Been training and having fun with my friend Jack Field, his girlfriend Rihanna and their friends in Riverside, California recently.
Go big or go home!!!
This is called King Of The Hammers. Rad rock-climbing 4*4 event. Last year 30.000 spectators showed up. No idea how many this year, but damn there are many hill billies in this country!!!
We had fun watching this.
Jack and I swapped bikes and this is Jack on the Gasser 300. He likes this bike alot more than his KTM 350. We found a very hard rocky walk path and made it work till the top. Took a while and was perfect Erzberg-like practice. Both Jack and I love riding stuff like this, we could do it everyday until we break but its at the same time depressing knowing that its short-lived. Making the most of it though.
Jack’s girlfriend Rhianna does lap around the Endurocross track, when she isnt timing us. Jack and I did a 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 lap motos around the track and I could barely hold on by the end. Jack smoked me every time. He makes up for his lack of Endurcross experience, with his world class trials skills and riding fitness. He will do very good at the X-Games – you heard it here first. We did hot-laps by the end of our 10 lap moto and jack got down to 46.9 whereas i only managed a 50 flat. We practiced here a couple of days ago and we hoped to just chill and take our time, but then Geoff Aaron, Kyle Redmond and Colton Haaker is there and they were doing 41’s. DAMN. But that was an all dry day, and our times were on a track with water puddles everywhere – just like home :)
Im staying with Justin Rastegar, the owner of www.motopiamoto.com, a friend of Jack and Rhiannas (im sharing the couch with Justin, as theres a lot of people living here – Justins brother (Chase), Chase’s girlfriend (Jesy), a couple of students, the aussie couple, me and a dog. Anyways, Chase turning 20 today and went for a small ride with us at Glen Helen.
These jumps scare the shit out of me. It looks simple and it may be to some of you, but im not designed to just go for it and not care about consequences. That may be my biggest issue when it comes to Endurocross, I dont know. Im afraid that the back end will kick me over the handlebars and send me dirt eating. I dont like that – done it a couple of times and luckily got away with it. Anyways. I worked up my balls to hit this tire jump and made it work. All though I had way too much armpump to do it during our motos, it felt good to do it in “practice”.
After our Glen Helen Endurocross work out, we headed south for the San Diego Supercross.
Jack & Rhianna aka Flairriders aka Motopia. This is a very cool couple both growing up with motorcycles. Rhiannas dad got a bike shop and runs a riding area and Jack is, well, Jack. When they are not arguing about totally pointless shit, they are very nice to be with. Here they are prepping a solid sunday breakfast, all feeling very tired after a lot of days of riding. So happy to have spent more time with them and I have a good feeling that I will be spending more time in the future with these people. Im pretty sure that I will make it downunder come november/december, after my collarbone operation. We talked about doing an extreme enduro downunder, should be plenty of rocks!!!
Jack and I went for a ride today. Very demotivated at the beginning, couldnt really get out of bed (=couch/bunk bed matress). We went down to the Motopia Shop, changed my rear tube (another flat!!! – cant wait to get the Goldentyre Mousse back in!!!), changed transmission oil and shifter. After this, we took off for our last great ride in our backyard. Its apparently pretty illegal what we’re doing but hey. Its pretty awesome. Cant blame a couple off offroad junkies like us for doing it. Justin once got chased by a helicopter and luckily escaped by hiding under some trees. We did the same today, but luckily the whatever flying thing up there wasnt looking for us. We had an amazing ride today and I still cant believe how good the riding is. Jack is an awesome rider, so happy that he has discovered Extreme Enduro. His skill set matches the needs required perfectly and he will do so well. I talked him into doing the Romaniacs today and I think he will do it. We shall see – and watch out pros, he will at least break the top 10. This picture is from a nice drop, maybe some video later, maybe not.
