Wednesday, June 3, 2009

New mexico Road Trip Part 2









After a very eventful and tiresome weekend, one that will be remembered for its close calls and bad luck, but also for an extreme boost in confidence as I was riding extremely well all weekend with good focus and having fun, Michael and I headed to Albuquerque where we would spend our days riding, eating and playing freerider 2! Joey and Camillo joined us as we convoyed out from Angel Fire. We would also be providing and ride for Vince Sanchez(trail guide) in exchange for a bed. After a glorious lunch at Quadilahara(sp) restaurant, I got the fish tacos, its a great dealio, we headed to the Santa Fe area where mucho DJ'ing would take place! Vince provided the local knowledge and led us to this great spot called the Garbage Pit. Protected from the wind and boasting great dirt jumps and a single slalom track, we were all psyched to ride, even though we were all beat up from the long week at Angel Fire. After an hour or so we demanded Vince bring us to the famous riding local known as the Santa Fe Dirt Jumps! I had seen video and was excited to ride this spot. There were some sketchy yet inviting locals who enjoyed our presence as the busted out sketch ball tricks and their cameras when things got too hairy. We were all feeling good and progressively moving our way through the lines towards the large jumps. It was a little windy but the conditions could not have been much better. We would session the the jumps until we were all well worn out. Big props go out to Camillo Sanchez, Yeti Regional Team rider, for not riding trails too much, his confidence grew and he managed to hit every single line without much problem, he was mucho estoked! The night would end at Chris Boice's house where his family gladly welcomed us to stay in their home!

The next few days were a blur of riding, eating, riding, video games, bowling, ice cream, crashing, photo shoots, we all felt like 15 year olds again and it was awesome! We were so well taken care of at Chris's house and the NM locals showed us a lot of great riding. Sandia DH was soooo mcuh fun, Chris gave us the full tour, these trails are incredible, no wonder why Chris is so fast! The fun didn't stop there, dirt jumping was just a short pedal away at Vince's house. We rode until dinner time which was 7pm every night at the Boice Residence. The jumps were technical and fun, thanks Vince for letting us shred your yard!

Thursday: Rest day and shredding at Vince's. All was well until Camillo went OTB onto his shoulder. He sustained some damage, but nothing broken and he seems to be recovering quite well. Heal up quick little Colombian buddy! Another awesome day spent riding, playing a ridiculous amount of freerider 2 and eating a glorious dinner and desert repaired by Lisa and Mark, thanks you two for all of your hospitality and kindness!

Friday: Half day spent ridng DH and filming and shooting with Long Nguyen, check out his pictures, they are mint! We shot the loamy turns on one of Vince, Boice and crews newest creations for a long time, it was so much fun! We made our way down slowly, searching for great spots to shoot. We were all pushing ourselves and pinning it the whole day! More freerider 2 and Dinner ensued later that night to cap off another great day spent underneath the NM sun.

SAT and SUN: Early wake up call Saturday morning as we packed and left our home away from home and journeyed our way to Pajarito, NM. This small ski resort located just above the famous city of Las Alamos known for its involvement in Nuclear research in the early 20th century. It was an interesting drive, all bleary eyed from too much freerider 2 and X Box, the terrain changed rapidly and somehow we went from a barren desert to an amazing lush, rocky forest with humongo aspen trees. The Pajarito Punishment was a great Locals race! Only 9 pros showed but it would still be really competitive and fun. Practice Saturday was fun, Loamy new course designed by Chris and Vince ( Kung Fu trail designs) something like that, I'm pretty sure they made that up on the spot. Well done though boys, it was fun. Only got in two runs, had some mechanical s, changed tires to wets and the lifts shut down. Camillo the Colombian Camera man got a ton of foty of us riding each section of this steep technical track. Later in the evening we did a bunch of dirt jumping and ridng on the mountain. I finished off my night by revamping the jumps and digging until I could not see anymore! A great starry night sky was out and was great to stare at before I went to sleep. Sunday, race day came around and I got in 3 quick laps in before the morning practice ended. I banged my rotors up a bit and barely had time to fix them before my race run. It was a best of two run format as there were not very many riders and there was enough time to do so. I really enjoyed this format, except for the short recovery time between runs. The course was tough to ride top to bottom, my brakes were bad to begin with and by the time I was nearing the bottom I couldn't hang on very tight. I took it pretty easy and made it down, that was the goal. Next run I would ride a similar race run, trying to be smooth and on lines all the way down. I hit the top great and had a similar run all the way down, just barely holding on, my breaks were shot! In the end I would finish 3rd behind Joey(2nd) and Chris Heath(1st)I won $100 bucks and a chile pinata filled with candy...AWESOME!!! It was a great race, Tony Gradillas from BikeWorks bike shop did an awesome job putting things on. Too bad he was injured and didn't ride with us.

We left town and started our trek back home but opted to extend the vacation one more night at the Great Sand Dunes. I had never been to the Sand Dunes before so we high tailed it there! Rallied the Rover hard on this sand wash road, so much fun, ate dinner, took Camillo's bike out for a spin on the Dunes, which was soooooooo much fun! Did some more Rover rallying and fell asleep next to a roaring camping fire.

What a great road trip, thanks for all the good times friends!

6 comments:

Mom said...

Keep up the informative commentaries,always good to know what's goin' on. Miss you guys,
Love ya, Mom

Bri Guy said...

Just wrote a lot more! Enjoy Mom, at least I know one person is reading haha

Love you too!

Alf said...

It was so awesome to see you dudes at Angelfire. Hopefully I'll see you guys at US champs in Sol Vista! P.S I am extremely jelous of all your riding!!
-Alf

Mom said...

I know Dad and Jason are too, and as soon as I notify all that you are back at it, you may even get more comments! Glad you had a good time at the dunes! Love, Mom

Bri Guy said...

Alf, Angel Fire was awesome and it was really good to see you too! You need to make it out to Sol Vista, its sick! I'm heading there in tonight for opening weekend. Make it happen, live to ride! Also, good job in Angel Fire!!!

Mom, The dunes were incredible! If I can, I will most definitely try and blog it up as much as possible for everyone! The pictures are usually pretty good too!

Colin said...

Bueller, I stopped by your pop's shop and he said you got back into the blogging gig, so I figured I'd check it out. Keep up the good work.

Nice 'peppery' pinata!