. The dirt is very rocky and the berms aren’t very well shaped either… oh well.. it will still be fun!

I actually took some pics but it wasn’t with my camera so I should have those up hopefully by tomorrow!
Anyways I will talk to everybody later!

Cheers!

Diablo Team Event

Over the weekend of the 14th-15th this month I decided I wanted to do the Diablo Team Event!
At first I wasn’t quite sure of what the turn out was going to be but I thought we might as well go as we had a good shot at winning.
The rules of the race was you had to have 4 people on the team and since the race had very few people we all had to have 2 race runs that count towards your overall time!

Our team which was originally Team Super Awesome but was changed to Team RAD ( Riders About Domination) consisted of Neko Mulally, Sasha Merljak, Chris Heath and Myself.
The race itself wasn’t a huge success as there were only 4 Pro Teams but, it was very laid back race and we all had a ton of fun!

Our Team was very consistent with our times and we ended up winning close to 10 seconds I think? Not really sure.
The rest of the day we ended off with some little competitions of our own… Who could do the coolest whip…. the best “Goon” style… we all ended up on the Alpine trail and with Diablo now sponsored by FreeLap timing systems you can now time yourself on certain trails! Alpine trail was a well known trail fitted out with the timing and the whole track consists of berms after berms after berms… with 2 wall rides.
The track was short with the previous record time I think was a 1:16.. I knew I had this as I had followed Neko down and ended up with a 1:17 without even trying!.. So in the end I had a flying run after I had 4 others race runs where I was cut off by other riders… I ended up with a 1:12… so that was a lot of fun!

Anyways that was the main joy of my day! I hold the record for the fastest time on Alpine now and it will be a little hard to beat…although I know I can go at least 2 seconds faster as the track was very dry and rough plus I had done 5 other race runs and was pretty physically challenged! … so I’m hoping for a 1:09 next time… So ya thats about it…

I will see you guys at Mt Snow!

Cheers