1 Jeep KOM Finals - Beaver Creek

2007-08-31T14:34:00.001-07:00

I made it to Beaver Creek yesterday afternoon after an hour and a half wait in the car rental line. There were scattered thunderstroms the whole way, but that's just Colorado.
The course looks good. Eric Carter helped build it so there looks like alot of passing to be made. It will be longer than any of the other courses with some techical jumps as well. Should be a good one.
I have to keep this short cuz' I have to get to practice. We have practice and seeding today and then finals tomorrow.
Ciao,
tara

More piccies...

2007-08-28T16:24:00.001-07:00

I meant to put up some piccies from The Great Wall of China and my Mom pointed out to me today that I forgot to. So here are just a few.
This is me trying to take a piccie to show how steep it was. Clearly I did a shit job and only got my head in it!

The piccie at the bottom is of this beautiful little shy girl. Sometimes those are the best pic's.

Kingston

2007-08-26T02:07:00.000-07:00

So the last time I wrote I was supposed to be flying on a red-eye into Syracuse, N.Y and driving up to Kingston, Ontario Canada for another UCI BMX event. Well, I showed up at LAX all read to go and when I went to check in they told me my flight was delayed. It was about 10:15pm and I was supposed to take off at 11:30pm. Well, now the flight into Philly was delayed like 3 hours and she said I wouldn't make my connecting flight into Syracuse. So I asked her when the next flight to Syracuse was and she said not until really late that night, which would have been Friday night. The race was Saturday and as it was I was going to miss Thursday's and Friday's practice. She said I could get on that late flight into Syracuse IF the weather lightened up and they weren't sure it would so the flight wasn't for sure. So I tried to get on a different flight into JFK, which would mean that instead of driving 2 hours into Kingston I would have to drive about 6 hours once I landed at JFK. However all of the flights into JFK were now completely oversold because of all the other delayed and cancelled flights. At this point I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to fly half way there and then be stuck either super far from the race or worse...without my luggage. Lord only knows where it would have ended up if the flights were nuts.
So in the end and after the United Global lady helped as much as she could I decided to not go. It really sucked because I really wanted to go, had planned on going, and was mentally already there. Instead I went home and get to spend an extra 3 priceless days at home. So I am definitely making it into a positive.
Next up...the Jeep KOM Finals in Beaver Creek, Colorado. I leave for that race on Thursday and go straight from there to MTB Worlds in Scotland and then to the World Cup Finals in Slovenia. So until then I'll enjoy my time at home and getting to see my friends and family.
Cheers!
tara

Supercross Finals

2007-08-23T08:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday were the Supercross Finals and the racing was pretty cool to watch. I would have much rather been on the gate, but watching 8 men and women charge it out of the ginormous start gate was awesome. Here is a quick shot of Gravesy flying over the third set of doubles in the second straight-away.
The heat yesterday was almost unbearable. I mean I was there in shorts and a t-shirt and I kept pouring water over my head. I can’t imagine how it felt to have your race pants, jersey, gloves, and helmet on. The sun actually came out yesterday and it wasn’t just smog filled air.
The way they decided to run the races were they started with the Men’s quarters first and there were 4 groups. They would run all four groups three times. So basically they would run a points system for the quarters and semi’s and then just one main event. So in those quarters and mains you have to race to the line because every point counts. And then in the third heat even if you had low points you couldn’t coast because depending on the place you got you had lane choice, which was fairly important.
Throughout the day Donny Robinson, Jared Graves, Arturs Madison, and Mickel Prokop were getting the best gates. But as soon as they got to the second straight and the 3 sets of doubles that is where Mikey Day and Kyle Bennett would shine. The US guys were riding really well, but unfortunately some of them had some bad luck. Stumpy looked like he was struggling with the gate and ended up I think with an 8th, 7th, and a 6th in the quarters and was out. Tyler Brown had some good heats, but missed the semis by 1 point. The 4 guys that made it to the semis were Donny, Kyle, Steven Cisar, and Mike Day. From that group Donny was the only one that made the men’s final.
As for the women they had a run of some bad luck as well. Out of the 4 that qualified only Jill made it to the main. Arielle looked the strongest and even finished 2nd to Anne-Caro one heat, but in her last heat something happened coming out of the first turn and she launched over one of the jumps and landed back on the first straightaway. I’m not sure how that happened, but she said her hand flew off her bars. Kim just couldn’t quite get out of the gate and struggled a bit. And the same with Amanda. She got balled up out of the gate one of her heats and couldn’t jump either of the first set of doubles and when you do that you get really far behind really quick.
In the women’s main event I thought Anne-Caro or Gabriella Diaz actually looked faster than Shanaeze. Shanaeze looked like she was pushing too easy of a gear, which is scary as hell to think of b/c I heard from a little birdie that she’s running a freakin’ 45-16 ratio. And for those of you who don’t know what that means….it means that’s is a freakin’ big gear for a girl!! Guys don’t even run that hard of a gear. Anne-Caro on the other hand was spinning to win. I thought Anne and Gabriella looked a bit smoother, but I called it all wrong. In the main Shanaeze got the pop out of the gate and Anne-Caro got caught with her pants down. Shanaeze led the main from start to finish and killed it. Anne got all balled up out of the gate and down the first straight. She got all squirrelly over the triple going into the first turn and I thought she was going down, but didn’t. So here’s how the main ended up…
In the Men’s final Donny won that thing wire to wire. Haha…that is so something Mike Redman (the announcer) would say! He seriously was getting crazy good gates all day and in the main it was no different. He led from start to finish with Afro Bob putting in a good run and ending up second and Jared Graves finishing in third. I was stoked for all three of them. They rode amazing.
As soon as the event was over we rode back to the hotel and took a nice cold shower and just took it easy. Most everybody was on an 8:00 am or a noon flight the next day. I however was on an 8:30 pm so I had most of the day to play.
Chris Clinton (the US mechanic) and I decided to go to The Great Wall of China. I was stoked to get to actually see something other than the hotel especially for only being in China for 3 days.
So this morning we got up, had a little breakfast, and then took a taxi to the Great Wall. The taxi ride took an hour and a half and cost us 400 RMB, which sounds like a lot but it’s only like $60.00. Not bad huh! As we were getting closer we could see the wall up ahead. It was massive! From what I understand it was built to keep all of the enemies out and the emperors safe and it is 6.000 kilometers long. Crazy!
Anyway, so Chris and I walked around for about an hour and a half taking pictures and just having fun watching the swap meet like chaos around us. There are tons of little shops that sell the exact same stuff and the owners are out front yelling at you saying, “ hey lady…hey lady…you like Chinese mask, you like chopsticks...I make a special price for you!” Over and over they would say this and then they would grab your arm and try to pull you closer to their little section. It was hilarious. Well, of course until one too many of them grab you and then I was just doing my best to get away. There were a ton of the shops as you walk up to the wall and then once you walk in there are more, but not as many and much smaller. It’s like they just set up a blanket and put some things on the ground and try to get you to buy them. I’m surprised that they allow it on the wall, but I guess anything goes there.
So I bought a few things and then we took our taxicab back with plenty of time for a shower, check out, and then off to the airport.
I’d like to say this trip has been short and sweet. It’s been more short than sweet. The sweet part would have been if I made the qualifier and was able to race. It was hard just sitting there watching the races going on, but still in the end I’m glad I came.
Okay, it is now about 4:30 US time on Wednesday, which means that I’ll be landing in about 30 min. and am basically landing in LA before I’ve left from Beijing. Did that make sense? ☺ Anyway, I’ll be home the rest of today and leave on another red-eye tomorrow for Syracuse, New York and the UCI event in Kingston, Ontario Canada. Good times…good times!
Cheers!
t

Jeep and Beijing Supercross Day #1

2007-08-21T01:18:00.000-07:00

I have 7 words for you..." I sucked at the Jeep Race!" Yup, I was the second fastest qualifier and then something happened to my vision. Oh wait I know what it was! I couldn't see cuz' my head was soo far up my ass!! Seriously I just rode like a moron. I got 4th and was as dissapointed in myself as I could be so we'll just leave it at that.
Anyway, so Saturday afer Jeep I caught my 5:30 pm Private Flight home to L.A. Yes, I said private. Seriously I was the only one on the plane!! Man those Jeep people sure know how to make you feel like a rockstar! ;) So I made it home (thanks Missy for the ride home) and I had about 3 hours until I was going to be picked up to head back to L.A. I made it and was soon on my Air China flight. I took my special sleeping pill and slept for about 9 of the 12 hours and was stoked. When I woke up they were serving breakfast and I was totally craving eggs, but instead they served either chicken or fish. FISH??!! For breakfast...no thanks! The good thing was that we landed a bit early because I was under a bit of a time crunch. I landed at 5:00 am and had to get to the hotel, put my bike together, hopefully eat something, and get to the track to walk it real quick and get ready to practice at 10:00 am. I was told that the Good Bejing People (volunteers of the Olympics) would be there to take me to the airport. So I spotted them in the Orange Nike Polos and told them where I was staying. They BARELY spoke english! There were 8 of them and they all stood there arguing about who knew where it was. Well, actually that's my version. I have no idea what they were saying. After about 20min. I finally explained that I NEEDED to get going and that I would just take a taxi. So two of them walked me over to a taxi and said it would be about a 40 min. drive. I loaded my things in and got in the taxi. Then two seconds later the Good Beijing people get in with me. Wow, what service huh! I got to the hotel, checked in, put my bike together, took a shower, jammed over to get some breakfast, and then left for the venue. I got there and the track looked good. The start ramp was massive!! I took pictures of it from all angles, but I don't think any of them do it justice. Not unless you actually pedal down it. I got ready for practice and I had an hour to dial in the track. For about the first 10-15 minutes they wouldn't let us start from the ramp. Not sure why, but I really wanted to get up there and get it dialed. Once I got up there I hit the first two big doubles on about my 2nd or 3rd lap.
I mean I needed to just basically hit everything and feel as comfortable as I could asap! I was starting to feel better each lap except the fact that I was totally spun out after the first jump. So right after practice I went up a gear and then it was time for the first time trial.
My first one felt so-so. The gear felt waaay better, but I went waay too wide on the first turn and when I came back in I bonked the top of the step up and had to roll the next two doubles. LAME!!
I went up for my second time trial and needed to make up about 2 seconds and I knew that if I took the first turn better and hit the second straight like I did in practice I'd be fine. But instead I just did ride up to my ability. I manualed the step up into the second straight, but then lost speed on the backside and had to roll the other two. I was soo dissapointed.
I'm still glad I came, but to not make the cut was hard. I have to say that the 16 girls that did make it were riding pretty damn fast. Back when I raced BMX full time girls just weren't this fast.

Jeep KOM Practice

2007-08-17T16:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, so we were supposed to do our seeding runs today but because it was so windy we'll do seed runs tomorrow. And when I say windy I mean about 35 mph winds!!! The two jumps heading sort of toward the wind are really easy jumps, but because of the wind about 4 people crashed today. As soon as your wheels leave the ground it's like you have a sail on your bike. So practice went good. I jumped pretty much everything today accept the last quad that is super lippy.
Anyway, that's it for now. Tomorrow it's practice, seed runs, and finals.
Ciao,
t

Jeep #2 - San Luis Obispo

2007-08-16T14:51:00.000-07:00

So Tuesday and Wednesday I was pretty much just packing and trying to get things organized before I go. I had to pack for the Jeep race this weekend and I had to pack a different bag for the BMX UCI Supercross race in Beijing, China. It's gonna be pretty nuts. I'll fly home Saturday night after racing on Saturday at the Jeep race and land at LAX. Drive home and do some re-packing, shower, eat something, and then get a ride back to LAX around 10:45pm and catch my red-eye to Beijing at 1:40 am. I'll get into Beijing at 5:20 am get picked up and head straight to the track more than likely. We have practice at 10:00am and time trials I think around 2:00pm. I'm already going to miss the Sunday practice session so when I get there it's ON. I just need to get there and start hitting stuff. The track there is gonna be crazy. Straight out of the huge roll in starting gate there is a 22 foot double into a 28 foot double. Let me just say that hitting a 28 foot jump on your mountain bike is way different than hitting a 28 foot jump on your BMX bike. But from the looks of the Jeep course this weekend it should be good preparation for Monday. Here are some photos of the track. Both Rob and E.C helped design and build it. It is SUPER windy and hot here, but the good thing is they built the bigger jumps with the wind at your back and not a cross or head wind. There are a couple sections where there is a bit of a cross wind, but it shouldn't be as bad as last year. The container jump is bigger this year than last. This year we are jumping over 2 containers and there is a dirt lip about 16 feet before you even hit the dirt container. So if you hit the whole thing it's I think about 30-32 feet. But we've got a tailwind so it should be do-able.
Anyway, check it out and I'll try to write more later.
tara

Congrats Rando and Mike Creed in rare form!

2007-08-16T14:28:00.000-07:00

So a couple nights there was a little shin-dig for my teammate and good friend Jared Rando. He ended up winning the Norba Series in DH after some great riding and consistency throughout the year. I wanted to do something for him so I went out of my way to buy some cupcakes at the store. HAHA! Okay no really I went to the store and bought the mix, the little pans, etc. and made some cupcakes for him. I was stoked cuz' they turned out good. Of course how can you really screw those up! If you haven't figured it out that was the first time I had ever made cupcakes. Crazy huh! So we had some killer fish tacos that Rando tossed up and it was on. Carter came over too with his girly Amber and we had some beers before I had to head over to Reddings to pick up my helmet. It finally got finished and I had to pick it up so I could have if for the second Jeep race in SLO.
So that's what's been going on. Oh and my coach did the Leadville 100 last weekend and here are some fun pic's he sent me. Some of you might know who Mike Creed is and is also coached by James. I guess he just wanted to lighten up the pit area!

Email from Editor

2007-08-10T12:39:00.000-07:00

I just got this email a few days ago from the editor of Adventure Sports Weekly. Her name is Wina and she was up at the Jeep KOM reporting on the race. She sent me this email and I thought it was super cool so I figured I'd post it...

Hi Tara,

I'm the red haired Utah old lady journalist from the JKOM, didn't talk much to you there and didn't see the spelling of your last name so didn't even realize it was you! Wanted to gi'yaprops for coming back after that naaasty crash, but more importantly, as soon as I saw "Llanes," just had to email you what an impression you made on me (and my bank acct) some years ago at the Deer Valley NORBA race, I interviewed you, you offered to let me try out your bike, my first time on full suspension, I went nuts, right away bought a great bike with everything; have to thank ya for that! I'll never have the guts (or talent) you do, but I can ride down hills on that bike like I always dreamed of riding! Yee-haw! But the big ones you showed by coming back after Saturday's Canyons crash was awesome. I hope you aren't too sore today; and I'm saying a little prayer that you qualify over in China. Good, good, good luck!

Wina Sturgeon, Editor

Thanks Wina and it's great to know that you're out there charging the mountain on your bike!
Cheers,
Tara

Jeep KOM #1 - Canyons, Utah

2007-08-02T21:28:00.001-07:00

I was home for less than 24 hours, which was basically long enough to do some laundry and pack up my Giant Trance for the first Jeep Series race of the year. I haven't seen the course yet, but I talked to Rob the course builder and it sounds pretty rocky and fast with not a whole lot of big jumps in it. And here I was all set for some big jumps after riding at Whistler the last three days! Oh well I'm sure it'll be fun. It's great to see the whole Eclipse TV crew again. Tomorrow we start practice so I'll let you know how it goes.
Good night!

BMX Worlds & Whistler Fun

2007-08-02T21:19:00.000-07:00

Okay so this is the first time in like 5 days that I’ve had to sit down and turn on my computer. I’ll start off by being anti-climactic and just tell you that I didn’t make the main event at the BMX Worlds last weekend. I had a super lame slideout in the second straightaway and already had 7 points. I needed to win the next couple heats to make it to the semi’s, but that didn’t happen. I really expected to do better and was definitely disappointed. It was going to look at the moto board to see who else was in your heat and only knowing one other girls name. It was going in kind of blind because you have no idea how fast any of the other girls were. So not one Elite US Woman made the main event if that gives you any indication of how fast the Euros are. Kim Hayashi might have made it if she hadn’t crashed in her third moto and hurt her hand. Shanaeze Reade from the U.K won by about a straightaway. She was insanely fast. In every moto she was in she was like eight bike lengths in front of second. I filmed the main event and I couldn’t even get 2nd place in the same frame of the camera!! I think Anne-Caro would’ve given her a run for her money, but she got balled up in the first turn and was in third. She went to make a pass on the inside of the second turn, but locked bars with another French chick and they went down. Right when they went down the third frenchy in the Elite women’s final ran into them. So there you have it…the French will take out anybody even their teammates! To be honest I don’t even know who got second and I haven’t been online to check.
In the men’s race Kyle Bennett (by the way I’m sure this is old news by now, but I still feel inclined to write about what I saw) won and was riding like an absolute champ the entire day. I don’t think he lost his motos, quarter, or semi on the way to the main event. He always took lane one and would holeshot. He was soo smooth through the rhythm section that nobody could pass him. Khalen Young the Aussie kid definitely gave him a run for his money in the third straight and second pro section, but Kyle had the inside and just pulled away in the last straight. I was stoked for him. The US had 4 men in the Elite men’s finals. We probably would’ve had 6 if Mikey Day and Bubba Harris hadn’t gone down. My boy Jarrett “The Jet” Kolich made the main and rode super good all day.
So there’s the news from the BMX weekend. The race was this past Saturday and I thought my TM Travis was going to pick me up and we would drive up to Whistler on Sunday morning. Nope! Straight after the race he crammed Kenan Harkin (NBC guy, former teammate and all around funny guy) and I into the Navigator and was took off. I seriously thought Travis’s head was going to explode if we didn’t get to Whistler that night. So after racing all day I didn’t get to shower and just threw all my crap in his car and we took off trying to make the 7pm ferry. Well, after rushing to make it we didn’t’ make it anyway and then when we got there at like 7:15pm they said there was a bomb threat and no more ferries were going out of Swartz Bay that night and that we’d have to drive to Nanaimo, which was 2 hours away. So Trav turns around and pins it all the way there. We end up getting on the 9:25pm ferry and finally up to Whistler at 1:30am. I walk into the condo and Jeff Lenosky said to take the first room on the left. So I open the room and clearly someone was in that room and there was a dog in there. I proceed to open two more doors to find that there is someone in every room. Let me tell you. At 1:30am after being up all day racing, not getting a shower, and then getting there and not having a room I was NOT stoked. I ended up snagging a twin bed in someone’s room and crashed hard.
The next morning I saw Travis and I swear it looked like he just drank a six-pack of Red Bull. The guy was zipping around and all over the place. He was so amped up he was starting to make me freak out and get all amped. We had some breakfast and then I had to go find my bike that I shipped up there. I went to the Whistler Bike Co. and there it was. I just want to say thanks to all of those guys for being super cool and helping me out with that stuff. And to Randy, Chris, and Paul for taking care of all of us. You guys are awesome. Oh and one more thank you to Elladee Brown of Shimano Canada. When I opened my bike box and went to put it together my rear disc brake was absolutely ruined. It was so tweaked and I couldn’t fix it. I ran over to the Shimano tent set up in the center of the village and Elladee hooked me up with their only disc brake rotor on display! So thanks a ton cuz’ I wouldn’t have been riding that day without you!!
We all meaning me, Travis, and Kenan Harkin headed up to get our first DH fun run of the day and it was about 2pm. We did one run and had a blast. My next run up I saw Needles, Anka, Hans Rey, and Sven and I went up with them to the very top to ride the Garbanzo DH. I was soooo stoked. I had never been to the top so I was amped to check it out. It was still muddy in the tree section at the top and super rooty. I now understood what everybody meant by gnarly. There were plenty of rock drops and jumps as well. Sven was taking pics so we would find a sweet spot and he would get his camera out and set up all of the flashes. I think it ended up taking us about an hour and a half to get down because we’d do a section and then climb back up and do it another few times. I got some crazy skeeter bites from standing around up there, but I still had a blast. I’ll be honest I was having so much fun that I think I was riding my DH bike faster than I have in a long time. I had never ridden this trail, but followed Needles down and just stayed off the brakes. I rode down some drops that I didn’t even think twice about. I dunno…. there’s just something about Whistler that just makes me want to charge it. We rode A-line a few times and I actually did some runs with my friend Jo and Tara Dakides. She a sick pro snowboarder and I had met her a couple times in the past and she was on a borrowed bike. It was cool to be able to ride with her. I know if we were on snowboards she would’ve made me look like a child! The next day was going to be another long one so I called it a day after a couple runs with her.
So Tuesday morning we all met for breakfast and Troy (Lee) was in town so he came and sat with us. He’s always fun to have around. We all cruised over to the lift around 10:30 a.m and it was game on. There was a huge crew that went up. Me, Lenosky, Travis, Kenan, Kurt Sorge, Richey Schley, Lopes, one of his buddies, Hans, Heath Pinter, Andrew and Kevin from Giant, “Fuzzy” Hall, Troy, Yurek, and a couple moto guys, David Pingree, and Billy Laninovich. I’m sure I’m missing a few other guys as well. I think we did A-line first just to give the moto guys a chance to get a feel for the bikes and then we all went up to the top. It took us awhile to get down since we had so many people, but it was soo much fun. It’s crazy t what professional rider in another sport out of their element a bit and they are trying to figure it out. They all did and I think they were super stoked. I think I ended up doing 9 or 10 runs that day and I ended it by doing a few runs with Lenosky and Kurt, two of Giant teammates. Those two are amazing rider and to be able to go down A-line and hit everything was a blast.
So Wednesday morning was another early one. I loved having fun and just being able to ride Whistler, but the real reason I was there was to do an NBC Jeep Adventure show. Kenan is the host and myself, Lenosky, Kurt, and Andrew from Giant all did interviews for the show and rode did some filming coming down A-line with Kenan. So Wednesday was more stop and start, stop and start because we had to make our way down the trail and then walk up and do a take after take. It seemed to take forever, but it was great to be part of it. Thanks Trav for setting everything up. We started at 9:30 am and didn’t finish until about 7:00 pm. Once we were done I still had to find a bike box and pack both my Giant Reign and my BMX bike. It’s crazy in Whistler because the days seriously fly by. I mean one minute it’s 10:00 am and the next it’s 7:30 pm and you’re trying to get one more run in! We didn’t eat dinner till about 9:30 pm every night and before you know it you’re going to bed at midnight or 1:00 a.m every night. I am SOOOO tired right now. I took the 6:00 am shuttle this morning to Vancouver airport and I slept the whole time. I was soo out of it I’m sure my mouth was hanging open. I pretty sure I’ll be sleeping the entire 2 ½ hr. flight home. Do some laundry once I make it home, pack my Giant Trance and get ready for my flight tomorrow to Utah for the first Jeep KOM Series race. Home will just be a teaser unfortunately. However I do get to see my buddy Katrina Miller who is flying into Utah tomorrow. WooHoo!!
Okay well gotta go so I don’t miss my flight.
Thanks for reading!
Cheers!

BMX Worlds - Day 1

2007-07-25T22:08:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, July 25th - LA to Victoria

So I’m sitting on the BC Ferry right now from Tsawwasen to Swartz Bay in Victoria, BC and it is absolutely beautiful out. Sunny and warm and I’m finally sitting down and enjoying the ride. I was up pretty early this morning to catch my 7:45am flight from LA to Vancouver. You see I should have flown directly onto Victoria Island, but I didn’t know any better since I’ve never been and didn’t realize that if you didn’t fly straight into Victoria you’d have to take the ferry. So since I was landing in Vancouver I was going to have to clear customs, take a taxi to the ferry (approx. 20 min.), take the ferry to Swartz Bay ( approx. 1hr. 40min.), and then take another taxi on the other end from the ferry landing to the hotel (approx. 30-40min.). So it was a little adventure, but I was up for it.

However there was a little unexpected glitch in my plans once I got to Vancouver. Once I got there I turned on my phone and had a message from a lady at Fed/Ex saying that they had my bike and couldn’t clear it unless I came and paid for it. I don’t know if I mentioned that I had shipped my DH bike up to Whistler since I was heading up there right after the BMX race and I didn’t want to lug it around on my taxi, ferry, taxi expedition. So I shipped it to make my life easier. Or so I thought. I call the lady back and she says I need to come pay for the bike or something and show some form of ID. She said it would just be best if I come in. So I caught a taxi to an off-site Fed/Ex office near the airport wait in a long line to get the form. I then take the taxi to the Canada Customs office and wait in another line, but for whatever reason the lady stamped the form, but didn’t charge me. SWEET!! Then take the taxi back to the Fed/Ex office and hand off the form. Wheeeww!! Done and finally I was able to get in the taxi and head to the ferry.

I had actually slept the entire flight from LA to Vancouver so that definitely helped. Oh and you’ll never guess who was on my flight, Leigh Donovan, Stikman, their little one Grace, and Leigh’s parents. Leigh said they were heading up to Whistler to do some riding so they should have a good time. Leigh has been busy running her boutique clothing store called Tangerine and she said it’s going really well so that’s good to hear.

So like I was saying I’m on the ferry now and this thing is pretty sweet. I mean sort of a pain in the ass to get to this race, but I’m on a chill schedule today with no practice tomorrow so I’m not stressed. At least my bike is in my golf case with wheels! Anyway, I’m gonna check out the sites and turn the computer off.

Okay…I’m back and it’s 10pm. I just got back from a little spin and I’m pretty tired. Not from riding, but more from today’s travel. The island is beautiful and weather is awesome. Hopefully it holds up. I haven’t seen the track yet, but have heard about a pretty good size set of doubles in the first straight. Other than that I’ve heard most of the jumps are fairly easy, but get kind of tight and deep in some parts. Dunno..we’ll see I guess. Tomorrow we don’t have practice, but Tyler, Jarrett and I will go check it out. I’ll try to post some pic’s.
C-ya!

BMX Worlds...

2007-07-24T21:08:00.000-07:00

I've been home for about a week and have loved every minute. The weather has been awesome and I've had some time to spend with my friends, which is always a good time. Tomorrow morning I'm off to the BMX Worlds in Victoria, BC and then right after that I'll drive up to Whistler with the guys from Giant to do some TV stuff with Jeff Lenosky. So this next week should be some good fun. I've been checking here and there to see how things were going at Crankworx and it looks to be pretty muddy and wet. Sam Hill looked to just obliterate the field in the Garbanzo DH by like a half minute. Wish I could have been there, but I have been enjoying being home in the sun.
Anyway, I better finish packing. I'll try to write more once I get there.
Ciao!

Lat34.com Interview

2007-07-12T22:21:00.000-07:00

My interview with Lat34.com just got posted today. I did the interview with Greg Baerg just yesterday, but he's quick!! Lat34.com is an Action Sports Life website and it's sweet. Check it out!!
http://www.lat34.com

Sooo tired!!

2007-07-09T17:43:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was my all Women's DH clinic at Whiteface Mountain in Lake Placid, New York. I got home yesterday and am exhausted! The clinic went great and I'll have a full write up tomorrow hopefully. I just want to send a thank you out to everyone who sent product out for the women. Giant for Women, Giant, Troy Lee Designs, Smith, Gatorade, Luna Bar, Pro Gold, and Terry. Also, to both Mike and Theresa for helping to get everything organized. Oh and I can't forget Elias, Justin, and Corey for all the help building the jumps, driving us up the mountain, and helping work on bikes. The clinic wouldn't have succesfull without you.
Anyway, today has been insane and I need/want to go ride my bike so I'll try to have a better write yup tomorrow. However I do know that ride monkey has a bit of a write up already on their site. So here's the link http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/showthread.php?t=184090
Check it out!
Cheers,
tara

Off to New York

2007-07-03T20:11:00.000-07:00

So I'm leaving for New York tomorrow morning to do a 2-day All Women's DH Clinic and I'm psyched. Everyone seems really pumped. I was doing so much running around today that I haven't even packed yet and it's 8:15 pm. Ugh! I've been going to see Dr.G my chiropractor about 3 times a week just because I'm so out of whack. I'm already starting to feel better. After my chiro appointment I needed to find a bike shop that carried the Shimano tool to take off my disc brake rotors. You see I have the tool for XTR hubs, but not the one for Saint hubs so I spent about 2 hours driving from shop to shop and calling ahead and all of them saying, "oh yeah we've got the right tool". I would totally explain it's NOT the XTR tool and they were still like, "yup we've got it". So I drive all the way there and it's the wrong DAMN tool! Oh well. Anyway so yeah I still need to pack my Reign.
In other news I got some cool pics from Jeff Menown. Jeff is a good friend of mine and works at Giant. He also LOVES MotoGP. Here are some fun pic's of him last weekend. I know there are photographer tags on the pic's but oh well.

And in other news the advertising agency Blue C is beginning my new web design. We were on the phone today for a couple hours discussing how I wanted things and it's gonna look sweet. So stay tuned. It will probably take a few weeks to get something up.

Okay I seriously need to go pack!
Ciao

Stephen Murray Family Fund

2007-06-29T20:23:00.000-07:00

Alot of you may have already heard about Stephen Murray's accident at the Dew Tour last weekend where he came up short on a double back-flip. I've met Stephen a few times and he is seriously one of the nicest guys out there. He's great at his job and provides for his wife and two little boys. Please help out even if it's only $1. Here is the link at BMX News so please take a minute and read up. Thank you all!
http://www.bmxnews.com

Dr. G

2007-06-26T16:54:00.000-07:00

As soon as I woke up this morning I was sadly reminded again of my crash in Sainte-Anne. So I got up and made an appointment to go see Dr. G my chiropractor. I figured I might have had some ribs out. When I got there they wanted to take x-rays just to make sure I didn't break any. I didn't so that was good, but I did have 4 ribs out of place so he popped me back in and we put some ice on for a bit. I'm already feeling better so hopefully I'll be back on the bike by tomorrow.

If you are looking for anymore Sainte-Anne coverage check out littermag.com. Here's the link...
http://www.littermag.com

There's actually a shot of me about 5 seconds before I crash. I didn't realize I was coming out of the first turn with my front wheel so crooked. Hindsight is a beee-atch!

Men's DH Finals, 4x Carnage, Takeouts, and Ridiculous UCI disqualifications...

2007-06-25T07:31:00.000-07:00

It's Monday morning about 10:32 a.m and I'm in Ottawa. I woke up (5 a.m) with the bass still bumping from the party that started around 9 p.m last night. I'd put money on Rennie just making it home around that time. So here's how the DH went down yesterday.
So I think I already mentioned Sabrina winning and still being pissed off that she didn't beat her quali time. You can tell she wants it bad, but I think Mo is gonna start coming on stronger so we'll have to wait and see. Here are those other photo I wanted to put up earlier. I tried to get a shot of the Leatt brace that Vanessa Quinn was wearing as well.

As for the men Sam Hill came out on top again yesterday with Minnaar and Peaty right on his heels. I got the inside scoop on Peaty and I guess in his practice run before the quali's he had a bit of a crash in the very last woods section so in the final he slowed up a bit more than he should have and he thinks that's where he probably lost the time. Too bad cuz' he was flying! As for Minnaar he had some bad luck as well with his shoulder popping out in his final run before one of the rock sections. He had to take his hands off the bars and shake his arm out a bit to get it back in. That had to hurt!!

1. Sam Hill - 4:29.58
2. Greg Minnaar - 4:31.27
3. Steve Peat - 4:31.30
4. Matty Lehikoinen - 4:33.00
5. Fabian Barel - 4:34.64

Oh and I gotta give props to Luke Strobel from the U.S. He finished 15th with a time of 4:41.00 just behind Gee Atherton. Nice work! As for my Giant boys, Rando destroyed his rear wheel about 200 feet out of the start for his semi-final, which was the end of his day and Amiel finished 26th with a 4:46.40.

Now on to the 4x. First of all Mont Sainte-Anne used to have the best crowds in North America. I mean a few years back you couldn't even see the pavement between rigs in the tech zone because there were so many people. Unfortunately this wasn't the case this past weekend. It had thinned out a bit. On top of that they had the 4x finals at 7 p.m on Sunday night! Please explain to me why they would do that!! I seriously think the UCI is trying to sabatoge the sport. And it only gets better. There were disqualifications that were utterly ridiculous and then other riders that DEFINITELY should have got disqualified and weren't. In one particular case Scott Beaumont ran over a gate and apparently slammed into Jared Graves and went on to qualify for the finals. Not only should he have been DQ'd for the take out, but someone had him running over the gate and essentially missing the gate on film. Graves showed it to the UCI official and he still didn't DQ Boom-Boom! I mean what other kind of proof do you need!! These guys are idiots. I mean at half the races they don't even have "officials" if that's what you want to call them on the course at all and then when they do they don't know how to make a call because they've never raced a day in their life to know what's clean, dirty, or completely legit. Whatever.
So I qualified 2nd and was really having fun on the course. I felt strong I'm guessing from my BMX training. There was no pressure since I'm not in the points race and I just wanted to go out and kill it. I had Anneke, Fionn, and Joanna in my semi-final. We came out of the gate and I had the inside so coming into the first left hand turn it was quickly turning into carnage because of the where the gate was placed. I didn't want to come unclipped. Anneke and I were bumping elbows a bit, but nothing crazy. Just a little to let each other know where we were. The entire time I knew I was gonna hit the triple coming out of the turn. It was down hill and I'm thinking about 23-25 feet long. I had hit it in practice coming out slow because I knew that's what would happen in the race. However, I didn't come out of it at a dead stop about 6 feet to the lip. Anneke and I had sort of hit elbows and stalled a bit in the turn, but I just put my head down clicked gears and took about 2 hard pedals and just hit the triple. I never second guessed it. I KNEW I would make it. Ummmm....I didn't make it. Apparently I 50/50 the landing and just got launched on the ground. I immediately covered my head so nobody would run me over. Once I stopped rolling I just heard someone yell, "Get up!!" So I thought maybe someone else crashed I could still make it. I went to get up and all of sudden didn't feel so hot. I took 2 pedals and knew that was it. I was still trying to catch my breath and just rolled down to the bottom. I coughed up a little blood and wasn't sure where it was coming from. My left shoulder was really sore, and I got a bit of a concussion. I just kept thinking what went wrong. I mean I was so damn confident. Maybe too overconfident. Who knows? So that was the end of my day. I could have gone up and raced the small final and finished with a 5th, but my body just couldn't take it and my shoulder hurt so I called it a day.
In the women's final Jill had the lead into the first turn with Anneke right on her and as soon as Jill started to slide out Anneke passed her on the outside and took it home for a win with Fionn in second. I just shook my head and thought, "I NEVER have that kind of luck dammnit!!" Hey, luck is always part of the game and I haven't had any in quite awhile so it just made me shake my head.
As for the men I think Lopes won it, but I don't know who else was in the final.

So, I'll be boarding another plane in about 45 min. to Chicago and then finally home to L.A later tonight. Today will be another mini epic travel day. It's okay though...as long as I have my laptop, ipod, and good book I'm alright.

Here's to healing up! ( I think this is my new tag line!)

Oh and I have piccie's of the men's and women's DH final, but I put my USB cord in my checked luggage so no can do right now. I'll try to post them tomorrow.
Ciao!

Sainte-Anne Women’s DH Final

2007-06-25T07:30:00.001-07:00

The women’s DH final didn’t go without a bit of drama today. Sabrina had qualified fastest by 6 seconds over Tracey Moseley with a 5:01. In the finals it seemed pretty much that as soon as one of the women sat in the hot seat the very next would come down and beat their time. Melissa Buhl was in the hot seat with Scarlett Hagen from New Zealand coming down next. Scarlett looked to be having a good run going as she was just coming into sight at the bottom of the course. She just crested the last steep downhill bit when something happened and she looked like she flipped over the bars and came crashing down, hit the deck, and then rolled all the way to the bottom without her bike. Medics were there pretty quick and saw that she was unconscious. By then there were 3 other women on course because and they were at 2-minute intervals. Marielle Saner came into view just above Scarlett and immediately they put up a red flag. The same went for Celine Gros and Tracy Hannah. All 3 of them got a re-start, which I know had to suck for them. Especially for Marielle not only because she had made it down 95% of the course before they stopped her, AND because when they had a restart she was the first to go off with less time to rest, AND because in her restart run she flatted!!
Scarlett was awake, moving a bit, and talking too. This info came from Vanessa Quinn who had run up there after Scarlett had crashed to check on her. I should mention that Vanessa just broke her neck about 6 months ago at a race in New Zealand and is already back at it although she is wearing one of the new Leatt neck braces that a lot of the motocross guys are wearing these days. Smart move!!
So back to racing. Celine came down next and had a pretty good run and put her in the lead until Tracey Hannah came down and beat her time by 2 seconds. A couple riders after her Tracey Moseley from the U.K came down with a time of 5:06, which was about 1 second faster than her semi-final. The only one left to come down was Sabrina and she looked to be about 3 seconds faster than Moseley. Sure enough Sabrina came through with a 5:04. She looked to be disappointed because she was actually 3 seconds slower in her final run than her semi, but lighten up a bit would ya! You just won a World Cup!!

1. Jonnier – 5:04
2. Moseley – 5:06
3. Ragot – 5:16.90?
4. Hannah – 5:16.92?

The Men’s finals are up next, but because of Scarlett’s crash things are running a bit late and I will have to get ready for some 4-cross action, but I’ll try to have some updates.

Sainte-Anne DH Semi Finals

2007-06-24T10:03:00.000-07:00

The DH Semi Finals just finished up and here's the standings so far for the Men.
1. Peaty - 4:32
2. Hill - 4:33
3. Minnaar - 4:35
4. Barel - 4:36
5. Lehikoinen - 4:38

In the Women's Sabrina looked to be pinning it this morning. The weather is great and it's beautiful out and so far it looks like it will stay that way.
1. Jonnier - 5:01.39
2. Moseley - 5:07.47
3. Ragot - 5:13.09
4. Hannah - 5:14.74
5. Gros - 5:15.25
6. Saner - 5:17.84
7. Hagen - 5:22.55
8. Buhl - 5:23.90
9. Griffiths - 5:24.78
10. Gaskell - 5:26.92

It's a long day of racing today with 4-Cross practice not starting until 5:00pm I think and then finals at like 7:30. I'll try to write more later after the DH finals.

Saturday – Sainte Anne

2007-06-23T16:39:00.000-07:00

Here's a sweet piccie from Damian Breach from today in practice. This is my new TLD kit. I'm very stealth like.
WooHoo my bike showed up!! It finally showed around 1:30pm today so it was just in time for our 3:30pm practice. I got it all put together and Mike from Michelin put a freshy Comp 16 on the front and I was good to go.
Oh before I get into how qualifying went I want to give a shout out to the XC boys. I think Adam finished in about 19th and was the first place American and I’m not sure how the Deckerator finished, but I think he might have had to start from near the back and that’s always tough when you’re duking it out against a hundred guys in tights.
Anyway, so practice was fun and I was just sort of playing on the jumps. It’s pretty high speed with a couple slower flat-track corners and once again pretty much a one-liner course all the way down, but whatever. So the gates have changed a bit and I’m sure most of you already know that, but this is the first time I saw what they meant. You can actually still sort of time it, but it eliminates sling-shoting.
As for qualifying I sooo wish there were more girls, but what can you do. If only some of the DH girls would race some 4x! I came down almost last and had a pretty decent run. I made one dumb mistake in the first flat-tracker left hand turn and went waaaay wide and went to shift and missed it so I came out spinning my head off, but I think the rest of my run went all right. I ended up second behind Jill. I think Anneke was behind me, and then Melissa. I wish Trina were here!!
My hand is feeling a bit worse than I had thought it would so I think a little ice and some extra Advil is in order tonight. I’ll try to take it easy tomorrow until race time.
In the men’s I think Gravesy qualified 1st with Lopes in 2nd. The women’s times aren’t that far off the guys. I think the men’s fastest was like 38 and women’s was 40. Then again the course is pretty fast and not much of a power course.
Anyway, I’m off to go have some dinner so I’ll be back tomorrow.
Cheers!

Friday – Sainte Anne World Cup

2007-06-23T08:50:00.001-07:00

It’s about 10:30pm on Friday night and I’m a bit knackered. Not sure why really. Even though I didn’t get in until about 2am this morning I was still able to sleep in a bit and get caught up.
Not a whole lot happened today. There was downhill practice, which seemed to go all right for the boys. It sounds like they opened up the top a bit, which means it’s a bit faster. So far so good with the weather, which doesn’t mean s#*$! in Sainte-Anne because it could pour at any minute. It was pretty windy today though.
Other than that I spent most of my day either at the pits hanging out with the guys or on the phone searching for my bike. I think I called about 5 different times today, but the last guy was the best. After being on the phone with him for about 15 minutes he puts me on hold. He then comes back and asks me if it’s a bike. So now I’m all stoked thinking he found it. He then says, “well miss what I can do for you is give you $100 dollars so that you can go rent a bike.” HAHA!! I think I may have actually had a bit of a chuckle when he said that. I then said, “While I appreciate the gesture…ummm…riding a rental bike isn’t going to cut it sir.” I then explained that it was a World Cup event and that my bike was a fairly pricey bike that was built specifically for events like this. Seriously that was the quote of the day. Then I started thinking how funny it would be to roll up on a rented Giant with old cantilever brakes! So after explaining that to him they still had no idea where my bike was. Sweet.
So that leads me into today’s practice. I ended up riding Amiel’s full-suspension Trance. His bike felt the closest to what I ride except it’s the next size up with longer cranks; different gearing, longer travel front suspension, and the brakes were backwards. So we switched up the bars to shorter ones and swapped the brakes. I even left his sweet water bottle holder on the bike in case I felt a bit parched during practice. So right now it’s crossed fingers that it shows up tomorrow because it’s qualifying time.
Today’s practice was fun. I just took it lightly and played a bit on the bike. The track is fun and fast like usual in Sainte-Anne. The new set of triples out of the second turn were new and completely fun. They also threw in a full on 180 turn right after that so I have a feeling there could be some take out action going on. The only other real place to maybe make a pass is in the slow S-turn down towards the bottom. So we’ll see.
Anyway, I’m tired and off to bed.
Cheers!

Thursday – Travel Day

2007-06-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

Boy this morning came fast. I had to be up by at the crack of dawn for my Mom to pick me up at 5 a.m and once again be my taxi to LAX. I swear I owe her a pimp vacation for the amount of times she taken me to and from the airport.
I was actually on time this morning and made it the airport no problem and even a bit early. I checked my “camping equipment” for free…gotta love it and off I went. So far the day had started off just right. I bought a few magazines for the flight. I think it was a guys’ magazine, but it has an interview with Roger Federer and I really wanted to read it. The other was SURF, which I find sort of funny because I don’t surf….at all!! But I like the mags. I was all set and went to chill by my gate.
The past couple days required A LOT of running around. Neither my jerseys or my helmet were done and they were supposed to be weeks ago. So I had to make some calls and do some legwork. First I had to drive all the way out to Murrieta, which is about an hour and a half drive from my house, to pick up my logo’s from Jim at ImagineIt Graphics. He always does a sweet job and fast too. As soon as I picked those up I headed straight to Troy Lee’s so that Redding could put them on my new 2008 TLD Air Jersey’s. That only took about 20 minutes. Just before I headed out knowing that my helmet wouldn’t be done I bumped into Paul the guy that paints all my helmets. He said the delay was getting all the logos, but he said that somehow there were able to get all, but two of them and that he could bust it out and have it done by the next day. I was stoked!! He worked on it and called me the next day (Wednesday) to come pick it up.
It’s funny when you design a helmet with Troy because when you go to pick it up a couple months later your thinking, “Am I on crack, cuz’ I don’t remember this design.” or “Was I even in that meeting??” But no matter what it doesn’t really matter because the helmets even if different from what was in your head, look SICK! Anyway, so I drove back to pick it up and it was almost exactly what we had worked on. I wanted my helmet to look different than the past few years and it does. It’s not completely done yet though. Paul didn’t have time to put all the color in it and some of the logo’s were missing, but I’ll use stickers for now till’ I take it back after Sainte-Anne. Which brings me back to chillin’ at the gate. I just hung out and started working on putting the Treo sticker on my helmet.
Once on the plane it was a quick flight from L.A to Vancouver. About two and a half hours to be exact. We land and head to customs. I see my Troy Lee bag and head over to excess baggage for my “camping gear”. I was using a sweet black Giant bike bag Frank (my mechanic) gave me last year, but it doesn’t say bike on it anywhere so I see what I can get away with. Well, clearly karma bit me in the ass with the whole, “it’s camping gear” explanation because my freakin’ bike didn’t make it. I mean come one!! I got to my first flight two hours ahead of time and it was only a two and a half hour flight, but someway somehow my damn bike didn’t make it to freakin’ Vancouver!! Arrrrgggghhh!
So now I’m on a plane from Vancouver to Toronto on the second leg of my epic journey to Sainte-Anne. Crossed fingers my bike took a short cut to Toronto and when I get to Quebec we can reunite. ☺ I’m supposed to land in Quebec at midnight so I want to give a shout out to either Rando or Frank and say thanks for picking me up.
Tomorrow there is no practice as far as I know so hopefully if my bike doesn’t show it’ll be okay. I’ll keep you posted. ☺

2007 Giant Trance

2007-06-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

I finally took some piccies of my new race bikes and they are SUWEEET! Hurry..run out and buy one! :)