Let's see...his first meal was Taco Bell, followed by his first ever PBR, into a pumptrack session, then a healthy BBQ spread. Naturally, we wrapped the night up with a Guitar Hero session. I'd say we're off to a good start...next up is the 4th of July, which should be quite epic!

Bikes...there is a big Tonic Fab jam going down on Sunday here in Portland, and if you go to the Adidas Slopestyle website, you can check out pics of the course. Also, there is a Thrash Bike event going down in NYC, I'll post info about that shortly.



2008.06.26 AMERICA, #@(*$ YEAH!!


Words cannot describe how happy I am to be home in the states...four weeks on the road away from the comforts of home like an ice cold PBR in your hand and a healthy pumptrack session. It was so good to finally land on home soil and get back on track.

Don't get me wrong, the World Cups and World Championships were awesome, but you can only eat prosciutto and rock hard bread for so long. I had a great time otherwise, and if you haven't checked out all of our hard work on Freecaster, now's the time to do it. Rob Warner is an absolute maniac in front of the camera and behind the mic, which definitely made the events even more fun. This guy is a legend, he even has an appreciation society boasting over 200 members on Facebook!

The Boxxer World Championships were a highlight...my face hurt from laughing after shooting this segment.

Now that I'm back in the USA, I'm firing out a bunch of videos for Summer Of Shred, wrapping up that Brumotti trials clip, working on some new projects for 2009 and preparing for the upcoming Gravity trip to Highland Mountain Bike park, where they are having a contest on July 25-26. Doug Smith sent me a few pics of the build out, which is being designed by Dave Smutok. Here is the info for the contest they are organizing over there if you're interested in going!

More updates coming soon...Phil was supposed to be in Italy this week, but his truck got broken on his way to the airport and the theives stole his passport, laptop and his OGIO bag that has all of the clothes that he owns. So...yeah...he's not going to Italy this week. I think we're going to meet up and shoot some stuff around PDX instead. We'll also be announcing a collaboration for the final 2008 SOS trip very soon.



2008.06.15 Pila + World Championships


Since the last update, we spent a week in Pila, Italy at the bike park with Sam Hill, his crew, and the IronHorse/Playbiker team. The weather was good, the food was good, and the view was epic.

I did quite a bit of shooting this week with everyone that was around. I also met up with Vittorio Brumotti, who is a super famous trials rider. Actually, he's super famous off the bike, but he also has a bunch of world titles and Guiness Records on the bike, so I guess you could call it even. We did some shooting and he was being swarmed the whole time by fans who had seen him on tv or saw his spread in the Italian Maxim (which he is autographing in this photo for some random girl in the cafe while we were eating lunch). Check out his website, and stay tuned for the video segment!

Big thanks to Simon Cittati for hooking us up with a place to stay in Pila in between events, we had a blast! Simon was also wise enough to bring a copy of Guitar Hero with him to the mountain, so we had regular sessions in the hotel! We even taught Romano (Italian Iron Horse distributor) how to shred the plastic axe.

If you haven't seen this already, this is probably one of the best things to come out of Pila this week. Sam Hill was testing out his new bike for Worlds, and this is the ONLY video of it. Sam and the rest of the Monster Energy/Iron Horse crew set up a special filming session for me and Fraser on the track in Pila. ENJOY!

We're in Valle Di Sole now for the World Championships...stay tuned, and check out Freecaster.tv for all of the live event coverage!



2008.06.11 Fort William + Italy


Sorry for the lack of updates, it has been extra hard to find decent internet in my spare time. I've had a whirlwind tour of the UK, with all kinds of excitement, like lost baggage, roadtrips and of course, world cup racing action! If you want to check out what I've been doing behind the lens, go to Freecaster and check out all the clips from Fort William.

Before heading up to Scotland last week, I spent a bit of time in Manchester, England with my good friend Chris Ratcliff. I hadn't seen him in ages, and I had a day off, so we hung out and wandered around town all day. We found some pretty cool stuff, including this store that sells "American" imports, like Lucky Charms for $15 and A1 Steak Sauce for $12!! We also found a phone that costs roughly $85,000. I think I might get one..

After my time in Manchester, I met up with Pete Drew (Silverfish/e.13 distributor) and we pinned it up to Fort William together. I had done this route once before and was able to spot a few things from the road, like the William Wallace Memorial, French Castle from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and of course...my favorite hardware store of all time. This drive is epic, if you ever get the chance to do it (it's the road to Loch Ness for all you fishermen), you should definitely go for it.

Fort William was rad, I ate fish and chips four nights in a row and edited up a storm with Justin Schroth. It was Justin's first time to Europe, and he got to get a glimpse of what I'm doing over here behind the scenes. Justin had his first taste of Irn Bru, to which Clay Porter added, "Welcome to the second half of your life!"

After Fort William, we headed back down to the airport, and then over to Milan. We got a rental car and headed to Pila, which is a mountain resort outside of Aosta. Simon Cittati from the Iron Horse/Playbiker team is here with the full team, and we're going to do some bike riding and video/photo shoots. Internet is only a little less sketchy over here, so I might get a chance to post a few more updates this week.



2008.06.01 UCI Andorra Wrap-Up + Goat Style


Its been quite the experience over here in Andorra...not exactly what I expected, but still good. The World Cup wrapped up it's second stop today, with the Atherton family bringing home three gold medals. Watching Gee take the gold in DH was amazing, and definitely a great ending to the weekend.

As you've probably noticed by the lack of updates, the internet in Andorra is WEAK! I guess my lack of e-mail and web access has given me some extra time to fire out video clips, because there are over twenty video clips on the Freecaster page from Andorra. I'm putting in some serious work over here!

It could be worse, though...most people's offices don't look like this.

Then again, you can probably drink the tap water in your office. Yikes..

Cedric's "Podium Cafe" is right down the street from our hotel, and like any fine establishment, they have Guitar Hero. I made sure to make my presence known and put my name on the top of a couple high score lists. No big whoop.

Tomorrow I'm headed to England for a couple days, then up to Scotland for the Fort William World Cup. I'll be meeting up with Justin Schroth of Lucent Productions, so I'm looking forward to that.

Phil is on a roadtrip to Canada for the Goat Style contest. Here's a little pre-event report from him:
Me, Crappis, Wilson and Pedro met at Andy's house on Thursday night... Yes Andy [Phil's Brother]-- he is coming out of retirement, or the closet, for the trip. We had a big BBQ since it was my dad's birthday, then we all slept there and left in the morning. There was a lot of new stuff for Pedro -- for starters, he has never had a s'more so we got him sick on those.

We drove through the pass and Pedro was amazed at the great Northwest views. He has never played in the snow or made a snowball... so we pulled over and had a snowball fight. We stopped at the Gorge at some scenic view area and found a bunch of 10ft tall metal horses.

Then Pedro fell asleep and we scared the crap out of him -- on the count of three, we all started screaming and made him think we were gonna die.

Andy tagged the truck...

We were on the most deadly road for car-to-animal kills once we got into Canada. They said there were deer and elk and bear that got killed all the time and we were lookin all over but didn't see anything.

The course looks fun and if you are lucky you might get some pics later...



2008.05.28 Andorra World Cup


Yo from Andorra! Fraser Britton and I just arrived here last night and it looks like a full weekend of rain for the World Cup crew. Good thing we got a rain jacket for the new Sony EX-1 that we're shooting with for Freecaster.

Here's some awesome news: Freecaster.tv just secured the rights to play the live broadcasts of the World Championships and World Cups in the USA!! Up until now, there was some weird media company that had the rights to it, so we couldn't watch the UCI races at all in the states. Well, no more! As of this weekend, we're good to go. We'll be running the live feed as well as a bunch of behind-the-scenes stuff (I'm shooting a CRIBS segment with Cedric later today). Stay tuned!

Check this out, our buddy Caleb Smith (who shot all of the New Zealand Summer Of Shred photos) just launched his own website. Caleb is super awesome, and he'll be joining us in Africa later this year when we head there with Hans Rey in August.

We're posting from Cedric's "Podium Cafe" right now. It's pretty cool, and there is going to be a massive Freecaster party here this weekend after the race is over. Check it out...



2008.05.19 Summer = Awesome


It's been nice to take a little breather between all these events and stuff. We've had time to enjoy the nice weather and throw a couple BBQs, ride some bikes, and finally hang all of the frames from our travel so far this year. I made a quick run back to Wisconsin to wish my Mom a surprise happy birthday, and it was a total ambush. The look on her face when I showed up in her 2nd grade classroom was priceless!

Pablo Tafoya made his way through Portland this past week, and took a few guys from our crew out to test the new Corsair Crown. Everyone that rode it was going off about how dialed it was, and this is just the FIRST working prototype.

Summer Of Shred hooked up with a program called Splashcast, which allows you to put the Summer Of Shred videos and photos onto your Facebook and Myspace pages, and basically anywhere else that you want to embed the SOS content. It's one-stop shopping for all of the content, and when new videos are released, it updates right into the player, so that's sweet. Plus, you can add your own pics, comments and videos on the player as well, and everyone can see it. Give it a test, and then add it to your Facebook/Myspace pages!




2008.05.12 Maribor + Qashqai Munich Finals


The Maribor, Slovenia world cup is over. It was pretty cool to watch the other side of mountain bike competition, I must say. I actually got chills when I was filming the qualifying round...Sam Hill blasted by me on the rock garden section and it was like nothing I had ever seen. If you think he looks fast on video, you should see him on World Cup race pace in person. Whoa!

During the finals, Brian Lopes and I went around with the camera and shot a bunch of interviews for Freecaster. You can watch them now if you click the image on the bar above this post. Some of the videos were a little slow if you tried to watch them this past weekend because they had over 50,000 people logging on to Freecaster to watch the event live!

Four hours away, the Qashqai event was going down in Munich! I got back to the hotel just in time to watch the last few runs. When I turned it on, Phil was actually in the lead...he was riding really well and if he would've landed that 720 on his last run, I suspect that he might've been on the podium. Either way, it looked like everyone was killing it super hard, even though it was apparently really windy in Munich this weekend.

Oh yeah, here's a pic of the new Blackbox fork that everyone has been drooling over. Minnaar, Peaty, Rennie and Sam all have these on their bikes.



2008.05.09 Maribor World Cup


Slovenia is turning out to be really cool, the World Cup track here is dialed and today was the first day of DH practice. I got to see all of the world's best riders in full force, shredding to their heart's content at the first big event of the year.

I just snapped a bunch of pics today while I was shooting video (which should be uploaded on Freecaster shortly):
-The chairlift doesn't work, so we had to walk down from the top of the mountain. At least the view was good!
-Kathy Pruitt slaying the rock garden
-Steve Smith's Cove is eye-searing orange!
-Justin Leov was going so fast that it blurred my picture..
-Thank you Red Bull for helping me ditch my jetlag!
-Intense has an "intense" staging area...this is the setup which took almost a full day to build

Tomorrow is 4X finals and more DH practice. The Qashqai event in Munich starts tomorrow as well. Stay tuned!



2008.05.06 Madrid Qashqai + Maribor, Slovenia


Phil sent me a handful of pics from the Madrid Qashqai. The results went like this:
1. Andreu Lacondeguy
2. Greg Watts
3. Benny Korthaus
4. Kyle Strait

Phil crashed pretty hard during practice and sat out during qualifying and finals. I haven't seen any pics, but it sounded gnarly. Get well soon, Phil!

Meanwhile, I zipped back to the states for a week to catch up on paperwork and video editing stuff. I hopped a plane to Slovenia for the first World Cup. We'll be shooting footage for Freecaster, which you can also watch live on Freecaster.tv.

Today we arrived in Maribor and found our hotel, which was located at the top of the mountain. The fastest way down is the gondola, which is super crazy. To top it off, Fraser let me know that it's the oldest "working" gondola in Eastern Europe. Greaaaaaat...



2008.05.01 Qashqai Spain


Phil is in Madrid at the next Qashqai event while I'm back in the states editing all of the stuff we shot in Germany and Italy over the past few weeks. The next event in Madrid is set to start this weekend, and you'll be able to watch it live on Freecaster.

I got an e-mail from Phil with some photos and updates from Madrid. Here goes:

The course is looking pretty sick..
There is a big roll-in to a large first set, then you roll right into a berm to the left with a roller at the end. Right into a big lip, off the lip, and then you jump up to an elevated landing with a berm to the right and a lip/kicker into a landing, THEN you just have to keep speed from the drop to clear the final two sets.

That's how the course is setup and its looking to be a lot of fun! Its real dirt, so that's a good start.

Also there is a shot of me and AT doin a "back-to-back Lutze"...you'll like it.

---

So that's the update from Phil. Stay tuned, I should hopefully have some edits done before I leave for Europe on Monday.



2008.04.27 Qashqai Results


The first Qashqai is in the books and it went off with a bang! It was cool to see everyone again, and the riders are back in full form. Here are the results from the finals--it was best two runs out of three, so a few people had good runs but had trouble putting two solid ones together, hence a few lower scores. Martin Soderstrom qualified first but ended up hurting his shoulder in practice...Phil over-rotated a big 360 on the second jump twice in a row, but came back in the third run with the second-highest run score of the day.

Darren Pokoj had been sidelined since Crankworx, having multiple surgeries to fix the wrist that he shattered off the jumbotron drop. He started riding again last week with limited movement in his wrist, but judging by his results and this 360, I don't think he lost anything over the last six months...

Trond was in top form and absolutely slayed it. He did some massive tricks--even 360-ing the first jump and front flipping the last jump. It was awesome to see Trond throwing down so hard, he was killing it at the Milan event last year, so it was great to watch him lock it down this year.

If I understand it correctly, the top five riders from this event will join the 15 invited riders for the rest of the tour, so that means that Trond, Mischa, Sam Pilgrim, Kurt Sorge and Damjan Siriski have got spots in the Munich and London Qashqai events. (Adam Hauck and Darren Pokoj were already part of the top 15.)

There was one heck of a party last night, and today we've just been chilling and walking around town. Phil's girlfriend Amanda even caught a bird in Piazza Duomo!

Tomorrow I'm heading back to Portland and Phil is going to be heading to Madrid for the next stop of the Qashqai tour.



2008.04.25 Qashqai Qualifiers


Top three from the first round of qualifying:
1. Martin Soderstrom
2. Phil Sundbaum
3. Alex Reveles

Forty riders went through their first round of qualifying today...a couple unknowns were throwing down hard, a few bigger names got balled up on their way through the jumps, but will be coming back stronger tomorrow for sure.

Tomorrow's schedule starts around noon with the second round of qualifying, then the finals start around 6pm with the top 15 riders. The top five riders from Milan who aren't already pre-qualified will be invited to ride in the entire series, so that should mix things up a bit. I'd put money on Marius Hoppensack and Martin Soderstrom, for sure. Hopefully we'll get some more Americans like Andrew Taylor and A-Rev into the mix as well. Tyler McCaul was riding pretty well today and so was Ryan Howard. Super impressed by all these guys...America was well represented today!

With all the traveling we've been doing for the Summer Of Shred this year, Phil and I decided to cash in some frequent flyer miles to bring some lovely ladies over to Milan to hang out for the weekend. It's funny to watch their reactions to all the stuff that we take for granted (like straight airs over massive dirt jumps). Good times.

I'll try to post up pics and results before we meet up with everyone for the afterparty tomorrow. If not, I'll get them up on Sunday morning!



2008.04.24 Qashqai Milan


We walked to the site for the first Qashqai event in Milan today to scope it out. People are just rolling into town, a lot of the riders are just arriving in Europe for the first time, so it's cool to watch their reactions and stuff. I can't wait to see them again tomorrow after trying to sleep for their first night with crazy jetlag. I'm sure we are going to see some tired faces at the qualifiers tomorrow!

There are a bunch of posters for the event around town. We walked by a bunch of them on our way to the venue, so hopefully there will be a ton of spectators at the event. Last year I saw a kid wearing a "In Kyle Strait We Trust" handmade t-shirt, but since Kyle isn't here this year, the Italian kid is going to have to make a different shirt.

I got my first taste of Red Bull Cola today...it's not an energy drink, it's all-natural cola with no additives or preservatives. I only got a sip of it, and I'm not really a big fan of cola in the first place, but it seemed pretty good.

Of all the places to eat Burger King, everyone picked Italy to do it! Thankfully I'm filling up on pasta and all of the fine Italian food. Stuff like this just makes me nervous...at least with pasta you know that it's not going to eat your insides!

Alright, now to the info that everyone is really after. What does the course look like for the first Qashqai event? Here you go...the first jump is huge, the next one is average size, then a big speed jump into a big booter. The bmxers that built the jumps rode it a little bit today and it looks like it's going to be a fun course to ride. All the riders who were hanging out today look excited to throw down on it.

Tomorrow is the first round of qualifying and best trick contest, so stay tuned for that. We're also importing some lovely American girls tomorrow to join the party, so it should be a great weekend no matter what.

Also...check this out, I'm famous! Now you can download a wallpaper of me (third photo, in the red) from the Diamondback site to go on your computer! haha



2008.04.23 Thanks Timo!


We left Berlin today after an amazing last few days there with Timo Pritzel. It was awesome hanging out with him in the city and riding Mellowpark. The wind finally died down today, so we had a proper session. Phil and Timo were throwing down on both the dirt and the park, so look for a segment in the near future.

Phil and I arrived in Milan this evening and got settled in at the hotel, which is within walking distance of Piazza Duomo. It's a super epic zone with lots of beautiful buildings, plus an awesome place to get gelato! haha

Here's a pic for my dad, who just had a procedure done on his heart today. I'm drinking some red wine to your health!



2008.04.22 Mellowpark + The Wall


Berlin is sweet, for sure...Timo is a great tour guide and he took us to Mellowpark today to check out the park and dirt jumps. It was great to finally see it in person, although it was pretty windy, so we basically just looked at the jumps and crossed our fingers that we would be able to hit them up tomorrow before we get on our flight to Milan for the first Qashqai event.

After the Mellowpark viewing, we headed over to the pumptrack that was built by all the Blackbox Labs guys (Carlo, Timo, Joscha, etc) and had a proper session. It was really fun and super fast. Some of the locals were tricking one of the rollers, so Phil got in on that.

The sun started to set, so we drove a couple minutes to the Berlin Wall and snapped a bunch of photos. The upside to all of this traveling is being close to historical bits and getting little history lessons on every trip. It was really cool to hear more about the Berlin Wall and the effect on everything over here.

Tomorrow we're going to try Mellowpark again, then catch a flight to Milan. Stay tuned!



2008.04.22 Berlin with Timo


We rented a car and drove to Berlin to meet up with Timo yesterday. We stopped a couple times along the way to take siestas, since we celebrated the night before and were up a bit late. We eventually made it to town around 9pm and settled in.

Timo showed us the Atmosfair stockroom today and we checked out some of his new gear. We were super psyched on everything we saw, and if you live in Europe, you can order it directly from Timo's website.

We rode around town a little bit today on some commuter bikes, and now we're getting ready to go check out the famous Mellowpark jumps. Phil and I have both been dying to see these jumps in person, because they look so incredible in photos and stuff, so today should be awesome. Stay tuned for another update later today!



2008.04.20 T-Mobile Results


Maybe you watched it live, or maybe you can tell by the image above, but the results of the T-Mobile event are as follows:
1. Paul Basagoitia
2. Lance McDermott
3. Phil Sundbaum

It was awesome to see Phil do well at this contest, especially after all of the riding and traveling that we've been doing already so far this year. I'd say it's made a difference in his riding--he absolutely slayed it today. He had some bad luck in the semi-final against Paul Bas, but made up for it earlier in the day by knocking two of Europe's best dirt jumpers out of the contest (it was elimination format): Timo and Chopper. Everyone was riding really well, so it was a fun contest to watch.

It came down to Paul and Lance for the mountain bike contest, and they were both in top form. Paul was throwing down just as hard as usual, and he even 360'd the first drop, which no one was really tricking at all. Lance front flipped the last jump and was throwing out some monster tuck-no handers over the first jump. The jumps here were massive, but it was cool to see the mtb crew rise to the challenge and put on a good show.

There was also a huge show with Millencolin and a couple other bands playing in between the heats. The bmxers put on quite a show, and Haro Bikes represented strongly, taking third in mtb (Phil) and first in bmx (Nyquist).

European contests are always fun, if not for the weird quirks, like the amount of accreditation that I needed to get on the course to film. The crowds over here are awesome, too. Everyone had their hands full signing autographs! Phil and Timo got selected to sign autographs in the T-Mobile booth, and there was a serious line for them!

All in all, a great contest. Tomorrow, Phil and I are loading up a rental car and heading up to Berlin, where we'll hit up Mellowpark and some other Berlin sights with Timo Pritzel for the next stop of Summer Of Shred. After that, it's Milan for the first stop of the Qashqai series. Good times!



2008.04.19 T-Mobile Extreme Playgrounds


The T-Mobile Extreme Playgrounds event is set to go off tomorrow, and everyone seems pretty fired up for it. There are ads for the contest everywhere, and it should be rad. The course is getting dialed in, and everyone was riding well in practice today. The event is going to be featured live on MTV over here, so that's cool. It will also be live on the internet (Freecaster), so if you want to watch it, click below to check it out. I think the event starts around 8pm in Europe, which is 9 hours ahead of the west coast of the USA.

My good friend Damjan Siriski is one of the ten invited riders at the contest, so I'm psyched to see him again. He was riding really well today during the practice session.

The format of this event is kind of like a bike battle in that it's head-to-head, with the best rider advancing to the next round. I guess they have to kick it up a notch for the tv stuff, so that'll make things interesting. I'll post results and some pics tomorrow when it becomes available.



2008.04.18 SOS New Zealand (part two)


Check it out, the second half of our New Zealand trip! Big thanks to Caleb Smith, Justin Leov, Eddie Parker, Brett Frew, Dan Frew, Kelly McGarry, Chris Beverland, and everyone else that hooked us up while we were over there. We had a blast and hopefully we'll be back again soon!

2008.04.17 Instant Karma


Today (or yesterday) I got on a direct flight from Portland to Amsterdam. I was psyched because I had the whole row to myself, so I stretched out and fell asleep after watching a couple flicks. Halfway through the "night", a flight attendant shakes me and asks if I would give up my row for a sick passenger. I obliged, and after they sorted out the passenger, they led me to the front of the plane and dropped me off in first class! How's that for karma, you even get real mugs for tea up there!

Once I got to Amsterdam (check out the cargo ship migration), I hopped a tiny plane to Cologne, then got picked up and headed to Duisburg, where the T-Mobile Extreme Playgrounds contest is going down. They were still building the course today, but it looks like it's going to be super sick. Millencollin and a couple other bands are playing on the stage at the end of the dirt jumps. It seems like there is going to be a MASSIVE crowd here in Germany.

Mossy from TAOW put together a little inspirational poster for me. What do you think?



2008.04.15 Mom, Don't Watch This..


We're back in Portland after that beast of a drive from Woodward West. We got home just in time for Phil's girlfriend Amanda's birthday party, and we celebrated in style. Good times...happy birthday Amanda!

The next morning we woke up to the news of a third pumptrack within two miles of my house! Our buddy Pat put together a HUGE pumptrack in his backyard with lines going everywhere. It has a heart shape, and there is an inside line, which you can hop in and out of. Rocker Dave put it best: "North Portland is now being renamed Pumptrack City"...

Tomorrow we're headed over to Germany for the T-Mobile Xtreme Playgrounds event in Cologne. Stay tuned for pics and a live feed on Freecaster.

The second half of the New Zealand segment is almost done. I took a short break from my NZ editing to pull together a couple clips from the Woodward trip. This is my attempt at learning backflips on resi. Mom, don't watch this clip!




2008.04.11 Woodward to PDX


Today was our last day at Woodward, followed by a looooong drive back to Portland. We needed to be back by Friday for some stuff, so we sessioned until 11pm. After the session, we packed up and showered, then hopped in the truck and started driving.

Around 2am we stopped for gas, and for some reason the truck wouldn't start back up. Phil worked on it for about two hours (I'm basically useless when it comes to car stuff) until he remembered something that his younger brother Sam told him about the battery. Phil scraped off some stuff on the battery and the car fired up as strong as ever, and we were back on the road by 4am! THANKS SAM!!

We made it home around 6pm, and immediately jumped into my pumptrack to get our blood flowing again! It was a great trip and everyone pushed their riding level a few notches higher (including myself). Good times...good crew..



2008.04.09 Day 2 Woodward


Just another day riding the best training facility for bikes in the world, no big whoop. I took my flips to the resi today, with varying levels of success. I did get it around, but my feet blew off the pedals when I landed. Whatever, it was still better than landing it perfect in the foam.

Phil is killing it, dialing in a few things here and there. Porter's buddy Blake just learned tuck no-handers in a couple tries and is already throwing them down on the box.

We scoped out the slopestyle course here at Woodward, they have been working really hard on it lately with some heavy machinery. It looks like a lot of fun! We will probably shoot a couple lines on it tomorrow.

We are in the presence of greatness...pick up the new copy of Mens Journal and flip to page 200-something and you'll see the face of our lovely Canadian friend and fellow roadtripper/shredder, Darcy Turenne. Niiiiice...



2008.04.08 Let the sessions begin...


Today was our first full day of riding at Woodward West. We slept in a bit, grabbed a mellow lunch, and then wandered around the area looking at all of the stuff that we can ride this week.

The foam pit got some serious action today, and even I got in on the session. I started un-penciling my flips. Phil was 3-whipping and double-360ing the resi ramp as well. Darcy was boosting as well, and she is headed towards 360s by the end of the week.

Speaking of Darcy, we had a good laugh at the grocery store tonight--she was in rare form! She grabbed one of those swimming noodles and started chasing Phil around the store. It was like watching someone poke a bear in a cage at the zoo with a stick!

Here are two vids from today...me and phil...



2008.04.07 Roadtrip to Woodward


The other day Phil and I loaded up the truck with our bikes and our favorite Canadian girl ripper, Darcy Turenne, and headed down toward Woodward West. With all of the flying we've been doing, it was refreshing to do a nice, long roadtrip!

I think we all needed a little extra sleep, and the truck was a great place for that...even for the driver! We made it a point to hit up In-N-Out on our way down, too. Darcy is a vegetarian (or at least she was until she saw our double-doubles) so she wasn't super psyched at first, but she was still amazed to see the wonder that is In-N-Out.

We stopped in San Francisco at Monika and Michael's house last night. We had a great breakfast and a chill morning with them, then we scoped out the view from the roof before hopping back into the truck for one last stretch of highway. We got to Woodward around 9pm tonight and had a chill session just flowing around and getting used to the park. It seems to be empty right now, so we've got the whole park to ourselves.

We met Eric Porter and one of his bros out here, they'll be hanging out and shredding all week, too. I'm looking forward to a super fun and relatively relaxing week of riding and progression!

We ended our night with a little Office session. Right before I left for this trip, I got a little package in the mail with season one (THANK YOU KARA!) so we are making good use of it. I don't even know if our tv works in the room here, but at this point, it really doesn't matter. Lastly, check out the first half of the New Zealand segment for the Summer Of Shred. The second half has even more bangers, so sit tight. I'll be finalizing that edit as soon as I get back from Woodward West. Also, go to PinkBike and leave us a bunch of comments and favorite it so we can get V.O.D. on this clip!

2008.04.03 The Official Beginning Of Summer


I'd say that we had kind of a 'soft opening' for the pumptrack over the last couple weeks, but last night was the grand opening, and we had everyone over for a monster bbq and shred session. Everyone brought their bikes and we broke in the track properly!

Phil got the grill going with a little extra flair, then watched me ride for a bit. Dave Hemming was on hand to man the grill and he held down the spot of token English guy all night!

Landon Holt of Tonic Fab made a surprise appearance and I couldn't have been happier to see him and ride with him. He broke his leg almost exactly a year ago and was on crutches for five months, but you wouldn't know it if you saw him riding the track. He was the first person to manual through the rollers (it's a lot harder than it sounds, trust me) and he generally slayed it all night. He snapped a ton of pics, too, so I suspect you'll be able to find those on the Tonic Fab blog.

Good times.. Tonight Darcy Turenne, Geoff Gulevich, Tyler Maine and Yukon James are going to be at the house. I promise that this blog isn't just going to be pumptrack photos from now on...I swear we are going down to Cali in a couple days! After that we'll be in Europe for T-Mobile and Qashqai, so sit tight!



2008.03.30 Stoked on being pumptracked..


The pumptrack sessions are getting better and better as the weather improves and the track is packing in. My lap time now is 4.4 seconds, but I suspect that I'll be able to sneak under 4 seconds by the time summer comes around. This past month has been great for riding, as I've had a chance to ride almost every style from trials to all mountain. I'm remembering why I moved to Portland in the first place--sweet riding within minutes of my house (or a few inches in the case of the pumptrack).

After an epic ride at some nearby trails today, Tyler from PinkBike swung down from Canada with Geoff Gulevich and Yukon James on their way to Hood River. They are going to be riding that zone for the week and doing some stuff at Dakine, so they stopped by this afternoon. Gully is officially hooked on Guitar Hero after a couple rounds, so I think they might stop back at my place on their way back to Canada for some more hero (and a dry pumptrack session).

Darcy Turenne is also coming down this week, she'll join us for a roadtrip down to Cali for some time at Woodward West. I finally got my bike back together, thanks to Mike at Atomlab. He laced me up with some fresh wheels, so my bike is rolling again!



2008.03.28 Good to be home..


I've been back in the USA for a full week now, and I can say that while I had an awesome time traveling around the Pacific Rim...I'm glad to be home. I had a couple e-mails to catch up on when I hit US soil, but I'm nearly caught up now.

The importing process for New Zealand has begun, and the footage is looking good. It's always fun to import footage from trips like this, because it always reminds you of all the good stuff you got to do. Then again, it's also kind of a bummer to sit behind a desk and look at scenes like this!

After months of patience, I finally got my first session on my own pumptrack. Everyone else has been riding it in, like the Tonic crew, but I kept missing the riding windows because I would either get home after dark or it would be a little wet from the rain. Anyways, last night was great, the pumptrack was everything I hoped it would be. Cory Tepper and I had a proper session on it, and all I can say is that it's going to be a good summer filled with some bbqs and full shred sessions at my house. Good times!

Phil and I are planning our next couple trips. He's been invited to a whole mess of contests (including all five Qashqai events), so I think the next stop is going to be a serious training session at Woodward West.

PinkBike just posted up our first two clips on their main page. I should have the New Zealand clip done by the middle of next week, so stay tuned!



2008.03.25 Back to PDX


Finally the journey back home is complete...and now it's time to crank out both the Australia and New Zealand edits for our Summer Of Shred trips. We've got some time back home before heading to Europe for the T-Mobile Indoor Playgrounds Contest, which will be followed up by the Qashqai series (Phil is invited to all five events).

I came home to a totally dialed pumptrack, and I couldn't be happier. Big thanks to Aaron Nachtrab and Charlie Sponsel for putting it together and making it look pretty (and for jumping over my fence). Here's a quick video that they put together from one of the first official sessions on it:

In other news, Atomlab is putting together a big jam before Sea Otter in San Diego. Go to Thrashbike.com and get all of the information for it.

Check this out, I set Harookz up to shoot photos on a project with this guy this week in Miami. I am hoping that this is going to give him some sweet blog content for his next update.

Time to start editing! Check back soon for updates. I peeked at the New Zealand footage last week and it looks EPIC!



2008.03.19 In transit..


I'm typing this from the Taipei airport, where I'll conclude my final stop in a whirlwind tour of the Pacific. From here, I fly to LA, then to Salt Lake City, then finally Portland, OR, where I'll hopefully have a bevvy of tasty American food waiting for me! I haven't eaten a burrito in over THIRTY DAYS!!

What can I say, it's been the trip of a lifetime. I saw so much stuff that I never expected to see. I ate some stuff that I hope that I never see again. I learned a lot and I'm coming home from this trip with a lot of new ideas about just about everything.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to spend some time at the RST office in Taipei. They do a lot of the high-end assembly in Taiwan, and all of the prototypes and stuff comes from this office as well. I can't show a lot of the pics for obvious reasons, but I snapped a few assembly pics of the Storm fork being put together. It was cool to see this first hand...actually it was cool to see stuff that originated on my computer being manufactured in person!

The other cool thing about the RST office is that they have the biggest bike shop in Taiwan attached to the front of their office. It's a two-story shop with a little cafe and chill out area, plus a ton of bikes and riding gear and stuff. It was pretty sweet to walk around and check everything out, and the coffee from the RST Cafe is actually super tasty!

One of my highlights of the last few days at the RST office was hanging out with the R&D guys and some of the other guys who I've known for a while. One guy in particular (who designs the actual look of the forks, aesthetically) is a guy who previously was referred to as "Gary". When we went out to dinner the other night, they explained to me that his name in Chinese sounds like "Golden Dog" when you say it with a Taiwanese accent. So basically from then on, Gary became Golden Dog. This guy is hilarious. He can't handle spicy food and at one particular Thai food dinner, I made him try everything first to make sure it was safe to eat (I'm not that great at eating spicy food, either). Golden Dog was my guinea pig for the night! He was a good sport about it, or at least that's what I think he was saying.

Today before I left the office, Kevin (worldwide sales manager for RST)) explained to the whole crew at RST about my trip over the past month. We calculated that I've been on in transit between airplanes and airport terminals for 81.5 hrs total, which doesn't include driving or ferry time (which is easily another 30-50 hrs). That's only an estimate, and I just got delayed in Taipei about an hour ago, so I expect the number to get even higher!

In any case, I want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who supported me on this trip. I appreciate everything that has been done for me over these past four or five weeks, and if you're in my neck of the woods, I'll be more than happy to return the favor!

Stay tuned...I heard the pump track is running at my house finally...and next week I should have the edits done for both the New Zealand and Australia Summer Of Shred segments.



2008.03.15 Taipei, Taiwan


What a long, strange trip it's been...even after spending a week in Japan, I wasn't fully prepared for this trip to Taiwan. It's been really cool, but totally different from anything I could've expected. The Taipei trade show is all about OEM and pricing, whereas Interbike and Eurobike have more of a marketing push (in my experience) behind them. It's cool to see where everything comes from, and it's neat to see behind the scenes of the bike industry.

Yesterday was my 28th birthday, so I spent the evening with Jaromir "Spaceman" Spesny and Kenichi Iwasa, two of my best friends. We ended up with a huge group, and Martin Havlena, the owner of Author Bikes, organized a table at a local club, complete with a birthday cake! Thanks Martin!!

Here are a whole mess of photos from the past twenty four hours:
-RST Storm fork
-RST R1 downhill fork crown, with Boxxer stem mounts!
-Tough As Hell still draws a crowd, one year later!
-The tallest building in the world, Taipei 101
-Rock Shox Argyle, now colored to match your Barney pajamas
-Hacksaw in a random Taiwanese booth
-An appropriately named bike
-Someone welded the top tube on this bike upside down
-I flew to Taiwan in a Hello Kitty plane with Hello Kitty EVERYTHING

Two more days in Taiwan, then I finally get to come home to the USA!!



2008.03.12 Fear Factor: Japan


"When the going get's weird, the weird turn pro." -Hunter S. Thompson

The last few days have been a lesson in sending it, but in a much different way than I'm used to. I will admit that I asked for the full Japanese culture treatment when I came here, and I guess I really didn't know what to expect. In any case, Kenichi has been doing a great job of putting me in some wild situations that can only be good for personal growth -- like the other night's mission to what seemed like a simple barbeque session.

I went in relaxed, thinking that I was going to have some bbq and teriyaki meat and a couple beers. What followed was the weirdest meal I have ever eaten in my whole life. To keep it short, I'll skip to the highlight, which was SASHIMI CHICKEN. Yup, the sushi version of chicken. In all honesty it wasn't that bad, but I was just a little bit nervous when they put it on my plate. I also ate heart, liver, tendons and a bunch of other stuff that would make even Joe Rogan nod in approval.

I was feeling pretty proud of myself after that meal, but then I jumped online to tell a couple friends and Pablo Tafoya took it to the next level. He had duck blood soup in Taiwan last year. Pablo is on another level! I'll settle for second place to this guy any day.

Aside from some weird food here and there, we've been doing a lot of super fun stuff, and actually riding quite a bit. Brian Hong, who was a top Canadian trials rider, lives here and he took us down to the waterfront of Kobe for a fun session. We also met up with Teisuke Morimoto last night, who is the Black Market and Tonic Fab distributor in Japan. He lives super close to where I've been staying, so we met up with him for a bit. He hooked us up with a new video from his crew, so once I get a chance to watch that, I'll post up some info on it.

Today we did more tourist-style stuff, since it's my last day in Japan. I picked up a few things and then we hit up Monkey Mountain and the Golden Palace. Self-explanatory, I guess. I got to add "monkeys" to my list of animals that I fed on this trip (in addition to kangaroos in Australia), so that was cool.

Tomorrow morning I'll be on my way to the Taipei bike show, so you can expect to see a bit more bike content in the next couple days. For a lot of companies, this is a sneak peak at what's coming for 2008 and 2009. Stay tuned!



2008.03.09 Japan Update


Japan is my kind of country. They don't have energy drinks here, they have "medicine", which is way better anyways. They have full aisles of the stuff in drug stores, and it doesn't have any carbonation or anything--plus you can get some high powered stuff that makes you feel like your heart is going to explode! I can't remember how much Taurine is in Red Bull back home, but over here you get 3000mg in these tiny bottles. CHEERS!

They also have food for ninjas over here. I knew it!

The past few days have been really awesome and eye-opening for sure. I've seen and done a lot of cool stuff, including a trip to the mountains for a snowmobile trip! I thought it was funny that I was sitting on a beach last week in board shorts, then freezing in snow this week!

The food has been really good over here, by the way. Lots of fish and noodles, as I expected, but the thing I'm learning is that you can't judge anything by the way it looks. Some of the gnarliest looking food is super tasty!



2008.03.07 I came to Japan to ride a parking lot


This morning came around quickly, but we are determined to make the most of my time in Japan. Biketrials was a huge part of my life for a long time, so it's cool to be in a country that is really fired up about it. Kenichi runs one of the biggest biketrial distribution centers in Japan, so he hooked me up with a bike to ride today in their outdoor practice facility.

Kenichi's buddy Yuu came down and we had a little session. This bike took a little bit of getting used to, as the bottom bracket is +65mm (your bike is probably a zero drop, so basically think of what your bike would feel like if your cranks were 65mm higher!). After about ten minutes, though, I was feeling pretty comfortable.

Yuu, Kenichi and I had quite the session. I landed some decent-sized gaps and got up a stack of pallets that was roughly four feet high! Kenichi made the comment that American riders are very powerful, and the next time I went for a gap, I snapped my chain! Bike and body were fine, and looking back at the reaction from my chain, I guess it was pretty funny.

Time for lunch...Kenichi is getting in the habit of putting weird stuff in front of me and saying: "Try." Every meal is an adventure!

Here's a quick video of the action:




2008.03.07 Japan!


Tonight I arrived in Osaka, Japan after two long days of traveling! Phil and I spent nine hours at the airport in Perth before catching our flight to Sydney. We got to Sydney around 6am and couldn't check in for a while, so we ended up killing a few more hours wandering around the Sydney airport. Phil had to stay there until 9pm before catching a flight back to the states. I got my flight to Osaka around noon, then spent 11.5 hrs twiddling my thumbs (because I lost my iPod somewhere in NZ).

I arrived in Osaka and was promptly greeted by my good friend and host for the week, Kenichi Iwasa. Kenichi runs Gold Rush, which is a distributor for bike trials and other bike-related stuff in Japan. I've known him for ages, and he's visited me in the states a handful of times, so it was time for me to see him on his side of the world. So far so good, we sessioned a sushi bar as soon as my plane hit the ground, and now I'm catching up on e-mails and web stuff in the Gold Rush office. It should be an awesome week!



2008.03.06 Last Day Down Under


Time to pack it up and head back to the Northern Hemisphere! Today was our last day in Perth, and we spent it at the airport. We've had a boatload of logistical issues while we've been on this leg of the trip, but we made the most of it. Unfortunately, THIS is the closest we got to Sam Hill while we were down under. Long story..

So anyways, we got to the airport at noon because we had to check out of the hotel with all of our baggage (160kg of luggage to be exact). Our flight leaves tonight at midnight, so we're trying to keep ourselves entertained. Phil and I go to Sydney together from here, and then he heads back to the USA while I hit up Osaka, Japan and the Taiwan for the Taipei trade show. Expect some pretty crazy updates over the next ten days -- and for all of you that make fun of me for the food photos, GET READY FOR SOME WILD EATIN'!!

Big thanks to Ben Parker and Bryan Wielgasz for hooking us up in Australia. Also, another big thanks to the New Zealand crew for showing us an awesome time as well. The Southern Hemisphere has been sweet!



2008.03.03 Living The Dream


What a day....we fired out some hot lines, sorted out rental cars and other important stuff, but after all the hard work was done, we relaxed like champs! I was too busy shooting video to snap any shots of the action today, but afterwards we headed to the Indian Ocean and jumped in!

Prepare to totally hate us...first we're petting kangaroos in the wild, now we're diving into the Indian Ocean. Living the dream...what can I say...

I'll try to snap some action shots tomorrow, we're shooting with photographer Ben Parker and we should be hooking up with some sick riders tomorrow for a serious session.



2008.03.02 Kangaroos!


We spent today trying to get dialed in for the rest of the week. We're supposed to meet up with Sam Hill while we're in Perth for some downhill action, so hopefully that will come together tomorrow. In the meantime, we've been exploring the area around our hotel.

We found this gem of a skatepark, but more importantly, we found another small park across the river from it where a bunch of kangaroos were just hanging out! They were just chilling, so we tried to get up close to them for some pics. We were a bit nervous at first, because they have massive face-ripper-offer claws, but when we offered up a little food, they turned out to be super friendly.

I caught this sunset photo on our way back from the kangaroo session, and then we heard from a local that this river (Swan River) has more shark attacks than the ocean! Good thing we didn't get the urge to go swimming!!



2008.03.01 Australia


What a crazy past few days it's been. Phil and I were sitting in the Sydney airport today after going through customs and quarantine for two hours and we were trying to figure out all the stuff that had happened since we showered last (at Brett Frew's farm). Here's what we came up with:

1. Drove 14 hours from The Frew Farm to Nelson
2. Broke down on the highway and tried to fix the wheel of our van
3. Slept on the roadside for two hours waiting for a new van
4. Arrived in Nelson at 7am
5. Boarded a helicopter at 9am
6. Rode down a mountain and shot photos/video
7. Packed everything up and drove to Blenheim to the ferry
8. Boarded ferry at 10:55pm
9. Shot lifestyle photos until midnight
10. Slept on the ferry from midnight until 2:30am
11. Drove to the Spoke office and packed up bikes
12. Left Spoke office at 3:45am for the airport
13. Checked into airport and ran through customs/security
14. Boarded flight to Sydney at 6:30am
15. Flew to Sydney and arrived at 9am
16. Stood in line for two hours (customs/quarantine)
17. Somehow the flight to Perth was running late, so we got on it at 11:30
18. Flew 5 hours to Perth (in an exit row) and our bags somehow made it as well
19. Arrived at hotel, sessioned the shower/laundry facilities!

Needless to say, we needed to take a little time off and just chill today. We've been riding a ton and working super hard (not to mention traveling quite a lot), so we spent the afternoon relaxing at the hotel and getting caught up on everything. Perth is turning out to be a pretty cool town, and we've got about six more days here, so that should be cool.

Big thanks to Caleb Smith, Justin Leov, Eric Porter, Brett Frew, Dan Frew, Chris Beverland, Eddie Parker, Bryce, Kelly McGarry, and everyone else who hooked us up while we were in New Zealand! We had an absolute blast there and are already working on plans to get back soon!

Here are a couple pics that we snapped today at various points:
-Hi Mom!
-The money in Oz and New Zealand is made of plastic and has a clear portion
-We got a healthy dose of "The Outback" during our flight from Sydney to Perth
-We found a bunch of imposter beverages in Perth!
-The King hasn't been to Aussie yet, I guess?

Totally unrelated, but check out the new e.thirteen Limited Colorways product that just dropped. This is shipping now...the official color is "RPM Orange".