Good ride cowboy, good ride!

As I keep trying to keep my goal of diversifying my ride portfolio to help me meet my end goal of being the best, most versed rider I can possible be I went to Rehbeins Indoor BMX track in Lino Lakes. It is kind of a long drive. It took me just about 55 minutes to get there but it was totally worth it! I had a great time. I had to go by myself since things fell through with a couple of my buddies. Even though I was going at it alone it was fine. I had fun and met some great people. I met a Cottage Grove native and dead ripper. He only lives about 10 mins from me and was super stoked when I told him I was the one that was behind the building of the bike park in Eagan, Lexington Street Bike Park, and that I was planning on building a bigger and better bike park in Cottage Grove. He said he wanted to help in anyway possible and I'm going to hold him to that. It was also great to hear there is about 3 or 4 other rippers that he hangs with that live in Cottage Grove! I hope that we can all get together and be form a great scene here in CG!

Anyways back to the riding. Well it was a lot more serious then I remember BMX practice being 10 years ago. It was gate practice all night, which I thought was odd and meant that you couldn't session any jumps or anything. I guess it has to do with 1. how serious all those racers are 2. the size of the facility 3. the size/length of the track. I would have loved to get to just screw around more but that's not racing. I did do about 25 to 30 laps which is a great work out. It was a slow start for me but it didn't take too long for me to get the hang of it again. I loved manualing the rhythm sections. Nothing fells that good to me. I still want to learn how to manual the whole thing with out putting the front wheel down! I think that would just be super sick!

I will say this it took some time getting use to trying to jump the jumps with those super mellow BMX lips when for the last two summers I have been primarily dirt jumping. I did case the jumps a couple times and tweaked my rear rim, so I will have to try and true that as much as  I can by next weekend! Off to Ray's Indoor Mountain Bike Park in Milwaukee for Friday and Saturday with Trevor. It will be a good time to get a feel for my new 2010 Chevy Malibu.

I didn't mention this before but last Sunday my car was totaled when a high school kid lost control and slide into me on the highway and spun me into the ditch. So I don't have the Sentra anymore. The saddest part is loosing all my dope stickers on the back window! Oh well I will just have to start over! Have to rep the rider street cred!

Keep it real!

Busy Busy Busy

Hey all,

I know it has been a long time and man have I been busy! Well I promise there will be more to come. I have some cool stuff in the works. Elm Creek, 3RPD and MORC are applying for the Bell/IMBA Grant. We are contining to move forward on the Cottage Grove bike park, it also looks like Maple Plain will be referbishing their jump park. So big things happening in the Metro for bike parks.

As for me, I am going to try and hit up Rebiehn's Indoor BMX track tonight in Lino Lakes and then next weekend Trevor and I are heading to Ray's Indoor Mountain Bike Park for a guys weekend! More to come on this. Hopefully a little interview action! Also found out about a sweet indoor skate park in Zumbro Falls, MN about 1 hour from my house! So plans on hitting that up in the near future as well!

Stay tuned! and keep it real!

oh the holidays

Well it sure has been a long time since I had a rant on my blog but man I haven’t been this frustrated in a long ass time!

First off I think I have ordered my last thing from Price Point. You might save some money but in the end if it isn’t what you want you end up spending way more!

So here we go. I always get to purchase my own Christmas gift on behalf of my mother because she doesn’t like to give me cash or gift cards and never knows what to get me.  Nothing new here, I went online to get something bad ass for biking. I checked all the sites and none of the had the shorts I wanted.

 I wanted some loud colored mtb shorts. I searched and of course it ended up that Troy Lee would be the brand to go with.  I was really digging the Cam Zink’esk TLD Moto shorts. Started looking for the best price. I found them at Price Point for what I thought was a good price, $84. Went through the check out and $11 bones for the shipping. I was like dang that’s a lot but no big deal, it will be worth it and no other shop had them in stock. So click and purchased them. $95 bucks total and got them in a week. Sweet they are so dope, try them on they don’t fit…WTF, I wear 32inch pants, I followed the sizing chart and ordered 34 inch waist! I know I didn’t gain that much weight in 7 days. I waited 2 days tried them on again, nope they just don’t fit. I looked at the return policy.

Pricepoint: customer is responsible for all shipping when product is returned for not fitting… Ok that is lame. I wanted to make sure that the shorts were not just mis-labled or something so I called around and of course no bike shops even carried TLD products at least not clothing. I called Bob’s Cycle and they did, so I drove over to Bob’s and they didn’t have any shorts but they did have few styles of pants. I tried them all on and the 34’s fit a little better but definitely needed 36inch! Damn it. Well time to return them.

I went to the post office yesterday to send it, wow what an experience. I show up 1 person in line. I walk up to the lady and was like, hey I need to return these and would like to ship them as cheep as possible what is my best option? She says all the boxes are there on the shelf and the price is on them.  Ok? Zero help. So I went  to the shelf and start looking. Find a box that works and by that time 5 people have walked in. Back of the line I go. I get everything filled out and box loosely put together make my way back to the front and the lady is like, what are you not going to tape it? I was like I don’t have any tape, can you tape it? No we don’t have tape for the public but you can buy a roll right there for $3.50. I stood there for a second, like are you serious? So I ask well do I have any options that don’t require me to go get tape. She is like a priority package. I was like I don’t really need priority but how much is it? She is like $10. I was like no way and she was looking at me like hurry up, making me all nervous and the line was growing behind me, so I was like fuck it give me the box and I will go home and tape it and come back. $2 for a box. On the way home I was like that was dumb I have a box at home for sure. Oh well $2 down the drain. I get home pissed off at this cumbersome process growing ever more frustrated with Price Point and now the US Postal Service. I get it all packaged up but now it is too late to take it back so I ask Kelly to take it back today.

To put this inter prospective. Per price point policy I have 30 days from delivery to return the produce. I received the shorts on 12/14/12 that means  I have till 1/13/2013 to get it back to them for them to except it.

She is there going to send it and they said standard shipping could take up to 14 days. So that is cutting it super close so she has to send in priority anyways and price point requires insurance and I wanted delivery confirmation. All in all it ended up costing almost $13 to ship it back! Plus $2 for the box, so $15! Totally not Kelly’s fault and I’m thankful she could help me out but that sucks big time! Thanks super unhelpful USPS lady, you could have told me when I asked what the cheapest way to ship it back that regular is not cheaper!  I should have just shipped it priority to begin with and saved my self $5! Man postage has gone to the roof. I was just a pair of shorts going to CA. I’ve sent packages to Germany way heavier then this for the same price or less!

Needless to say I am super annoyed. I spent $26 to find out that the shorts I wanted didn’t fit and now I have nothing to show for it! So I might have well said fuck it and donated $26 to a good cause and not to Fed Ex and the worthless USPS! Oh and forget PricePoint not worth it they have low prices but get you on the shipping… I’m not sure I’m 100% done with online shopping but I’m not happy with this experience at all! I can’t say it isn’t some my fault for not being patient with the online shopping and doing some more reviews but if the sizing chart says it will fit it should damn well fit!

That said I don’t have much of a choice since the local bike shops aren’t that great they don’t stock anything that I would ever want. If you don’t ride road, are a fixie riding hipster, ride XC or a fat bike your fucked! Yes they probably can order just about anything that QBP sells but at an inflated price!

I’m at a loss. I don’t know what to do! I wish I could just move but that isn’t realistic at this time! It would  be great to be able to just go down the street and buy cool shit locally. No waiting, no extra costs, no head aches and good for everyone!  Heck the closest bike shop is 10 miles from my house and there isn’t even one in Cottage Grove…. Oh well thanks for letting me rant. I feel better now and I guess it is another life lesson learned!

Keep it real!

Survey TIme!!!!!!

Hey everyone it is game time! MORC Gravity Advocates has released a survey to gauge the interest in alternative riding such as gravity, freeride and BMX

Click here for survey

..... hmmmm

Hey hey hey every buddy! That was my Fat Albert reference of the day for all you old school lovers out there! Anyways, life has been going in warp speed but it's going great. Heck we finally got some snow and it is finally starting to feel like winter and I love it. I still live in this state because I love the seasons. I love riding my bike only second to my family but even the most hard core riders need a break to recover and refuel our drive.

I don't plan on taking as much time off as I have in the past. I want to come out of the gate full speed next spring so I have decided to bust out the trainer and put some flats on the Surly LHT and tossed that in the basement, along with my kettlebell and hope to get tons of use out of them to stay sharp for next year. On top of that the really money training will come from racing indoor BMX. As you know I bought a 24inch BMX bike and I plan on using that and honing the skills over the winter by going back to my roots and racing BMX. I hope to learn some new skills from my BMX cohorts!

I was going to start today but this awesome winter weather has kept me home bound but I did get to rock the XC skis so that was cool. Hopefully next week! On top of the XC skis I got to spend some serious time with the family! It was awesome, did a little back yard sledding with Kelly and Jerry. We then went to Kelly's parent's house and helped clear snow and decorate the Christmas Tree. Tis the season and with this new snow it is really starting to feel like it. I will tell you, you know that you are a dirt bag mountain biker when end up shoveling your drive way with a flat shovel, haha. That definitely makes it take way longer! Menard's here I come!

Things have been moving quickly with MORC and other bike related endeavors. I hope that some of them can come to fruition. I have a meeting with Cottage Grove Park's Commission to discuss building a bike park in Cottage Grove. I hope that goes well, it would be great to have another bike park in the metro and great form me to have one this close to my house!

Vail Resorts purchased Afton Alps, also really close to my house, and this could be huge news for mountain biking but we will have to wait and see! Vail Resorts owns Vail, Breckinridge, Keystone, Beaver Creek, Heavenly Valley, Kirckwood and Northstar. Keystone and Northstar are home to two of the biggest and best
bike parks in the nation and almost all of their resorts have mountain biking and they are expanding into lift access riding in many of their other resorts.

Afton has tons of potential and the best possible terrain near the metro area. They have close to 350ft of elevation loss, 300  acres of land and multiple chairs. They could run the bike park off of lift 2 and 14 and with a few pedal strokes you could access the entire ski area and since you are on a bike you could even ride to areas that do not have ski access as riders could cross the rode and trails could be built through tree areas! The potential is massive and I hope that Vail realized the potential market here as there is no other lift access gravity riding near the metro. Only time will tell. It would also be awesome for them to redo and upgrade some of the XC trails. Per the US ski association, the average ski hill that runs a lift access bike park they average $190,000 in income during the bike season! That is better then letting your lift sit still and doing nothing and this would not interfere with their Golf area!

Well enjoy the snow and keep it real!

The Movement!

I have to admit I spend a lot of time talking with my riding buddies about what we can do or should try to do to get more "cool" riding in and around the metro and MN area in general. By cool riding we mean more technical, preferably gravity driven, pucker you butt and all around bad ass riding spots! Well the fire has been sparked, well it was sparked a long time ago by a couple of my buddies Tony B and Adam Buck AKA Buck but it has been resparked recently, by the Duluth Crew and Hansi our local IMBA rep, so lets start this scene a blaze.

I would like to think I have had some influence on bringing this style of riding to the main stream with my instrumental roll in getting the Lexington Street Bike Park designed and built and my relentless barrage of the local forums with Gravity garb and reasons to ride longer travel bikes with flat pedals, but lets be real I probably haven't done much in influencing anyone but maybe my friends. However that might be changing!

I have recently joined the MORC board, I was first just going to be the "gravity liaison" but decided to take the full plunge and really get my hands dirty and try to get some real changes to happen with a move in what I consider the right direction. I really think the current board is super open minded and on board with most of my concepts and I know the new President Reed and the local IMBA rep Hansi are all about diversifying the local riding scene into more disciplines such as gravity and freeride. IMBA's main focus at the global summit this year in Santé Fe New Mexico was bike parks, I love bike parks and think they are amazing and the most bang for your buck and best use of your land, so I guess my ideals are right in line with IMBA and MORC is also moving in that direction, so what better time to throw my time and effort their way and join forces for the good of all bikers! I would say man kind but that's a bit of a stretch! haha.

So like I mentioned earlier I spend a lot of my time chatting with my riding buddies about how we can get more cool riding spots around here and finally we came up with a great idea. Well I shall give the credit where it is due, to my buddy Trevor. He was really the one that came up with the concept of reaching out to more divers populations of riders and that sparked the discussion of how we can do that. That expanded into the idea of how can we show MORC and the land managers that this demand is here and what do we do with this information and how do we make this concept a reality? Well after a good couple days of chatting and swapping ideas we came up with what we felt was a pretty solid plan and then we decided to talk to Reed and see if MORC maybe wanted to join the cause and get involved with this.... We'll long story short they loved it and now we, Trevor and I have partnered with MORC and have started the movement that we call, wait for it..... Upper-Midwest Riders for Gravity/Freeride/BMX!!!!!!!!

So what are goal is, is to advocate for more Gravity/Freeride/BMX ride spots in and around the Twin Cities, the state of Minnesota and the entire Upper-Midwest. We are going to take the success of places like Copper Harbor and the buzz that Spirit Mountain and Mont Du Lac have started and really try to harness that energy and focus it here in the Metro and use it to grow and develop our riding scene and take it to the next level!

Which in turn we hope will help fuel other projects through out the Upper-Midwest! I know there is going to be an awesome new addition to the WI scene with The Rock Bike Park, and we are hoping to the do the same thing here. We currently are involved in various stages of the planning process with 4 potential new ride spots through out the metro area and this is above and beyond the normal single track that we all no and love and lets be clear about this, single track has always been and will always be MORC’s bread and butter and main focus. So all of you XC lovers, don’t worry it’s not going any where! MORC is just trying to diversify its portfolio to help grow its rider base and member population! Realistically why shouldn’t they? It is Minnesota Off Road Cyclist not MN XC riders or even MN mountain bikers, so I feel that MORC should be involved on some level with all forms of off-road cycling whether it be the classic XC style trail, Gravity trails, bike parks or even BMX tracks. We should be advocating and assisting to the best of our ability to see more of these places become a reality in and around the metro so we have more people putting their wheels to dirt! The younger the better! They will be better riders in the future and become life long cyclists sooner!

Like I said earlier I’m a huge advocate for Bike Parks and not just the BMX style bike parks but the full blown awesomeness of a place like Valmont in Boulder CO. I believe this is the future and a project like this can really unit the riding community! A place where you can basically ride any bike you can imagine and any style of riding you can imagine! That is my dream and that is why we have started this movement and are beginning to assist MORC in the avocation process!

So how can you help? Well first off go this Facebook page and Like us, then share the page and then go to the IMBA website and become a member, that is how you join MORC and then go to the MORC website and start getting involved in anyway you can!

I know there has been some stigmas and stereo types about MORC and their members in the past that weren’t viewed too favorable in the gravity/freeride/bmx scene but things are changing, actually thing have already changed. Like I mentioned earlier MORC is now under new leadership and heck I’m now officially part of that leadership! So please put the past behind you, keep and open mind and join me, join us in this movement! We are on the edge of something great!

Keep it real!

Winter?

Woke up this morning, its in the teens and there is a light flurry out side... nice... Oh hello winter are you going to take off your jacket and stay awhile or just passing through? well either way I hope you stay.

For me the cycling season is about over. I probably have a couple rides left in me but I'm not one of these hard core guys with fat bikes, lights and winter riding gear.. why? you ask... well it is too GD expensive that is why... So I fill my winter with hobbies that I already have the gear for like sledding, xc skiing, dh skiing (Kelly's family is big on this so I get hand me downs), pond hockey and ice climbing.

This last Saturday I went to Red Wing for one of the last DH sessions of the year and it was a blast. It was great to ride with Jed, Trevor and Reed one last time before the snow and cold comes. The trail was in great condition! Hero dirt, all we did was move some leaves and sessioned for like 2 hours or so! Everyone that wasn't there missed out! no rain, sunny skies and 10 degrees warmer then the metro! Over all just a great day to ride!

Saturday night we went to the Zac Brown Band concert. That was awesome! One of the best concerts I've been to in a long long time. Even the opening acts were sweet! I loved Blackberry Smoke, some good old Georgia boys playing some bad ass southern rock! The rest of the weekend was spent hanging with Kelly and Jerry and just relaxing. It was great. Sunday, no plans. I haven't had that in a long time. Sleeping till I just woke up was awesome!

MORC board meeting tomorrow night, othe then that will play it by ear to see what the weather brings us!

I'm sure you are familiar with Valmont in Boulder CO, if not click here: http://bouldermountainbike.org/valmontbikepark and the history of it here: http://bouldermountainbike.org/content/historyvision
Now WI is going to take a crack at it and are building the Rock Sports Complex , it will be a multi sport complex, however it will include an extensive bike park including chairlift-served gravity course, a BMX track and cross-country trails. This will be located in Franklin WI which is near Milwaukee.
Here are a couple articles about it :
http://bfw.org/2012/11/08/epic-mtb-p...g-to-franklin/
http://bfw.org/2012/07/12/wisconsins...b-ride-center/

I truly believe that bike parks and this bike specific sports complex are the it thing in riding these days and the way of the future. It started in CO and has spread to the West Coast and is beginning to get steam on the East Coast and now in the Midwest. WI is really stepping up, they now have the largest MTB race series in the nation, Ray's indoor MTB and now the rock. This on top of Nordic Mountain and Mont du Lac that offer shuttle or lift access DH on a semi-regular basis. I was also told by Grant at Alpine bike parks designs that they are working with Cascade Mountain Ski Area near Madison about adding a lift access bike park.

In my opinion this is very exciting opportunities and I hope that we here in MN can take this momentum of the bike park/ ride complex and support whats happening in Dululth and maybe make some of these things happen here in the Metro and other locations in MN!

Keep it real!