On September 23, my teammate Ryan Eisele and I dusted off our mtorbikes and headed to the Dick Jagow Memorial Grand Prix. The race is held at Washougal Motocross Park. I purchased a new Yamaha YZ450F in mid-August, so I started practicing 45 minute motos again on my mx track. The last mx race I had done was in 2008 and I knew I would be rusty even with a month of preparation. The Dick Jagow race used the whole Washougal mx track and surrounding fields and single track. It was similar to the 6hr mountain bike race that was held there in June–minus the mud!

I decided to race in the 30 amateur class. After a recent tailbone injury and not as much time on the moto, Ryan rode in the Sportsman category. The Sportsman class rides with the Women’s class so he offered to lend my wife a hand if she needed it as she was racing too. The grand prix began with a dead engine start and lasted hour and 45 minutes with the course being about 5 miles per lap. I got off to a slow start and most of the single track trails were extremely dusty which made trying to close any kind of gap on a rider ahead almost impossible. Read more »

Well, it isn’t going to do any good to wait another day to write this report because it’s still going to seem like a mouthful of excuses. So let’s just get straight to the point–I flopped, underachieved, blew it, etc. Yeah sure it all boiled down to the rib injury I sustained last week in Georgia. I had stayed off the disabled list all year and to have it all fall apart just one week before the race I had targeted as my comeback metric was a bitter pill to swallow.

The stage was set for a great race. Less than three hours away in Bend meant relatively painless travel and trails I had at least ridden once or twice in my life. The race had also attracted the strongest field ever assembled for a USA Marathon Championship. This was going to be as good as it got for an opportunity to show off the best form of my life. Then the run-in with the log in GA happened and the tailspin (literal AND figurative) started. As I collected my wits trail side at Fool’s Gold, one of my first thoughts after: “wow, glad I still have a leg”, was: “so much for a good ride in Bend.” Read more »

The Polk County Itemizer-Observer recently ran this article:

After Shenandoah I met up with Kelly Klett and traveled to their home in North Carolina. They were super hosts and took good care of me all week. We even ventured out to ride some of their local goodness and had a great BBQ dinner Thursday night in downtown Raleigh. We headed south Friday for Dahlonega Georgia for the NUE Series finals. Read more »

Watch more video of 2012 Shenandoah Mountain 100 NUE on cyclingdirt.org

I headed east for the Shenandoah 100, but the best made travel plans were laid to waste by a hurricane named Isaac. After a late arrival into Baltimore, I got to bed after 2am. We got up and made it to the venue in time for a few showers to roll through. It seems like nearly every trip I make east for racing ends up a muddy mess! Read more »

A couple weeks ago the newest, youngest, and likely brightest member of our team came down to race some short track and spend a day riding trails here in the home range. Ian is a senior at Rex Putnam High School in Portland and has a great passion for MTB as well as photography and video production. Thank goodness he brought some of his toys along so we could document a great summer evening on bikes!