RD WATTERS RACING

2012 Plans

2012-01-31T23:31:00.001-08:00

I've been pretty lazy about posting. Probably because biking has been on the back burner since Nationals. I'm still riding Galbraith over the winter, but for now the racing is done for a while. I think I've reached burn out stage on the whole racing thing. So for 2012 I've got no races planned. I'll miss hanging out at the races with the Fanatik team and joining all the hecklers watching the Pro's ride. I've had some great summers up in the woods with everyone. Good times.

I think the four months off in Alaska had a lot to do with it. Just being away from it all helped me re-evaluate a some things in my life and put things into perspective.

I knew being away from my wife and kids was going to be tough but I didn't realize how tough. So this winter has been mostly about hanging out with the family. Catching up on those lost times. Watching Noah race his first bike race, playing in the snow, building forts in the basement and spending more time with Lawana. Time to start investing more into the family. I've been pretty slack in that department in the past. Everyone you talk to with kids says it goes way too fast. I realized that when I got back, how much those little ones grew. It was wild.

Other things going on this winter have been getting to surf on the Lake up in Kelowna, B.C , shaping another surfboard, and taking a boating class at the tech. school to get my Washington boating card. Working on boats again has been good. Since moving to Bellingham, 8 years ago I've removed myself from the boating world. Mainly to get into the mountains and do something different than I was used to. But it's amazing at all the boating stuff going on around Bellingham.

So after getting back from Naknek and visiting North Carolina this summer I was able to think about a few things. Things like how I miss living in a small town, seeing our kids at the beach, warm water and warm water. I don't know if I could live with myself not teaching our kids to surf. So after lots of talks with Lawana and some brainstorming sessions. We've come up with moving back East. More than likely start in Beaufort, North Carolina . Oh also with the plan of purchasing a sailboat and living aboard with the family with the goal of cruising south for the winters. That sounds crazy just saying it. But that's the five year plan we've come up with. We don't plan on hitting the lottery anytime soon so this is a way of living with less to live richer. Plus it'll allow for more time with the kids, and a way to be on the water and travel some. That is of course if God hasn't let the world fall to pieces by then and we're still here. Not sure on all the financing and timeline but , just baby steps for now. So we'll try and keep our house rented in Sudden Valley and keep some ties here still. Also with the idea of working in Alaska for the summers still. So we can make some money and visit with Lawana's family up in Kelowna during the summer.

Anyways there's still lots in Bellingham we still want to do like, cruise the islands, climb Baker. So there's a very good chance we'll be back at some point. We're gonna miss it here a bunch. We've all made some great friends and hope to be back often as possible.

I don't leave for Alaska till sometime in April, but that will be here before we know it.

Here's some sites to other families living aboard that we've been checking out.

http://www.zachaboard.blogspot.com/

http://fourlivingaboard.blogspot.com/

http://www.svwondertime.com/

http://www.yachtmollymawk.com/

http://www.womenandcruising.com/sailing-families.htm

Snow Time

2012-01-20T23:30:00.000-08:00

Had a snow day off this week. Never too old for a sled ride.

Noah at Thriller Cross

2011-12-26T17:37:00.000-08:00

This comes a little late but better late than never. We went down with our family to watch Noah race the Thriller Cross. He did awesome . Lot's of kids and that's good to see for the future.

The Morning Commute

2011-11-16T00:39:00.000-08:00

Finally got the commuter rig all tuned up. Trying to bike to work this winter. Not to save the Planet , but to save a little green, stretch the legs and just slow down a bit from rushing around all the time. But for some reason it still turns into a race against the clock. Share the Road...

Yard Sale

2011-10-20T22:12:00.000-07:00

Moving in and out of our house this summer has made us go through some things. It's kind of late season for a yard sale but this stuff has to go. Its happening rain or shine. This Friday and Saturday 21/22 of October, 9 am each day.

Bike Clothes ,
Bike parts
Pads
Tires
Bike trainer (Trek) , with a bike to go with it. $45
Camelbaks
Videos
Bike rack
Bike (Transition Vagrant $450) complete

Also some tools and then there's all the kid stuff.

It's in Sudden Valley . Lake Whatcom Blvd, turn in gate 3 , across from fire station, follow Moving Sale signs.

US Nationals

2011-10-04T22:36:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple more photos from Nationals.

Parked beside nice guy Butch from Ashville , who exploded his wheel in his race run. Felt bummed for him , he was killing it in practice.

This is Noah doing some road consruction in the parking lot.

This is post race run

3rd place

Jeff Rees from Spokane, WA 5th place

Me and Noah with Emily, also Fanatik team rider who won Cat 1 19-29.

Congrats.

U.S. Nationals, Beech Mountain, NC

2011-09-28T21:51:00.000-07:00

I managed 3rd at Nationals this past weekend on one of the muddiest courses I've ridden. Riding in Hub deep ruts , riders falling and their bikes are still standing up kind of stuff. Beech Mountain put on a great event with a track that had a bit of everything. My family and I stayed over in Sugar Grove. The North Carolina mountains were awesome. Leaves just beginning to change , winding roads, and friendly people.
It was good to spend time with my family and take my mind off racing , to make it a bit more relaxing week and take off the pressure that usually comes with racing.

Now we've headed back to Wilmington to beach bum it for the next week till we head back to the NorthWest next Saturday.

U.S. Nationals

2011-09-16T22:13:00.000-07:00

The family and I will be heading out to North Carolina on Saturday to visit family, race Nationals, and hopefully score some hurricane swell (fingers crossed). Looking forward to riding up in the mountains of NC. U.S. Nationals/ Beech/Mtn.

I've been up in Kelowna taking it easy.I got one day up at Silver Star to get some DH runs in. Haven't had a whole lot of time on the bike for training except for hauling the kids around with the bike trailer. That's kind of like training.

Shots from this summer

2011-08-20T22:09:00.000-07:00

I put together some shots of the summer. Lots of shots of stuff and people I wish I could've got. Hard to capture all the moments that go on.

Alaskan Summer from RD Watters on Vimeo.

Looking forward to a relaxing ferry ride home.

Coming home soon

2011-08-17T01:07:00.000-07:00

This is our final flush deck boat project up in Naknek, AK. Looking forward to coming home. On Friday I'm gonna fly over to Katmai and check out some bears at Brooks Falls. Then I'll be taking the ferry to Bellingham from Whittier, AK and I'm looking forward to seeing the family again. It's been too long.

Then I think I might camp out at Galbraith, and do SST laps till I can't stand up. I have to get the legs back into shape for Nationals. See ya soon Washington.

Ready to come home

2011-08-09T00:07:00.000-07:00

Time to go home before I become a snack

Gone Fishing

2011-07-13T22:52:00.000-07:00

Took a last minute fishing job, here in Bristol Bay aboard fishing vessel Tina. Crewman got hurt so I got an opportunity to fish the legendary Bristol Bay Salmon fishery. We fished up in Egigik till things slowed down there then transferred to Naknek district. Pretty hard to describe the fishing that takes place. More like Combat fish harvesting I guess.

I should be back in September sometime. Missing the family and kids for sure. We're looking into visiting family in North Carolina and racing U.S. Nationals at Beech Mountain. Beech Mtn, US Nationals

Greetings from Bristol Bay

2011-05-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

Alaska

2011-04-23T22:10:00.000-07:00

What an amazing day for a bike ride today. I had a fun ride up on Galbraith with David and Kris. Everyone was outside enjoying the weather. Unfortunately that was probably my last ride up there till next Fall. Sure am glad it was a good one. I'll be headed up to Bristol Bay , Alaska doing boat repair work with B & C Fiberglass. There's not much in the way of riding up there in the Bay. Just real good fishing . Plus I'll probably be too busy working. It'll be interesting to come back to Bellingham and see how all the trails have changed. Hopefully we'll still be able to ride there. preservegalbraith

Here's a video of some of the gillnet boats we'll be working on.

ProGrt & Save Galbraith

2011-04-18T01:13:00.000-07:00

The good news was that the ProGrt was a blast. I love hanging with Fanatik/Bellingham crowd at the races. I got some good riding in and some surfing at La Push, Elwha and the Wedge as well . I finished 7th for the weekend in the wet conditions. With Tyler Earnhardt spanking all the 30-39 year olds. The pro's shredded Port Angeles. The heckling during Pro Race runs was all time as seen on Transitions video.

ProGRT How To Cheer from Transition Bikes on Vimeo.

More good news was the new Freehub magazine just came out . Tons of good articles and photos.

The bad news was on Monday after the ProGrt when Polygon gave notice to stop access to Galbraith. So check out http://preservegalbraith.org/ and http://www.whimpsmtb.org/ for updates.

meeting tomorrow evening about Galbraith.
Update from Whimps site:
Please come show your support for continued recreational use of Galbraith Mountain.

Date: 4/18/2011
Time: 7:00 pm
Location: Bellingham City Hall Council Chambers
MEETING FORMAT:
The WMBC will make a short introductory statement that will cover who the WMBC is, what we have done around the community beyond Galbraith Mountain and a history of our stewardship agreements.

The floor will then be opened up for three a minute question and/or comment and a five minute response from the chosen party. The meeting will last no more that one and a half hours.

The general public can be helpful by coming with good questions, creative respectful signs (small please), good input for elected officials/land owner and a positive attitude. Ride bikes to the meeting if you can.

Let's pack the place to capacity and then some!
Cheers,
WMBC Board

NW CUP

2011-03-23T21:11:00.000-07:00

The first NW Cup/Pro Grt race of the season is right around the corner. (April 7-10) I'm looking forward to get back to Port Angeles and hitting the trails. Maybe even sneak in a surf session, that's another great thing about P.A.

The first round is also the first Pro Grt national series race. There should be all the fast domestic Pros with hopefully some international Pros showing up like last year.

NW CUP

Surfboard Completed

2011-02-28T20:21:00.000-08:00

Building Surfboard part 3 from RD Watters on Vimeo.

Finished making my surfboard the other week. It came out nice. Went with my brother in law, Jason and friend Brad, out to check the Straits two weekends ago to ride our new boards. The Straits weren't working so we surfed Hoebuck Beach on Saturday and some La Push shorebreak on Sunday. I rode my new board but surf was a waist to chest but real mushy and couldn't find the push to get a real test. So I mostly rode another board for the weekend. Can't wait to get some real waves under it.

4x Finals

2011-02-27T21:44:00.000-08:00

It's been a few days now but the 4x racing up in Abbotsford finished up the other night , and we had an awesome time riding after work indoors.

I finished the series 3rd overall in 4x lites. It was fun racing the pros in the last couple races. I look forward to next year hopefully with a new frame.

rockabilly race report

clayton racicot photography

Final 4x race

2011-02-14T22:20:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow night is the final race of the 2010-2011 Rockabilly 4x races held in Abbottsford B.C. My wounds haven't healed up from last weeks epic crash . Fanatik did get my bike back in good running condition. Pinkbike had the race report from last weeks race. I had one photo from last weeks race in race report. http://www.pinkbike.com/news/Abbotsford-indoor-4x-5-2011.html

http://claytonracicot.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Indoor-4x-Racing-Feb-08-11/G0000yIbRuXly07g/I00001dlWGwOIs4o/P0000OzejHQAfOTs

A big thanks to Matt Stevens and his crew of volunteers for putting on these events for us to race .

rockabillyracing

http://www.abbotsfordbmx.ca/

claytonracicot

Surfboard Building

2011-02-04T06:26:00.001-08:00

SURFBOARD: FINS AND LAMINATING from RD Watters on Vimeo.

SHUTTLENUTS

2011-02-03T23:40:00.000-08:00

Bellingham local, Fanatik team rider, Mac Laws has created the best bike rack for trucks with canopies.
Check'em out shuttlenuts.com

Shuttlenuts BIKE RACK - November Riding in the Northwest from john wells on Vimeo.

Surf

2011-01-26T23:08:00.000-08:00

Dennis and I headed out to the Olympic Peninsula to catch some waves and we were pleasantly surprised. We saw Canadian pro surfers, Raph and Sepp Bruwhieler getting out as we were he heading down the trail. Also NorthWest Photographer Ki Kopkau, www.KiKopkau.com, was there and shared some shots of the day. Surf was overhead and super fun.

Abbotsford indoor BMX track

2011-01-21T06:35:00.000-08:00

Dave and I drove up to Abbotsford Tuesday night to go do some biking again. They had a fresh new track.
Race recap @:
http://www.rockabillyracing.com/index.php?categoryid=8&p2_articleid=62

Dave got some video of 4x Lite heats.

4x Lites from RD Watters on Vimeo.

NW CUP 2011 Schedule

2010-12-22T21:03:00.001-08:00

The schedule's for next years downhill races are starting to surface. Here's the important one's for us in the NorthWest. Looks like we're headed back to Oregon and starting off the season with the ProGrt race in Port Angeles. Should be a good start to the season.

Dates:

Round 1(Pro GRT) Dry Hill, Port Angeles April 7-10

Round 2 Dry Hill, Port Angeles May 13-15

Round 3 Mt. Hood/Skibowl June 24-26

Round 4 Mt. Hood/Skibowl July 8-10

Round 5 (Finals) Dry Hill, Port Angeles August 5-7

*schedule subject to change

http://www.nwcup.com/ for more info

Surfboard Shaping

2010-12-17T19:47:00.000-08:00

I've had the surfing bug lately . After our trip last weekend to Westport with my brother in law, Jason. I need to update the surfboard quiver. My standard shortboard has had a broken nose and it's time to replace it. My first thought was to order a S.O.D. board from back home http://www.wrightsvilleglassing.com/. Then I came across Fiberglass Supply in Burlington who sells tons of blanks and everything for building a surfboard. http://www.fiberglasssupply.com/
I knew what shape I wanted so I decided to shape it myself. I got Luis (co-worker) to come and hang out ,he did require beer and pizza. But he was good help. Here's the result.
Shaping it was fun , just have to go slow , Foam isn't very forgiving . I'm pretty happy with the result. I decided to go a bit shorter than usual but added some thickness throughout to add some floatation for all the rubber we have to wear hear in Washington. Final Dimensions: 6'0" width 18.38" Thickness 2.38" .

Shaping first surfboard from RD Watters on Vimeo.

Photos by Clayton Racicot @ Abbotsford Indoor

2010-11-28T01:25:00.000-08:00

CR_20101123_MTB_Indoor_4X_081.jpg Clayton Racicot Photography

CR_20101123_MTB_Indoor_4X_079.jpg Clayton Racicot Photography

CR_20101123_MTB_Indoor_4X_115.jpg Clayton Racicot Photography

CR_20101123_MTB_Indoor_4X_152.jpg Clayton Racicot Photography

CR_20101123_MTB_Indoor_4X_153.jpg Clayton Racicot Photography

His website is :
http://www.claytonracicot.com/index2.php#/rtext_7/

Rockabilly 4x (#2) Abbotsford Indoor

2010-11-25T20:59:00.000-08:00

Made it up to Abbotsford again for some more racing. Pretty nice walking indoors this time of year to ride with snow on the ground. Temperature got down to 15 on the drive up. Little chill in the air but that didn't stop anyone from showing up. We had 6 guys this time in Lites and I squeaked through to the main final where I ended up 4th for the night . Bart Brown is looking like the favorite in Lites this year with 2 wins so far. Even after snapping his crank coming out of the gate in a qualifying moto. Then went on to win on a borrowed bike. It feels awesome getting some riding in on the evenings and rubbing elbows with some Canucks.

4x Lites Final Video:

4x Lites final from RD Watters on Vimeo.

More info and race recap @ http://www.rockabillyracing.com/index.php?categoryid=8&p2_articleid=60

Rockabilly Indoor 4x racing (race #1)

2010-11-17T18:07:00.001-08:00

After an hour of tearing up the house looking for my passport , I headed up to the indoor Abbotsford bmx track. Only 37 miles from home in Bellingham, it's an awesome place to ride in the winter and tune up some skills. My legs weren't prepared for the power needed to ride this track well. After 4-5 laps I had to take a break and let my thighs recover before race time.

There were around 60 riders on the night , a little less than last years races. I raced 4x Lites (semi-pro) with only 4 guys in our group . I ended up 3rd on the night . Had a great time and looking forward to the series.

Race recap and results @ http://www.rockabillyracing.com/index.php?categoryid=8&p2_articleid=59

Get ready for some indoor 4x

2010-10-28T22:16:00.000-07:00

The indoor track in Abbotsford , BC has posted their indoor racing schedule.

4x race schedule:

Rockabilly Racing's Abbotsford Indoor 4x #1 November 16, 2010 8:00 pm Abbotsford, BC Abbotsford Agrifair (Indoor BMX)

Rockabilly Racing's Abbotsford Indoor 4x #2 November 23, 2010 8:00 pm

Rockabilly Racing's Women's 4x Clinic November 30, 2010 8:00 pm

Rockabilly Racing's Abbotsford Indoor 4x #3 January 18, 2011 8:00 pm

Rockabilly Racing's Abbotsford Indoor 4x #4 January 25, 2011 8:00 pm

Rockabilly Racing's Open 4x Clinic February 1, 2011 8:00 pm

Rockabilly Racing's Abbotsford Indoor 4x #5 February 8, 2011 8:00 pm

Rockabilly Racing's Abbotsford Indoor 4x #6 Finals February 18, 2011 8:00 pm

check http://www.rockabillyracing.com/index.php?categoryid=1 for updates or

http://www.abbotsfordbmx.ca/index.htm

Also down in Port Orchard , WA they will have another indoor season of 4x. Also this will be a U.S. Nationals qualifying event. info at http://gobmx.com/4X/

See ya at the races....

Atomic Dog

2010-10-12T22:30:00.001-07:00

Rode Atomic Dog trail last Sunday. My Makulu was starting to collect dust so I chose to give it a little mud bath up at Galbraith. It actually pedals really well for a 8" bike. I thought the trails were gonna be in worse shape after the hard rain we had at our house on Saturday night. Trails were in good shape actually and drained really well. Here's the video.

Atomic Dog from RD Watters on Vimeo.

Dry Hill , Fall Shuttle Day

2010-09-28T22:21:00.000-07:00

Looks like Olympic Dirt Society is putting on their Fall shuttle day. Great opportunity to ride all the trails they have to offer. Especially for anyone who is planning on racing for the first time to get a sample of what's out there.

Links: http://olympicdirtsociety.blogspot.com/ and www.nwcup.com

Galbraith Trail Work Days

2010-09-22T23:45:00.000-07:00

E.B. gives us the info on the upcoming Galbraith Traildays:

Just wanted to let you know about the FR crew's traildays for this upcoming season. The goal for this season is to improve the quality of the existing FR trails, while also creating some new killer trails to shred.

Here are the FR dates for the year. Mark 'em on your calendars.

October 16 - Sat - Sponsored by Fanatik Bike
November 14 - Sun
December 11 - Sat - Sponsored by Fairhaven Bike and Ski
January 9 - Sun - Sponsored by Transition Bike Company
February 12 - Sat - Sponsored by Transition Bike Company
March 13 - Sun - Sponsored by Jack's Bicycle Center
April 16 - Sat - Sponsored by Kona Bike Company
May 15 - Sun - Sponsored by Hidden Wave Board shop
June 25 - Sat - Sponsored by WMBC FR Crew

There may be some dates added, as we have a super ambitious trail plan this season. Our final plan will be posted shortly for folks to salivate over. :thumbsup: Stoked to see a lot of familiar faces again and get after it!

Cheers,
EB

More about October 16th's trailday from Hawk:

The WMBC FR crew is kicking off the building season on Saturday, Oct. 16th with plans to work on Evolution and Scorpion. Evo needs some repairs, general maintenance, bigger berms, and some jumps reshaped. Scorpion is getting some general maintenance, new berms to increase flow, and a flowy new section of single track as an alternate to the steep chute section.

Fanatik Bike Shop is sponsoring this trail day so you know there will be good coffee and pastries in the morning, hot pizza for lunch, and cold bevies all day long.

Details:
Date: Saturday, Oct. 16th
Time: Meet at 9:45 at the upper Lake Padden parking lot across from Galbraith Ln.
Sponsor: Fanatik Bike Shop
Trails: Evolution & Scorpion
Waiver: All volunteers will be required to sign a liability waiver before participating in any trail crew activities. Those under 18 years old will need to have a parent sign a waiver as well. You can print those off the WMBC website or they'll be some available in the morning of the build day.

For more info about our goals for the build season, come on out to the WMBC's general meeting, Oct. 10th from 4-6 pm at the Fairhaven Park Pavilion.

Lake Samish Salmon Row and Paddle

2010-09-17T21:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.salmonrowandpaddle.com/course.php

Kane Valley, B.C.

2010-09-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

Kane Valley , B.C. 2010 from RD Watters on Vimeo.

We went up to B.C. last weekend to do some camping and just relax. Racing seemed to take up most of the summer so now every weekend is about hanging with the family. I've been wanting to check this place out for awhile now. We pass the turn off for it every time we visit my wife's folks in Kelowna. It's east of Merritt about 10 miles or so . It's known for it's xc skiing trails in the winter which become double track mountain bike trails in summer. Also there's good fishing on the different lakes. You can also get to Kane Valley from the Coquihalla highway, which is the way we came in. You take Coldwater Rd. exit , go north paralleling the highway then you take a right on Kane Valley Rd. Then it's 10 miles down a gravel road with free range cows all over the place. Watch Out, sometimes they don't get out of the way very fast.
We found a campsite on Harmon Lake. This was a pretty slow weekend up there, so not too many people camping . Lot's of boats on the Lake though in the morning. We got there towards dark and were following the backside of a storm most of the way. When we went to set up camp it decided to start raining. Whatever, Noah and I put on our rain jackets and did our thing.

Saturday morning was pretty chilly till the fog burned off. So we spent the day walking, canoeing, biking and hanging out. The Cows would periodically come through camp to take a drink from the lake. My wife's parents made the hour drive from Kelowna to hang out for the day with us. So around nap time for the kid's I was able to sneak in a ride on some of the trails. The terrain is generally pretty mellow. The trails were made for xc skiing so no real steep parts just good xc riding with some cool scenery. The rain the day before was actually great for the trails , they hadn't seen rain here in probably a month. There's trail maps on every intersection almost , so it's almost impossible to get lost. I rode Aspen, Kane, Vale , and descended down Harmon trail. Coming down Harmon trail , even though it's basically a road down, it feels like some old school kamikazee riding i'm guessing . Going 30+ through groves of Aspen and slamming on the brakes for cattle. Sorry about the white spot in the helmet cam section, it drives me crazy too everytime I see it, our camera is overdue for replacement. Mountain biking has taken it's toll on this camera.

All in all it was a fun weekend. This area is great for camping and plenty of things to do for everyone.

World Cup Finals

2010-08-30T06:33:00.000-07:00

That was a pretty amazing final day of racing. Probably the closest overall title race ever. The whole season came down to one run. Gee Atherton proved he could handle the pressure and took the win on the day as well as the World Cup Overall Title. Too bad for fastest qualifier Steve Peat , he looked like he was on a winning run till he exploded.

Full replay at http://freecaster.tv/mtb/1011056/uci-mtb-world-cup-dhi-6-windham-men-replay

Next weekend should be action packed as well . With the World Championships held at Mt. St. Anne in Canada. There's seems to be a lot of hungry guys right now that need a good result. So I'm sure they'll let it all hang out for the last big race of the year.

Unfortunately Freecaster is making everyone pay for this one, but on the plus side it sounds like the coverage is gonna be their best yet.
http://freecaster.tv/live/mtb/1011058/uci-mtb-world-championships-dhi-mont-sainte-anne

World Cup Windham , NY

2010-08-26T07:50:00.000-07:00

Last round of this year's World Cup season this weekend over in Windham, NY. It's going to be interesting to see who takes the overall. Greg Minaar and Gee Atherton are only 7 points apart . So whoever can get rid of the nerves and put a good time down will take the overall .
4x starts on Saturday , then the Downhill on Sunday . Live on Freecaster.

Link to 4x on Sat.
http://freecaster.tv/live/mtb/1012196/uci-mtb-world-cup-4x-6-windham

Capitol Forest Super D

2010-08-16T00:03:00.001-07:00

Drove down to the Capitol Forest Super D race on Saturday just outside Olympia, WA for the day. About 6 hours of driving for 30 minutes of riding if you include my post race ride down #8. Which I could've probably done without , because then I wouldn't have all these scratches and soreness going on.

This is was my first Downhill type race 2 years ago and has become maybe my favorite of the year. The GL6 trail is really fun and the event is pretty low key. I ended up 3rd on the weekend barely edging out 4th and 5th by one second . This race is definitely challenging. I'm not used to going race pace for 24 minutes and the short climbs take a lot out of you , not to mention the heat.
For some reason this year I ended up missing two sections of the trail and had to quickly stop and get back on course. But 2nd place beat me by over 40 seconds so it wouldn't have made much of a difference. Conditions were hard pack and loose . Lots of loose corners you had to watch out for and not blow right through them. I think I beat my best time there by over 40 seconds. I finished with a 23:31 I believe. I was feeling the pain . Your legs never really get a break. Your either standing up , hauling downhill or pedalling every section. I had a stomach cramp for half my run and was dying for a drink of water at the bottom.

All in all it was worth the drive again .Local guy Matt Jagger took the Open Category with a fast time of 20:26. After lunch, awards, and raffle I hooked up with Local guy , Eric, who took me down #8 I think. Maybe it was the fatigue from racing or the cold beverages from lunch but I felt like I was off my bike more than on. Conditions were really good for "Pete Rose " style slides in the dirt , So that's what I worked on during the ride. I went over the bars at least 3 times and one time found myself maybe 15 feet below the trail after being ejected by some ferns. I would just get up and try and catch back up to Eric to make sure I didn't get lost . The trail took us back to the finish area, where we shuttled back up to pick up his truck. Then it was time to drive back to Bellingham where I let the breeze dry out my skinless elbows.

Bike-In on Bay Street

2010-08-07T23:49:00.000-07:00

Pickford's bike festival . http://www.pickfordevents.com/

Vast Action

2010-08-07T23:31:00.000-07:00

I recieved my CD of photos from nationals today that I ordered from VastAction. I'm pretty stoked with how many photos they took. Close to 50 photos or something. They do an awesome job and for as many photos as they took the price was really good too.

http://www.vastaction.com/

Also next weekend is the Capitol Forest Super D held outside Olympia, WA . This is a super fun race. With great trails and awesome people. http://www.focfracing.com/

Crankworx

2010-08-07T23:23:00.000-07:00

Lots of great riding to watch live online from just up the road in Whistler this week @ Crankworx.

watch live @ http://www.crankworx.com/whistler/home or go211.com

LIVE BROADCAST SCHEDULE (Pacific Time)

Saturday August 7:
Dual Slalom - Amateur Ladders, 3:30pm - 6:00pm
Dual Slalom - PRO Ladders, 6:00pm - 8:00pm

Sunday August 8:
Monster Energy Garbanzo DH Pro Divisions, 3:30pm - 6:00pm

Tuesday August 10:
Canadian Open Enduro - Recap Show, 4:00pm - 5:00pm

Wednesday August 11:
Air DH Pro Divisions, 3:30pm - 5:30pm

Thursday August 12:
VW Trick Showdown, 4:30pm - 6:30pm
The Ultimate Pump Challenge in partnership with Monster Energy, 8:00pm - 10:00pm

Friday August 13:
Giant Slalom presented by Giant Bicycles - Amateur Ladders, 3:30pm - 6:00pm
Giant Slalom presented by Giant Bicycles - Pro Ladders, 6:00pm - 8:00pm

Saturday August 14:
Monster Energy Slopestyle, 5:30pm - 7:30pm

Sunday August 15:
Canadian Open DH presented by Kona Pro Divisions, 3:00pm - 5:00pm

NW CUP #4

2010-08-04T06:47:00.000-07:00

NW CUP 2010 from RD Watters on Vimeo.

NW CUP (Finals)

2010-07-28T06:46:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the final race of the 2010 NW CUP held over at Port Angeles, WA. I like racing over there more and more. I arrived over there Friday night and started practicing on Saturday. The course this weekend was White Knuckle , Double Bypass, back to White Knuckle.

The trails were dry and fast for the weekend. With a couple loose corners in the middle and some jumps to mix it up.

After practice on Saturday I made a run out to La Push again to get the dirt off from riding and get a surf session in. Surf was fun , around chest high with a little bit of wind on it. But definitely worth the short drive. Then I headed back to town for the Spaghetti dinner and raffle put on by the race organizers at the race site. N-Dub and the Olympic Dirt Society put on another great event for all of us this weekend. Port Angeles has a great racing venue at Dry Hill. I probably enjoy racing there the most out of all the spots we race throughout the year.

I ended up 4th on the weekends race with only a couple seconds back from first. That sealed my 3rd place in the overall standings for Cat 1 (30-39). The Fanatik Team had a few other podiums. Team Boss , John Pitton , took the Cat 1 (40-49) overall convincingly. I'm not sure anyone was even able to catch up to him with such a big point spread going into the final race. Then also Matt Orlando had a great day with a winning race run and taking the Cat. 1 (19-29) overall.

After 3 weeks and 3 races I'm ready for a little break from the bike. Then I think my final DH race of the year will be the Capitol Forest Super D held down in Olympia, WA in August. This a fun event with some good singletrack to ride.

video to come of NW Cup #4

Sol Vista Nationals video

2010-07-21T07:32:00.000-07:00

Video of DH pro course during practice and couple heats of the 4x racing.

Sol Vista 2010 from RD Watters on Vimeo.

Sol Vista Nationals

2010-07-18T21:37:00.001-07:00

I arrived in Granby , Colorado on Wednesday last week. Had Thursday and Friday for practice. I got on the bike first thing Thursday and did 4 laps on another trail to get some laps on the new bike . After 4 runs things were feeling better. Lots of rock gardens everywhere. Rough on tires and wheels. So then our practice time came and started doing laps on our course.

The top 3/4 of the course was all rock gardens pretty much with some sandy straight aways. We ran the pro course from the previous year. However they squished the jumps down that were under the lift. Now they are a 25 foot gap followed by a 30 foot gap . But you end up landing way down the transition if you don't slow down enough or squash it. I did about 4 practice runs on Thursday. There were holes developing up top near a turn and I went down there and went over the bars off the course with my bike laying on top of me. I must of bent my thumb back a ways because it felt sprained. I didn't notice it till Thursday night , it was a challenge just to turn the ignition key .Friday morning I knew I had to take it easy , because I could barely hold on to the bars. I went down once in practice and landed on my leg on a rock. My bike is considered broken in now. I was a bit sore for race day.

But there were lots of people going wrecking themselves all week. The ambulance was making frequent trips to Granby Ranch. Mitch Ropelato defending Pro 4x and Jr. X winner went down on the 4x course , first day of practice and broke something. The final two jumps on the 4x course were claiming many people in practice and qualifying. T.J. Sharp , one of the course builders, went flying off the last jump in qualifying and it was the hardest, fastest crash I think I've seen. They're probably going close to 30 mph and he was about 15 ft. in the air when he got out of control. He dead sailored about 50 ft. The Sol Vista Bike park was on top of all the medical stuff though. During practice they had somebody about every few hundred yards watching the riders with course marshals letting riders know if somebody was down . They even had a helicopter on site for direct medical flights to Denver. This got used at least once over the weekend with someone sustaining some head trauma. There's a lot on the line for that top spot so everyone is giving it there all for the Stars and Stripes Jersey.

Jeff from Schwalbe got me set up with some new Muddy Marry tires for the loose sandy soil. The upper half of the mountain is sand then it turns to hardpack. This tire is great for just about any condition. So Saturday finally came and I had a bit more movement in my thumb so that was good. I'm still not used to that butterfly feeling you get just before you take the start gate . But my race run was OK. I didn't have any big mistakes. Just a couple slow turns up top where I didn't carry speed well. In the Rock section I was OK . I could've opened up a bit more through there. I ended up 6th in cat.1 30-34 with time of 2:54.07. Here's the top 10 in my group

Men - CAT 1 - 30-34
Place Points Name City, State Time License Bib Team

1 Exp Damian Smith Yorba Linda, CA 2:38.27 135236 1204 Yeti Cycles
2 135 Graham Wagner Park City, UT 2:47.93 266482 733 Brothers Bikes
3 120 Jeff Kegu Leadville, CO 2:53.12 245608 1202 Neverest
4 105 Ryan Knipe Pueblo, CO 2:53.62 228890 729
5 90 Billy Mantle Avon, CO 2:54.01 256570 1300 Hayes
6 85 R.D. Watters Bellingham, WA 2:54.07 286366 734
7 80 David Clark Clearfield, UT 2:55.04 231170 727 Nema / 661 / Utopia
8 75 Ryan Cleek Santa Monica, CA 2:56.44 182987 1288 MBA
9 70 Stan Guerrero San Diego , CA 2:58.31 14363 728 Gravity Garage
10 65 Blake Treadway Grand Junction, CO 2:58.76 296347 732

So if I missed my goal of a podium by .06 of a second. That's not even half a tire length. and 3rd by 1 second. I think I'm happy with that though seeing how close it was to third. I'm glad I survived another weekend of racing and got to enjoy all the riding on this trip. I wouldn't mind having a ranch as a second home in Grand County, Colorado. It has tons of recreation opportunities.

After my racing was done I got cleaned up to watch some classic 4x racing . Complete with full on t-bone take outs. The Pro Women main was action packed. The fans were on hand to take it all in. 4x has to be the best spectator event Mountain Biking has.

Aaron Gwin repeated his win in Pro Men , And Transition rider Jill Kitner takes the Pro Women title back to the Northwest. Also Tyler Earnhardt of Bellingham , had a good race run and wins the Cat. 1. 35-39 National Title . Stoked for him.

I'll have a video up in a couple days of Pro DH course and some 4x action.

U.S. National Mt. Bike Championships (live streaming)

2010-07-14T18:06:00.000-07:00

Sounds like they'll have a live feed for Pro Racing at Sol Vista this weekend.

https://www.usacycling.org/events/2010/mtbnationals/

Day 3 Bend , OR

2010-07-13T22:36:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning and headed to the CogWild shop just on the edge of downtown Bend. I signed up for the Bachelor to Bend ride. My thoughts were , we get dropped off up towards Mt. Bachelor and work our way through the trails descending back to town. So I was hoping to maybe ride the DH bike even if I had to pedal it just to get some more miles on it. After a short briefing by Seth our Guide. The 6 inch bike made more sense. Actually a hard tail would have been ideal had I brought it. The trails around Bend are super smooth singletrack. We did 3300 ft of climbing in 38 miles. So the climbing is pretty mellow, just how I like.
We had a small group . English couple from the San Fransisco Bay area, a French XC rider from the Bay area. Seth the CogWild guide and Jeremy, a mountaineering guide . Possible future CogWild Guide. Everyone was pretty stoked to get riding. It's Seth's job to feel everyone out to see what we're all expecting and want to do. So it was another epic XC ride for all of us.

We got dropped of at the Swampy Sno Park. Then we started off on a short climb up to Vista Butte. The climb got tough near the top with all the loose lava rocks. The view was amazing. Then we descended Flagline Tie onto Flagline. Stopped for a second at a shelter then had a fun 3 mile ripping descent down South Fork trail to Tumalo Falls where we stopped and had a bite to eat. At Tumalo Falls we had done 11 miles and 1100 ft. of climbing. After our break we ascended up North Fork trail , this was our hardest climb of the day. Maybe a little harder after the legs cooled down on the break. North Fork trail parallels Tumalo Creek which has 7 waterfalls. Stopped a couple times for some shots. After this climb you come out into some alpine meadow terrain where we breaked again for the full lunch. We continued up Mutolius Windigo . Then we traversed the beginning of Marazek until reaching Farewell, which was another fun and fast 2 mile descent. This brought us back to Tumalo Falls where we did an easy climb up Skyliner. But at this point easy climbs are not so easy. Everyone was doing well and riding good. We made it to the top of Whoops trail. For a fun little slalom style trail. Full of doubles, some triples and berms everywhere. Then it was a ride down Ben's trail out to the road and about a mile on the pavement , mostly downhill back to the shop.
After arriving at the shop and looking at all our dust covered, smiling faces. You could tell everyone had a good long ride. They even provided post ride beers , sweet. And they let me have quick shower before I got back on the road for the evening. I highly recommend CogWild if your in Bend. http://www.cogwild.com/ If you don't want an all day ride they do after work shuttles too. Where you can hit some of the more popular trails.

I was glad to do such a big ride on Monday because I'm gonna be behind the wheel for two days. So I've got some time to recover. Hopefully arrive in Granby, Colorado Wednesday afternoon.

Day 2 Fluidride Cup

2010-07-13T22:16:00.000-07:00

2010 Fluidridecup #3 Mt. Hood from RD Watters on Vimeo.

I just took a couple shots on race day. Some of jr. X and Pro race runs.

I arrived at Skibowl at Mt. Hood on Sat. Night. Looked at the schedule for Sundays race and went to bed. So Sunday morning I had to get up early to register. With no downhill runs yet on the new bike I was not feeling very smooth on my one and only practice run . But I was hoping to make the most of it. Any how I think I did how I was expecting . I was about 25 seconds off of Nathan Marsh's pace for the win . I came in 5th. I was not very smooth in the corners down in the wood section. Didn't carry speed very well. The good thing about it, even though I wasn't very fast it felt good not to crash. Saving some for next weekend where you got to let it all hang out if you want to do good.

Story of the day was how fast Mikey Sylvestri was . He put a hurt on the pro field , in seeding and race run. In seeding he was something like 13 seconds faster than next fastest pro. That's with coasting into the finish. Then he smoked it again in his race run . Something like 10 seconds faster than 2nd place. His time was 3:47, that was a full minute faster than me. Look for Mikey to be on the podium at Nationals next weekend. He's riding good. He had a top 10 in Sol Vista last year. So top 5 should be in reach . He's from Tahoe so he likes the dry and loose conditions.

After the days racing and socializing commenced I had a short drive toward Bend.

St. Helens, XC ride

2010-07-11T23:02:00.000-07:00

Mt. St. Helens from RD Watters on Vimeo.

Day 1 St. Helens " epic xc ride"

2010-07-10T20:17:00.000-07:00

Drove to Cougar , WA last night , quick sleep. Then drove to the Ape Canyon trail head this morning. Riding by 10:00 am. I started of on Ape Canyon then continued on to Windy Ridge trail where I turned around from there and did the out and back. This trail is amazing . Views around every turn . Mt. St. Helen's is right up in your face the whole time. The way up wasn't too bad. but I think I was overly excited and the elevation may have took some of my steam away. Plus I have to save some gas for tomorrow's race. I was walking up some of the climbs. There were never any big climbs. the singletrack was super smooth.

It's only about a 5.5 hour drive from Bellingham. You drive to Woodland , go east on 503 to Cougar, then go out on Forest Road 90 for a couple miles. Take a left on Forest Road 83. Take this to the end. Small parking lot at the end. Forest Pass required. This is a must do for any Mt. Biker in Washington I think. From the parking lot you start climbing parallel this moraine in and out of the woods. Then it's in the woods for the majority of the climb till you pop out with St. Helen's and Mt. Adams starring you in the face. Then its up and down over to the "plains of Abraham" thorough this flat section with lava rocks spread everywhere. Tip: watch out for the "Naked hikers" or maybe don't watch out. I climbed this little snow patch and rode down in the snow. This group was watching and on my way by I stopped to say hi . and one guy had a t-shirt on and that's all . Guess he was getting a tan on his "Jimmie Johnson." Also ran into another fellow from North Carolina. Just moved to Portland. enjoying the trail. I had a hard time keeping riding because I wanted to stop and video everything.

After 6 hours of riding and filming I was back at the truck and continued on. Through the National Forest. Down Forest Road 30 to Carson and over to Hood River. Tons of Kiteboarders and Windsurfers on the Columbia River. Festival going on this weekend in Hood River. After my Coffee it's a short drive south to Skibowl, Mt. Hood .

Backdoor teaser, first ride on the Morewood

2010-07-09T14:43:00.000-07:00

Rode with Pitton , Sams, and "Scuch" on Wednesday. It was my first ride on the new bike and trying to get comfortable on it. It feels real smooth and quick around corners. We did some filming on the trail Backdoor on the North Side of Galbraith. We ran out of daylight and I won't be able to finish this one for a couple weeks . But wanted to throw something up for now .

Backdoor teaser from RD Watters on Vimeo.

That's Jason Sams hitting a crazy line . Blind jump over some ferns right into a hard corner.

Gearing up

2010-07-07T01:09:00.000-07:00

I'm getting pretty excited about the next coming week . Fanatik got in all the Morewood Team bikes last Friday. Thanks to Jayden and Eric for building it up super quick, I rolled mine out of the shop Monday after work. Tomorrow I'll finally get to throw some dirt at it. I don't have much time after work so I plan on sessioning "Backdoor" to break things in and get things tweaked before race time this coming weekend.

It built out pretty nice . It weighs in at 38.99 lbs that's even with the huge receipt still attached to it . The Formula brakes and SDG carbon I-beam seat/seat post definitely helped things out. I even got the 4th of July model seat. Just in time for the Holidays. I've got the Schwalbe Wicked Will tires on ready for some of Mt. Hood and Colorado's dry and loose conditions. There rolling on an Azonic/Outlaw rim set.

This Friday I'm off to the races. Trading in the "weekend warrior" status for some full time "dirt bagging." Even if it's for only 10 days. I'm gonna cram all the riding I can in ,where ever I can. Main Purpose of the trip is U.S. Mountain Bike National Championships held at Sol vista bike park in Granby Colorado. It works out again like last year to hit the Fluidride cup race down in Mt. Hood the weekend before too. This should give me a chance to get used to the bike before heading to Nationals. Also some where on the way down and over to Colorado I will be stopping and riding Mt St. Helens. and then after the Fuidride cup, If I'm still in one piece, it'll be over to Bend, OR to ride with Cog Wild http://www.cogwild.com/ and do the Bachelor to Bend ride. After that it's a 2 day drive over to the Main Event in Colorado. Goal for Nationals would be top 5 , on the podium. If I get top 3, I'll have a big smile . Anything better than that I'll be grinning all the way home. I think my time last year would've put me 4th in my current category. So it's within reach.

Anyhow that's the plan . I'm gonna try and get some footage of each part of the trip, hopefully. And post it up here.

Tour de France @ Mt. Bakery

2010-07-05T23:37:00.000-07:00

Watch the tour live at Mt. Bakery early in the A.M.

http://www.norka.us/content/le_tour_de_france/le_tour_de_france.asp

[A]RDUUM, B.C. Cup, Mission, BC

2010-06-22T23:24:00.000-07:00

[A]RDUUM 2010 from RD Watters on Vimeo.

Arduum was a learning experience for me. I have heard since getting into Downhill racing that Arduum was a really hard course . So I had to check it out for myself. And Yep, it's a really hard course. Super steep up top , with rocks and roots everywhere. With Lines called "the pillow line" where you're not even on dirt most of the time. Then you hit the technical rock drop which is about halfway down. After that you take a breathe , regroup and if you made it through that upper section without going down you're doing good. The lower half is twisty and fast with some jumps and some loose dirt that can take you down as well. Then it's the 20-25 ft. hip jump near the bottom. and a couple more jumps after that and its all over.

I had a less than stellar run. I got through the upper section good. Then I was two turns away from the rock drop and I was getting stoked thinking that, I hadn't fallen yet , so I'm on an OK run. Then the sharp left turn leading into the drop I washed out on some roots. Then while I'm picking myself up I get passed by a guy who I just passed. So I follow him over the rock drop . It's actually the last guy in the previous video I posted to take the rock drop , you see me rolling up behind him. Then I catch him again further down. I go down again , I look up, he's coming , I hop out and try to stay out in front . So we basically leap frogged each other down the mountain. Quite comical actually. I didn't hit the hip near the end. At that point I wanted it to be over.

After a rough day of practice on Saturday the only thing that motivated me was watching the World Cup DH race in Leogang Sunday morning before I left for Mission. Like I said though it was a good learning experience . I knew at the top that a clean run would be better than trying to be too fast and wipe out. Also trying to save some energy for the bottom section. You burn up a lot of arm strength going through the rough upper stuff. There were a lot of close over the bar moments that happened as a result of tired arms. I finished 9th in masters 30-39 .

Overall though it was another fun weekend of riding. The folks at Arduum put on a great race. There was also the "freelap challenge" and 16" pit bike racing to do if you didn't get enough riding in practice.

results @ http://arduum.blogspot.com/

http://www.cyclingbc.net/2010-bc-cup-info

Arduum (Mission, B.C.)

2010-06-21T06:39:00.001-07:00

Found this video online. It shows the rock drop and the lower part of the course. The real rough stuff was up higher on course. I don't think pictures will do it justice though.

[A]rduum from elephantHour on Vimeo.

NWcup #3

2010-06-15T00:44:00.001-07:00

Went last weekend to the 3rd round of the NW Cup over in Port Angeles. Went over with Pitton on Friday to start practice. The course was King Diamond to Falcon Punch , with a couple new bits on Falcon Punch. Was still a little wet Friday but then when the sun popped out things started drying out fast. Practice was over at around 6. So I brought my surfboard over this time in hopes of catching some waves after riding bikes. We drove into town to Sergio's to grab a bite to go. Then dropped the bikes off at Mac's Cabin and headed to La Push trying to beat the sunset. After a little over an hour of driving we got there around 8 or so. Swell forecast was for 6 ft. or so but unfortunately it was a bit smaller than that. Anyhow I was committed to going out regardless. Surf was small but fun. Somehow between Rainier's John got some video.

Saturday was hot. I was glad our practice was early. Course was getting faster throughout the day. Everyone was having a blast on the course. Saturday after practice everyone had a jump in the lake. It was a bit on the chilly side for me and I couldn't swim back to shore fast enough. Felt good on the dock though.

Sunday, race day, started off a little fogging. Looked like it could rain any minute. Later on in the day it turned sunny and a little windy. So I was determined for this race to break top 3. I was on a good run until that tree jumped out in front of me. So I threw a shoulder block into it and it sent me to the ground. A little dazed , I remembered the clock was still ticking and picked the bike back up and hammered it to the finish. Finished with a time of 3:23.45, good enough for 5th. Matt Patt won with a 3:12.25. So maybe next race I'll keep it together for a good finish. Lars Sternburg took Pro Men with a 2:58.38. Awesome weekend for Bellingham racers again. Brian Mullens takes 5th in Jr. X. Jason Sams dominates (19-29) winning by almost 7 seconds. Tyler Earnhardt 2nd in (30-39) and John Pitton takes another win in (40-49) with Todd Z. right behind him.

NW Cup #3 2010 from RD Watters on Vimeo.

Next race is Arduum next weekend just up the road in B.C. Our closest race to Bellingham this season. info @ http://arduum.blogspot.com/

El Pollo

2010-06-08T00:27:00.000-07:00

Did some filming last week and rode El Pollo Trail up at Galbraith. My plan was to shoot the new trail Unemployment line but from the weather we had last week ,things were looking pretty sloppy. So I went to plan B. I don't ride El Pollo that often , maybe 1 in 10 rides . But it is a fun trail , the upper 2/3rds is pretty flowy with a few tight corners. Then the bottom is usually a mud pit till mid summer.

I tried a new thing with the helmet Cam.

Camera + gorilla pod+ zip ties = Helmet cam.

It worked OK ,But it wants to start falling down after a few rough sections. Anyhow here's the video.......

El Pollo from RD Watters on Vimeo.

Fort William World Cup teaser

2010-06-03T23:39:00.000-07:00

Upcoming Races

2010-06-02T22:56:00.000-07:00

We're getting into the busy time of race season now. Looks like June 12-13 is a popular weekend for a race. There's 3 races I want to do all on the same weekend .

June 12,13
Ashland super D , http://breakaway-events.net/cms/
Also if you're in Ashland, Oregon check out Ashland Mountain Adventures, best shuttles and friendly people. http://ashmtnadv.com/

K-town Kamikaze, http://www.mtbco.ca/2010/05/20/k-town-kamikaze-june-13th
This will be only the second year for this event. But This super d race course has some really flowy,fun singletrack. I was really hoping to do this one seeing we have family in Kelowna.

NW Cup #3 , Port Angeles WA http://www.nwcup.com/
I'll be headed to PA for the third round of the NW cup trying to improve on my overall standings. There's some fast guys in our group though , and so far everyone is staying consistent . Should be a tight overall race, we'll see.

June 19-20
Arduum, Mission B.C. http://arduum.blogspot.com/
This will be my first time racing Arduum . I hear nothing but good things about it though. Steep ,technical downhill course. One of the best events on the B.C Cup circuit. If not the best.

July 10-11
Fluidride Cup #3 , Oregon St. Championships, Mt Hood, OR. http://fluidrideracing.com/

July 15-18
Mountain Bike National Championships, Granby CO http://www.solvistanationals.com/
I qualified again for Nationals. This year I'll be doing cat. 1 30-35. I had such a great trip last year. I'm definitely looking forward to this year. Hopefully do some more riding on the way out again. Ton's of good riding in between here and there. If only I had a month to hit all the spots on the way.

Fluidride #1 Whistler

2010-05-31T21:19:00.001-07:00

We arrived at Whistler, B.C. on Friday afternoon. We decided to make this race a family trip and stayed at the Pan Pacific Village Centre. Great views of the village and Whistler mountain. http://www2.panpacific.com/en/WhistlerVillageCentre/Overview.html

Awesome hotel. One minute bike ride to the lifts. We felt like first class all weekend. I'll be missing that breakfast buffet tomorrow morning.

I also met a guy at the hotel who started a bike guiding service for the Whistler area, looks like fun. Here's the link: http://whistlerridesupply.com/index.html

Saturday morning came and I was stoked to be riding the bike park again. Conditions were wet, with rain/drizzle off and on all day. It was funny everyone was wearing the same colored kits Saturday , Brown.

This would be the first race of the Fluidride Cup for 2010 .http://fluidrideracing.com/news-updates/ The pros/cat 1 would race down Schleyer-Detroit Rock City and finish at the top of the boneyard. It proved to be a demanding course. With lots of technical features all down the trail combined with the wet conditions, we had our hands full. I made 3-4 practice runs then sessioned some of the other trails in the park. I never really felt like it was a race weekend up there. I did want a good result, but wasn't putting too much pressure on myself seeing I don't plan on attending all Fluidride cup races this year. Nonetheless I wanted to do good in Whistler.

Sunday came and I did a couple practice runs in the morning and the course seemed slicker than Saturday. The Pros and Jr x guys put a beating on it for their qualifying runs. All the rocks had a layer of grease on them. Anyhow I started off on my race run with the usual nerves, then settled into getting faster. I hit the Schleyer rock sections real clean. Then coming back under the lift, near the exit of Schleyer, my run rapidly came to an end. Pinch flatted somewhere after the rock section . BUMMER!! First mechanical since racing and it's not the way I wanted to finish the race. So I walked it down the ski run dodging bear feces every third step. The only good thing about it was that I was still in Whistler and there were 2 hours till the lifts closed. So I put a new tube in and took my frustration out on Dirt Merchant,CrabApple, and A-line. Was the best therapy I could have had I think.

Besides my race run we all had a great time. The B.C. locals took home plenty of hardware it looked like. Top pro was Tyler Gorz with a 3:03 .

Results @ http://fluidrideracing.com/2010/05/31/results-fluidride-cup-round-1-whistler-bc-5-29-5-30/

Fluidride Cup #1 Whistler, B.C.

2010-05-26T19:13:00.001-07:00

Heading up to Whistler this weekend for the first round of the Fluidride Cup. Looking forward to riding the bike park again and doing some more racing.

More info @: http://fluidrideracing.com/2010/05/26/whistler-track-changesregistration-info/

Freehub Magazine

2010-05-24T21:52:00.000-07:00

I saw this magazine at Fanatik the other week. Had a flip through looked OK. Then this weekend my wife got it for me and I was able to take a deeper look. This magazine is nothing but biking goodness. Tons of great rider/trail profiles. Lots of good content from all over the Country. Plus to boot they're based out of here in Bellingham. So lots of cool local footage. Check it out....
http://freehubmag.com/

Westport

2010-05-24T06:49:00.000-07:00

The family and I headed to Westport ,WA this past weekend to get some beach and surf time. I had been thinking about surfing since watching the Lowers contest online, http://nike6lowerspro.com/video/2010-video/. I needed to taste some saltwater. There was supposed to be a little bit of swell so off we went. I surfed the Jetty side Sat. morning . It was breaking , I'm guessing 300-400 yards out.

Long paddle , when your arms aren't used to it . I surfed the middle peak . As it was pretty mushy farther out. When I got out some German guy (Phillip) had been shooting some pictures from the jetty , he offered to email them to me , I thought that was pretty nice. Then we headed to Twin Harbors state park to camp for the night. We checked the surf that evening but it was blowing 25 or so. My arms needed a break. Biking gives you great leg strength, and endurance. But not so much in the way of arm strength.

So we woke up , grabbed some coffee and checked the cove, then the jetty. The cove was actually breaking . Which I was glad. I like the waves in there better. Maybe a little smaller but with a little more power and a very short paddle out. Caught some OK rides, I was a bit rusty. Not Surfing in almost a year will do that I guess. I did good with getting a lot of speed, but then I'd get too excited to hit the lip and do too big of a bottom turn or something and loose a lot of speed . I caught more waves in 20 minutes at the cove , than in 2 hours probably at the jetty the day before. We had some good weather which was nice too. Was raining in Tacoma on the way down then sunny at the beach.

I was stoked that my wife was able to get some shots, while watching our baby and 2 year old on the beach. Great multi-tasker. We all had a good time at the beach , and it was a good break from everything.

New Sponsor

2010-05-20T19:28:00.000-07:00

I'm stoked to add SDG Components as a sponsor for this year. I'll be adding some of their super light I-beam seats and seat posts to my bikes.

http://sdgcomponents.com/

SDG Components is based out of Huntington Beach , CA . Some of the top world cup teams and freeriders are riding their products.

Untitled from Taylor Sage on Vimeo.

New Galbraith trail

2010-05-19T19:56:00.001-07:00

Lars Sternburg ripping "unemployment line"

World Cup Maribor

2010-05-15T21:17:00.000-07:00

Sloppy conditions in Maribor is an understatement. Watched the 4x this morning, what a mess that was. A lot of top guys went out early. Missed Rob Warner on the mic.

Downhill is shaping up to be very exciting. Way to go Luke Strobel, (WA) qualified 6th.

MTBcut Day 3 Qualifying, World Cup 1, Maribor - More Mountain Bike Videos

Tue. evening ride

2010-05-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

Well it never fails. If you hang out at the top of SST for a few minutes someone will roll up to cruise down with. I didn't expect about 30 riders to roll in at the top of the trail this evening. Nice to meet some new faces up at Galbraith. The weather has been awesome and trails are running fast . Time to take off the winter tires though and throw on some fast rolling tires. Looking into some Schwalbes, Racing Ralphs or Nobby Nics.

Maribor DH this weekend Live on Freecaster.tv
Looks like they will be charging this year for the live broadcast.

Also:

Follow Me Premier
Saturday, May 22, 2010 - Doors @ 7PM
In the garden @ Boundary Bay
1107 Railroad Avenue
Bellingham, WA

Tickets: $10
All ages

more info @ http://www.whatcomtrails.com/forum/extension.php?PostBackAction=Blog

Lake Samish Race

2010-05-06T07:04:00.000-07:00

Lake Samish Mtn. Bike XC race , Run, Music @ Camp Lutherwood

http://www.norka.us/content/lake_samish_trials/lake_samish_trials.asp

Pro Grt / NW Cup # 2

2010-04-27T23:58:00.000-07:00

Pro Grt 2010 from RD Watters on Vimeo.

We made it back safe from Port Angeles last weekend. I cruised over with Pitton this time around and Jason Sams who ended up wrecking himself on Sunday's practice run. We stayed at Camp "Laws" just outside of town again. Thanks again... But this past weekend was awesome in that so many world cup Pros travelled up north here to Washington because their flights to Europe were cancelled due to the Volcano going on. So that made for some exciting racing and spectating. The Pro's seemed to enjoy the fast track. White Knuckle to Pro course. Conditions were good , little bit of rain on Friday and Saturday but the track dries out so quick . It wasn't enough to do anything. It did make one section slippery enough to cause a lot of crashes. It took me out in practice too. The infamous turn after the step down . Which was electrifying during race runs. It was shoulder to shoulder in there and some places two and three people deep just watching. Fans were going nuts. Which in turn made the riders go even faster. To see how fast the top pros were going through there was amazing . Ben Reid especially was being talked about a lot . His runs through the step down were crazy fast.

Fanatik Team got their share of some podiums. Matt Orlando took 3rd in cat. 1 19-29,

I ended up 3rd in cat. 1 30-39 , John Pitton took 2nd in cat. 1 40-49

I finally had a descent race run . I was 1.5 seconds off first place. So I was pretty happy with 3rd place on my single crown rig. Hopefully next race I can shave a few seconds off with a proper DH bike.

Bryn Atkinson must have dry hill dialed. With a win last month and again at Pro Grt with a stacked field is pretty impressive. My money was on Aaron Gwin for the weekend. They all looked extremely fast throughout practice , but I'm sure some were in safety mode for the weekend . Not wanting to get injured before the World Cups begin. Greg Minaar and Bryceland were out of the top ten.

Here's the results: http://www.nwcup.com/uploads/DH_Results_Overall.pdf

Cat. 1 30-39

Montana pole dancing

2010-04-19T19:07:00.000-07:00

Chrome Shoes arrive

2010-04-18T19:31:00.000-07:00

So it wasn't a big hoax. Sounded to good to be true. When I mailed my shoes in for the " Turds for Gold" promo I thought , this might just a big April fools joke. From the looks of it on the Chrome Shoe website (http://www.chromebagsstore.com/shoes.html) they received thousands of shoes. They're donating all the used shoes to Haiti,and Soles for Souls, etc....

We received ours last week, not a bad exchange for our old turds.

PRO GRT/ NW CUP # 2

2010-04-12T23:28:00.001-07:00

The Pro GRT race is right around the corner now . (April 22-25) The National level race should be a good one. With a few World Cup riders who will be on hand to make me feel even slower and to see how fast you can ride a bike. Rumor is Greg Minaar will be on hand as well as TREK Racing, YETI, TRANSITION, and some of the EVIL world cup riders will be there as well. I'm looking forward to improving on last race results and getting to see some top Pro's ride the now famous Dry Hill trails. Also I'm hoping some of the local Pro's are gonna step it up and give everyone a run for there money.

Here's a video of the Pro / Cat 1 course

and to make the weekend even better there's the movie premiere on Friday night.

NW Cup Photos

2010-04-02T06:52:00.001-07:00

Nice photos from the race @ http://grubworks.smugmug.com/Sports/Mountain-Biking/2010-03-27-NWCUP-1/11680641_X7Nok#825240402_xH8M4 . Lots of photos. Some cool lighting shots too.

NW CUP #1

2010-03-30T18:45:00.000-07:00

Back from Port Angeles this past weekend racing at the NW Cup , round one. It started out wet on Friday and got even wetter for Sunday. I will be carrying a set of mud spikes from now on. I was running the Schwalbe "muddy marrys" . They did good , but the "dirty dans" may have been a better choice.

After crashing in every PA race last year I just wanted to have a clean run this time. So my race run was very cautious, too cautious. But I didn't crash. So I ended up 5th in cat.1 30-39. A descent start to the season. But not where I want to be.

Practice was super fun , sliding and drifting all weekend. Looked like Transition Race Team made the right picks in the off season. Winning both pro men/women categories. Bryn and Jill looked fast all weekend.

The NW Cup #2 progrt. sounds like it's gonna be better than last year. I'm already looking forward to it. Here's some video I took while watching Pro practice/race runs.

NW CUP#1 2010 from RD Watters on Vimeo.

Kelowna, Postill

2010-03-21T23:48:00.001-07:00

Back in town from visiting family up in Kelowna, B.C. I managed to sneak in a bike ride Sunday morning. Which turned out to be an all morning ride. We had a rough start to the ride with my brother-in-law's dog falling out of the pick up on the first shuttle up. He was too interested in looking for deer than staying in the truck which was going 40kmH. His paws slipped off the bed rail and he teeter-tottered for a second then fell out and did like 3 rolls on the road and jumped up. Then he kept on running up the road. From his bloody mouth it looked like he landed face first. So he just licked his wounds and toughed it out .

We rode Postill because most other areas are still snowbound. Had some fun. If you need to practice your road gaping then Kelowna is the place. No wonder so many free-riders come from there. They like to build big stuff. Postill has some big features that I just cruised around. Tons of jumps . Trails were completely dry. Another month or two till the other areas get freed of snow.

Postill from RD Watters on Vimeo.

Thanks to Jay for getting some video.

UPPER SST

2010-03-17T07:07:00.000-07:00

Upper SST from RD Watters on Vimeo.

I've finally been getting some rides in. I started off the winter good riding a lot. then mid-winter things took a halt. I guess having kids will do that. My back is feeling better since the accident too but we'll see what 3 days of practice and racing feel like soon.

So I've been trying to get another trail on video for a while now. I started this Upper SST one awhile ago and ran out of batteries and time. So then my next time up to video I ran in to John and Kyle on the trail and I thought it be good to get some of them in as well. So that's why they come in later on. Also I noticed that Blue (dog) has some different lines on the trail in the top section.

2 weeks NWcup , Port Angeles, WA

FREE CHROME SHOES

2010-03-16T19:52:00.000-07:00

FREE SHOES

saw this today at http://thegoat.backcountry.com/ i'll be sending some shoes in....

NW Cup # 1 (Port Angeles)

2010-03-12T00:12:00.000-08:00

It's getting close to the start of race season. Actually next weekend starts it off with the Beacon race over in Spokane. Then the following weekend will be the first race of the NW Cup in Port Angeles. Here's a preview of the Cat. 1/ Pro course for the NW Cup race. Looks like lots of fun. Can't wait.

"Follow Me" teaser

2010-03-11T07:27:00.000-08:00

Schwalbe " Muddy Marry"

2010-02-09T23:34:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago now I got to break in my new set of Schwalbe "muddy mary" tires. These will be my new trail/freeride tire. First off I noticed how much more tire there was compared to my old minion 2.35. These tires have just a little more room between lugs to help with shedding the mud also. The grip up front was great , I'm running the gooey gluey compound on the front and the triple compound on the rear for better wear and braking.

On my first ride however the trails were mostly dry and super sticky. The slightly bigger volume gave me some extra confidence to hit things with a bit more speed I felt. I was hoping to get a good ride in some wet conditions . But this past January has been pleasantly warm and dry. The trails were so perfect you could've ran a semi-slick and been fine.

2010 Race Schedule

2010-02-01T21:52:00.000-08:00

The Cyclocross season is now over . That has been a great way to keep in shape and stay motivated over the winter. Now the 2010 race season is sneaking up and it's time to start getting serious about riding again. I've been looking over all the races scheduled for this year. I wish I had the funds to hit at least half of them. I can't believe it, in Washington there are 3 full Downhill series going on this year: Gravity East, Fluidride Cup, and NW Cup. Plus we get the opportunity to race some Canadian events as well. This makes for a busy race season.

These are the races I plan on being at this year:

All NW cup races, Port Angeles , Washington

Fluidride # 3 Schwietzer, Idaho,

Bear Mtn. Challenge , Mission , B.C. ( Canada )

Arduum Challenge, Mission , B.C. ( Canada )

National Championships, Granby, Colorado

Capitol Forest Super D, Olympia , Washingtion

Kelowna Super D, Kelowna, B.C. ( Canada )

This will be my first year in the 30- 39 age group , Cat. 1 Category. My main goals for the year are to place top 3 in overall for the NW cup , as well as top 5 at Nationals. I felt like I had a successfull season last year. And this year I'll try to improve on that.

Chilly Cross

2010-01-16T23:41:00.000-08:00

Chilly Cross from rd watters on Vimeo.

I had to miss the final race of the series due to sore back from an auto accident. But I managed to head down to Cornwall Park with our son and watch some good racing. The weather was fantastic for January and it looked like a lively crowd was on hand to watch. Here's a short video of the A race .

Chilly Cross

2010-01-12T22:24:00.000-08:00

Here's some info of the final race of the Cascade Cross Cyclocross series I found at http://www.cascadecross.com/

Chilly Cross
Will it be chilly? Most likely. Will it be awesome to race 'cross in January? Most certainly! Will there be snow? A chance, but even at Nationals we often have snow. It's good for your handling skills. So harden the f' up!

This may be the first cyclocross race in the NW in January, and we believe it is HIGH time we got in line with our European counterparts. Quitting in December? What are we, elves?

Cornwall Park :: Bellingham, WA
Brought to you by Shuksan Velo Club on Jan 16, 2009
As a special incentive for participating in this event, we are only giving series overall points to those who attend the final. You can read more about the special points structure here.

To sweeten the pot, we are providing a special course for your January enjoyment. It's that classic Bellingham favorite from Belly Cross days, Cornwall Park! Special thanks to Bellingham Parks & Recreation for providing all three Cascade Cross venues this year, including this Gem of the North.

If that's still not enough incentive, consider the season finale after-party at the Hotel Bellwether. Details are currently described on the News page.

Our New Girl

2010-01-06T23:18:00.001-08:00

We brought our new little girl home yesterday, her big brother was excited.

Trail Day @ Galbraith

2010-01-06T23:15:00.000-08:00

01/04/10 (by Kevin Menard)
Transition Sponsored Trail Day On Galbraith This Sunday

Going to be working on a BRAND NEW freeride trail so it should be pretty exciting. Here is all the info from Eric Brown at the WMBC.

The WMBC FR crew and Transition Bikes will be hosting our 4th trail day of the season this Sunday, January 10th. On our first 3 trail days, we've focused on maintenance on Scorpion, Evolution, and Mullet. Those trails are running really well right now - thanks to all the volunteer's hard work! This Sunday, we’re starting on a project that will give riders a new directional trail below the Luge, Whoopsie Woodle, and The Sh!t and out to the gate. Currently, the lone trail option in this zone is the 3 Pigs which is a bi-directional trail or the old 2310 Road which has serious drainage issues and, quite honestly, is an uninteresting route for bikers. This new trail will tie into the theme of better connectivity on the mountain and will help avoid potential rider conflict on 3 pigs - which will become more important in the near future, as the Luge will see a dramatic makeover and undoubtedly more riders.

NW CUP

2010-01-03T19:22:00.001-08:00

Northwest Downhill riders will have 2 race series to choose from this race season. N-dub productions now presents The NW Cup, a four race series , to be held in Port Angeles,WA. With the first race being a PROGRT points race. Also they plan on having a new course for each of the four races at "Dry Hill". So with the Fluidride Cup and the NW cup racers have a lot to look forward to for this year.

more info @
http://www.nwcup.com/Home.php

Schwalbe Tires

2009-12-29T23:23:00.000-08:00

I'm stoked to be riding for Schwalbe Tires for 2010. If anybody knows tires , this company does. They've been making tires since 1901 , World Headquarters are in Germany. With the US operation based out of Ferndale,WA , right up the road. Schwalbe tires had good success this year as they sponsor the Yeti/Fox world cup team. U.S. Champ and 4x World Champ were on their rubber this past year. They have some new DH tires for 2010 . Dirty Dan, a mud spike, for the muddy conditions, and Wicked Will for more dry situations. But I'm leaning toward a more all mountain tire this time of year , something good for everything. I might try a pair of the Muddy Marys or their Big Bettys look tempting as well. They look like they have good intermediate knobs with a little bit wider spacing to shed some of that mud out this time of year. I have been running some Maxxis Minions, single ply,2.35's and they seem to clog up when it gets soft. So I'm looking forward to trying something new and setting some fresh tracks.

http://www.schwalbetires.com/

Schwalbe Testcamp San Remo from Michael Kull on Vimeo.

Amateur Spotlight

2009-12-26T23:37:00.000-08:00

Couple photos from Nationals on Azonic site.

http://onealshare.com/onealblog/category/azonic/

FLUIDRIDE CUP 2010

2009-12-26T23:20:00.000-08:00

Here's some info on the Fluidride Cup for next year. Sounds like they still might tweak the schedule a bit?

New for 2010: Enduro Racing, no races in Washington? Schweitzer, Idaho.

Fluidride Racing 2010 Dates Announced
The Fluidride Racing’s 2010 dates are now released!

We have 2 mountain bike racing series in the Northwest for the 2010 season, with races in Washington, Oregon & Idaho:

Fluidride Cup - 3rd year of the Technical Downhill series with 4 races in 2010
Fluidride Enduro – 2 or more races in 1 weekend with the winner determined by the lowest cumulative time.
Fluidride Cup Dates:

The Fluidride Cup Technical DH Series will consist of 4 races in 2010 Here are the dates/locations (subject to change) – Friday & Saturday Practices with Sunday Races.

Fluidride Cup #1: June 25-27 – Mt. Hood, OR
Fluidride Cup #2: July 9-11 - Mt. Hood Skibowl, OR
Fluidride Cup #3: August 20-22 - Schweitzer Resort, ID
Fluidride Cup #4, Series Final: September 24-26 – Mt. Hood, OR
Fluidride Enduro Dates:

The Fluidride Enduro Series encompasses 5 individual race days, that fall into 2 official “Enduro“races. – Enduro racing encompasses 2 or more races over a weekend and winners are determined by the lowest cumulative time.

Fluidride Enduro #1 : April 30-May 2, Hood River, OR
2Day/Race Enduro - Friday Practice, Saturday Race #1, Sunday Race #2 – awards following Sunday’s race.
Fluidride Enduro #2: September 9-12 – Mt. Hood, OR
3 Day/Race Enduro – Thursday Practice, Friday Race #1, Saturday Race #2, Sunday Race #3 – awards following Sunday’s race.
Registration is opening on February 15, 2010

More details on series and course information to follow

http://fluidrideracing.com/

FAT CYCLIST makes Radio Shack Team

2009-12-22T23:28:00.000-08:00

I ran across this story tonight over on another blog. http://www.fatcyclist.com/ This blogger wrote to Johan Bruyneel , Team Radio Shack manager, in a joking way if it could be possible to join Lance Armstrong and Team Radio Shack for 2010. Johan wrote Eldon from Fatcyclist back and said, sure you can join the team just raise $20,000 for LiveStrong and World Bicycle Relief charities and you can join the team . Anyways check the 1st of 4 video here on you tube or @http://www.fatcyclist.com/ . to see what all happened.

Long story short , he gets to ride with Lance and team Radio Shack in one of their training camps in Arizona and raises more money than he thought possible for those charities. Cool story.

Riding in the AM

2009-12-15T20:15:00.000-08:00

Early morning Galby Ride with the new dads crew from Brian Bressler on Vimeo.

One of my riding friends , Brian, put together a short video of us riding 2 weeks ago in the frrreeeezing conditions. We've been leaving at 6 am and getting to the top of Galbraith before sunrise.

Brian typically leads the way up to the top. Where we snack, chat a bit, then pick a route
down. I've only been riding with these guys for a couple months . But it's been great having these guys to ride with to keep me motivated on riding through the winter. I've already rode quite a bit more than last winter.

Also funny thing is, everyone in the group is expecting their second child . My wife and I are expecting our little girl sometime around Christmas or shortly after. So riding will be put on the back burner briefly and be replaced with nap time to make up for the sleepless nights.

Stevens Pass Bike Park

2009-12-15T20:00:00.000-08:00

Stevens Pass is a little bit closer to getting the Forest Service to sign off and let them have a bike park there. Lots of legalities involved.

Here's a link on the Forest Service site:
http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/mbs/projects/stevens-pass-mdp/index.shtml

Here's Stevens Pass site:
http://www.stevenspass.com/Stevens/the-mountain/future-plans.aspx

Cold and Dry.

2009-12-12T21:55:00.001-08:00

Well we rode this morning up at Galbraith. Despite the cold weather it's been actually really good riding conditions up there right now. The ground is thoroughly frozen now and it makes for some fast riding. Only down side is it's hard for the tires to dig into the hard ground, especially up near the top , Wonderland area.

Looks like the moisture is headed back into the forecast for the coming week with some warmer temps later in the week.

Anyways I've been watching some of the Pipe Masters going on in Oahu, the last few days. They've had some good waves over there this last week.
http://www.triplecrownofsurfing.com/pipelinemasters

FANATIK LADIES NIGHT, MONDAY 7TH DEC.

2009-12-06T10:49:00.000-08:00

Kelowna , Thanksgiving

2009-11-29T19:17:00.000-08:00

KELOWNA THANKSGIVING from rd watters on Vimeo.

We did the usual Thanksgiving trip up to Kelowna. Nice to have the 4 day weekend off. My wife's parents are nice enough to celebrate American Thanksgiving and cook up a yummy bird for us.

Weather during this time of year is hit or miss. Last year the weather was dry and snow level was high, until we got up there. Then it snowed 3-4 inches on all the trails . This year the same happened. But I did get a good ride in on Friday before the snow came. Weather was sunny , and trails were summer like, dry.

If we're not shuttling some of the freeride trails, I like to ride the Crawford, Myra Canyon Trails. You can shuttle these too, But it's a little more rewarding to "earn your turns." And I was solo too, except for Blue and his cousin dog "Chaser."
I was surprised by all the trees blown down everywhere.Thousands of trees were down. From all the recent wind storms in the last 2 weeks. Which also stirred up some rideable surf on Lake Okanagan. Jason, my brother-in-law, caught some of the wind swell near Peachland. Crawford had a lot of tree damage from the fires back in 2003. So there's a lot of dead standing timber there. But even some of the non-fire damaged areas had trees down. I rode vapour trail to connector to rocky screech trail.

Also our little Noah had a good time at the Kelowna BMX track on his new bike with all his cousins. We stopped by the new Kelowna bike park also to check on progress there. They were working on it when we drove by , but that's gonna be a great place to ride come springtime. Lot's of different jump lines with a pumptrack too.

Link to Kelowna's mt. biking info http://www.mtbco.ca/bike-park

ABBOTSFORD INDOOR, PIPELINE 4X SERIES 2009/2010

2009-11-25T21:46:00.000-08:00

PIPELINE 4X from rd watters on Vimeo.

This past week I've been driving up to Abbotsford B.C. to ride their indoor bmx track. Last
Thursday I wiped off the cob webs on my hard tail and went up there for practice . I felt a little rusty . It's a little bit different technique on the hard tail and pumping all the rollers and jumps. Trying to accelerate every chance you can. It's also very tiring . You wouldn't think a 40 second lap would be tiring but think again. On Thursday I rode for maybe an hour straight , and when I took a break to walk out to the truck and I could feel my legs shaking a bit. Not use to the all out sprints. Lot's of kinetics.

They've been racing at abbotsford indoor bmx for awhile now. And mountain bikes for maybe 4 years or so? It's held in the Agrifair building. Only 6.5 miles from the Sumas border crossing. It's 37 miles from my house outside Bellingham. takes around an hour . Usually the Border is calm that time of night. Just don't take your work van there after work. They almost didn't let me in last Thur. night. Thought I was gonna do some side work or something. I waited 20-30 min. inside.

On Tue. night was the 2nd race in the winter series. I wasn't expecting much. Just to have some fun riding indoors. I saw some familiar faces from last years series. And as soon as the racing starts , all the riding turns up a notch. Definitely some fast racers here.

I made it through qualifying with a (1st,3rd,2nd) and into the semis.In the semis I got squeezed out on the first turn and had to settle for 4th . Then did the consolation round. I ended up 7th for the night. In 4x lites Justin Wyper, (dirt jump/freeride pro) is riding well and won on tue. night as well as the first race a week ago. He's got a good lead on the series already in our class.

I like the 3 moto qualifiers. It's set up so everyone gets to race at least 3 motos. In our class if you make it through the qualifiers you go to the semis. Top 2 in semis go to main , bottom 2 go to the consolation round or small final. I ended up doing 5 motos and after that I was done for the night.

I didn't get much video as I was too busy riding and racing. But it gives you a taste of what's there.

http://www.abbotsfordbmx.ca/

http://www.pipelinebikepark.com/

HILLY CROSS

2009-11-22T16:10:00.000-08:00

Hilly Cross from rd watters on Vimeo.

Saturday morning started out cold and it remained cold throughout the day. I questioned my motives for getting out of a warm bed to go and punish myself in the cold ,muddy conditions. But that's what makes it exciting I guess.
Hilly Cross was held down at Squalicum Park. The course seemed to have a bit of everything.
I raced the B race and afterwards I noticed my seat post was lower by a few inches. I ended up somewhere near the bottom . I just didn't have the legs on the last couple laps.
Congrats to John Pitton , Fanatik DH rider ,Winner of C race . and he gets the "sandbagger of the day" award.

One more race left in the Cascade Cross Series. Chilly Cross, Jan. 16th

http://cascadecross.com/

HILLY CROSS

2009-11-20T00:22:00.000-08:00

The Hilly Cross race is this weekend over at squalicum park. We'll see what kind of crazy course Ryan and his gang produce this time. Weather looks wet for Sat.

here's the link http://www.cascadecross.com/races/hilly-cross/

cool video / vancouver island

2009-11-17T22:21:00.000-08:00

Rocky/Race Face All Mountain Web Edit from Aaron Larocque on Vimeo.

FANATIK TRAIL DAY

2009-11-01T20:51:00.001-08:00

FANATIK TRAIL DAY from rd watters on Vimeo.

Went up to Galbraith on Saturday for the trail day sponsored by Fanatik. Lots of people turned out. Great to see The ground was really saturated from the monsoons fri. night . Evolution definitely got a make over . Once everyone was able to spread out and get a mission the dirt started moving. With all that man/woman power things took shape real quick.

Thanks to Fanatik Bike Co. for keeping everyone fueled and hydrated. Not sure of the official head count. but anymore people and we would've had to start working on another trail.

here's some images from Sat.

FANATIK TRAIL DAY

2009-10-27T20:42:00.000-07:00