New bike and a weekend in the desert.

We picked up Amber's new DH bike on Thursday and headed to the desert for the weekend so she could start to get used to it. It has so many different options for tuning and set-up it is a little intimidating so we figured that just riding it would be a good place to start.

Intense M9 (small frame) 41.12 lbs with pedals

- Boxxer RC2 Fork, Cane Creek Double Barrel Rear Shock

- Saint Cranks, shifter, rear derailleur, Code Brakes

- Hadley hubs to Mavic Rims

The guys at The Fix Bikes Shop once again looked after us and Mike Kreger did an awesome job on the parts spec and the build (Sam helped as well :) ).

We planned to head to Green River, UT and ride some desert spines. Unfortunately a snow storm that came through earlier in the week dropped a lot of snow over the entire region and although we awoke to blue skies and lots of dirt without snow it as not really rideable. The snow had melted into the dirt and had not dried in most places yet leaving a goopy nasty mud to deal with.

Amber's shoes after we hiked around a bit looking for dry dirt.

Amber was antsy to try her new bike so she pushed up a steeper road section and came down it - like 5 or 6 times. First impressions of the new bike with very favorable. "Super Smooth", incredible traction and amazing brakes are the highlights so far.

That afternoon we packed up the tent and drove over to Moab in the hope of finding some good dirt to try and start tuning the new bike. We took a quick drive up Hurrah Pass in the hope that it might be a good shuttle even though it was on a dirt road. Unfortunately the road just wasn't steep enough and while it had some fun sections mostly it was just a long pedal even though it went in a downward direction.

We grabbed a hotel for the night and planned on checking out Portal on Sunday.

In a fit of optimism we decided to drive up to the Porcupine DH Shuttle in the hope it was ok to ride. Unfortunately it was buried in snow and not an option. 

On the way over to Portal I dropped Amber for a run down the Chillie Drops DH trail. It was the first test for her on her new bike.

Steep is the only way to describe the last sections of this trail.

Amber cruising a much steeper (and looser) section than it appears in the photo. Amazing blue skies and dry dirt. Moab always comes through.

The new bike does look pretty.

After Amber's run on the DH trail we headed over to the Portal Trail. We pushed our bikes up and up and up.

Pushing up. The Portal Trail is an optional finish to either Poison Spider or Gold Bar Rim trails and drops down very quickly from the top of the plateau to the River.

As a trail it has to offer some of the best riding that Moab has -  and this is without exaggeration and a mighty big statement when you remember the other trails in Moab. You have to earn your descent either by one of the long (but classic) trails or by pushing up from the bottom.

The photo's don't do justice to the amount of flow and fun that this trail packs into it's descent. There is a little of everything and it is really close to a perfect DH Race Track in feel.

Fast sections to drops abound everywhere.

Flowing corners to technical moves.

Rollers into corners.

Fast into chunky sections and drops.

Amber even managed to steal the camera and get a photo of Sean.

Overall Portal descent just rocketed way up anyone's "should do" list of rides. Hard work with a long push up but oh so fun and oh so repeatable. We will be back again this winter to spend a day pushing up and riding down.

Thanksgiving 2010 - Moab, UT

Amber had Wed of before thanksgiving so we packed up the car and headed out early to avoid to traffic and to try and beat a storm that was coming in. Luckily we managed to do both and gave a friend a ride out to Glenwood Springs as well so she could spend Thanksgiving in Snowmass with family and enjoying what was looking to be an epic opening weekend for the Aspen/Snowmass mountains.

We had grand plans but as is the way of things on road trips you have to be adaptable.

Thursday we thought we would go and do some shuttles on the Porcupine DH race track but were met with a lot of the white stuff at the drop point. Amber opted to take the first run down.

This is the exit of the DH run, I rolled my small bike down to meet Amber.

It was snow covered 100% of the way and although the dogs absolutely loved the trail it was less suited to riding bikes on being a slippery and cold ride down for Amber with about 4" of snow all the way.

In the afternoon we had originally planned on pushing up Portal and checking it out but after bumping into a friend earlier in the day we decided to check out the Chilli drops. They are a number of DH trails up behind the original location of the Chilli Bike Shop. Some really fun riding that ends with very steep terrain. The steepness was very reminiscent to parts of Idaho Springs and was loose and rocky as well. We each did a run and Amber pushed up the bottom to redo the steep ending.

On Friday we decided to head over to Green River for a day trip. There have been a number of great looking videos on VitalMTB recently that piqued my interest for the area. The Alex Pro video being one of them.

We didn't really have any directions so we headed out a likely road and stumbled onto an awesome looking area with spines and features all around. The area we came across wasn't the area in the Alex Pro video but instead was the area that the Drop In crew visited. Season 5 - Episode 10, Steve Romaniuk and Mike Metzger push up and ride down.

We warmed up playing on some of the lower spines. Push up, roll down, repeat. :)

Everything is much steeper than it looks, but everything was fun and confidence inspiring with great soft dirt and good clean entries and exits. Amber enjoying one of the steep rolls.

Part of the fun was linking the spine sections.

Really was a fun zone to play in, We will definitely go back an visit again.

After warming up we decided it was time to do the big push and head up the mountain more and checkout the feature that the Drop In crew hiked and rode.

It was also a trail that the dirt bikers also rode. This is the view as you start pushing up. We are heading all the way to the rock pillars on top.

Up, Up, Up. The dogs came as well.

Steep in sections, this was one of the lowest angled sections. Moab rests while Amber and Bishop push on.

Looking about down from about half way.

Almost at the saddle.

Amber dropping in from the high point. The steepness and the exposure definitely played on your mind as you started down. We definitely want to go back again with water and food to be able to stay and play on sections to get comfortable with the terrain.

Amber controlling speed.

Rolling a steeper section. We controlled our descent where as Steve Romaniuk rolled it as a wheelie in his version.

Looking back at the mountain and the spines on it's flanks.

On Saturday we were feeling a little lazy and went and checked out Porcupine on the forlorn hope that some of the snow had melted. Unfortunately it was still there in strength so we decided to go for a drive and go and have a look at Top of the World thinking that it might be a fun to 4-wheel up and the ride down.

It was definitely some fun driving as there was a lot of snow and ice, but the riding was not as friendly given the time required to drive. So Amber took a run down and we called for the for the day.

Fun riding in the snow.

We headed home pretty early Sunday morning to try and beat the holiday traffic and to stay ahead of another storm front that was coming through and threatening road closures in the mountains. Luckily again we avoided the storm and the worst of the traffic.

A great weekend of exploring and we will be heading back to Green River.

Last October weekend in Moab - Moab Ho Down

We were both really excited to be heading back over to Moab again for the Halloween weekend after hearing that they would be doing a Life Cycles Premier on Friday night and having the DH race again on Sunday.

The Ho Down is put on by Chili Pepper Bike Shop and is in it's 5th year. Tracy and Ryan at Chili have done a great job building up the grassroots event and added a film festival to the agenda for this year.

We both took Friday off so that we wouldn't have to rush out there to see the movie and managed to get a couple of DH runs in on the race course before the sun went down. The DH race starts at the lazy man's porcupine drop point and comes down the Classic Porcupine climb ending at the Water Tanks exit. The Super D race starts at the LPS grate and comes down the same finish.

The movie night was started with the winner of the amateur submissions. It as a short film of a local we know well from the race season - Aaron Brags - riding the Portal trail like I didn't even know was possible. Really well filmed and made me want to push my DH bike up portal to try and ride it racer style somewhat like Aaron did.

The main even was Life Cycles. The film was a mix of amazing bike sequences in the same sort of presentation as The Collective but it was short with a lot of other sequences of the style of Earth. The combination was spectacular! We will be buying this on blu-ray once it is available. Awesome bike porn!

Saturday we decided to do a pay shuttle of Porcupine in the morning and self shuttles of the DH track in the afternoon.

Amber amped and dressed to play for the day while we wait for the shuttles to arrive. Unfortunately shuttles were not dropping for Hazard or Kokopelli because of the snow and mud from recent storms and instead dropped us at the bottom of the Kokopelli trail which meant a climb up to UPS. I was surprised at this drop as I would have just avoided the climb and come in from above LPS had we known.

Amber in a section of LPS. We really didn't get any photos worth much as we were having to much fun just riding bikes. Amber started slow but by the time we were in LPS was a pedaling monster all the way across LPS and the Porcupine Rim as well. Great weather and great trail conditions all the way.

One of the gullies in the bottom of Porcupine.

After some lunch we headed back out and did a bunch of self shuttles on the DH track. We were both unsure as to which bike (Mojo or 951) to race with as the DH track has some flat sections with a lot of pedaling. I found that for me my DH bike was faster as the big 38 tooth front ring was much better than the 24 tooth ring I have on my Mojo so that even though it was easier to pedal on my Mojo I could nail the DH obstacles faster and better on my 951. Amber however found that her Mojo was a better choice for her than hauling the big bike around. I managed to pinch flat my last practice run on my Mojo as I decided to go the big bike while Amber went the trail bike.

A really awesome day of riding bikes

On Sunday we had hoped to get some practice runs in but we got moving later than we would have like and missed our chance as the Super D race was seemingly going to be starting early. We took the dogs up the trail for a while before coming back down and getting our race kits on.

The race was great fun! and we will race it again next year for sure. Amber got 1st place in a small pro-women field even with a mechanical. She dropped her chain high up on the course and had to stop, get of the bike and re-set it so she could pedal. In the rush of it she put it back in place on the granny front cog and left it there for the rest of her race run. I was really happy with my 3rd place in Sport Men and we both got prizes at the end of the day. (Amber's were pretty awesome swag, mine was an excellent beer glass).

Results: http://news.chilebikes.com/
Mountain Flyer article: http://www.mountainflyermagazine.com/view.php/moab-ho-down.html

After a really fun weekend we made the journey home to arrive at about 11.30pm in time for Amber to submit an assignment for her masters that was due at midnight. Full and fruitful days and nights are the only way to live!

Closing weekend at Winter Park

Closing weekend at Winter Park. After a long season of racing we had taken a couple of weeks of from big bikes and rode at Crested Butte on our Trail Bikes. We had intended on doing Monarch Crest this weekend but everything conspired to encourage us to do one last lift weekend and head to Winter Park for Closing weekend. Really glad we did!


On Saturday the lift lines were reminiscent of Whistler. It was actually kinda fun for closing weekend to have long lines as you got to chat with people between runs instead of just jump straight back on the lift for another run. Even Ollie lift had lift lines which is never the case!


Amber had and awesome weekend and hit a bunch of features for the first time, getting better and better as the weekend went on. This is the first drop on No Quarter.


She also had one last race to do just for fun. It was the Conference Collegiate Championships. The collegiate series is super laid back but surprisingly well attended for the women with Amber's category (A) having 10 competitors.


The trail crew continues to work on and improve this mountain. The really tough rock double to exit Trestle DH has been upgraded to an elevated step down that you can hit almost as fast as humanly possible or hit at a more comfortable speed. Amber hits it here.


The first rock blob up on Trestle.


On Sunday we did some runs with friends who had never DH'd before. This is Meatball doing the Rock Garden on Double Jeopardy. We also rode with Mike Glicksman who was enjoying the evils of a bike not intended for uphill peddling as a break from his Cross Country and Cyclecross racing endeavors. They both had a blast!


A great weekend to close out an excellent summer! We will be on trail bikes for a while now until winter arrives in it's fullness.

DH days so far in 2010.

DH Days - 2010

• January - 6 shuttle days out of 5 weekends
• February - 3 shuttle days out of 4 weekends
• March - 2 shuttle days out of 4 weekends
• April - 2 shuttle days, 6 trail bike days in Moab out of 4 weekends, Amber also had 4 days racing at Sea Otter
• May - 8 DH shuttle days, 3 days lift assist out of 5 weekends
• June - 3 DH shuttle days, 10 days lift assist (2 races) out of 4 weekends
• July - 17 lift assist days (2 races, 5 days whistler) out of 4 weekends
• August - 10 lift assist days (3 races) out of 4 weekends
• September - 5 lift assist days (1 race), 4 trail bike days in Crested Butte out of 4 weekends

Total so far:
69 DH days

• 45 Lift assisted
• 24 Other
• 8 race weekends (10 for Amber)

Month	Weekends	DH Days	Shuttles	Lift assisted	Races	Trail Bike Days
Total		69	24	45	10	10
Jan	5	6	6	0	0
Feb	4	3	3	0	0
Mar	4	2	2	0	0
Apr	4	2	2	0	1	6
May	5	11	8	3	0
Jun	4	13	3	10	2
Jul	4	17	0	17	2
Aug	4	10	0	10	3
Sep	4	5	0	5	2	4

New Bike! just in time for a road trip.

My new Intense M6 finally arrived. I can't believe how nice this bike looks!

I moved some parts from my old M1 and purcased new parts as they were needed because of differences in the frame (i.e. Bottom Bracket, 150mm rear wheel drop outs, 1.5" head tube etc.)


Shiny new Saint 2009 cranks.


Diety Dirty 30 Handle Bars. I was looking forward to riding these wider bars.


Cane Creek Double Barrel with Ti spring - dead sexy to look at and an amazing shock to ride on. It will take some getting used to with all of it's tuning options - high and low speed settings for both Compression and Rebound.


Picture perfect White Intense M6.

Here are my other bikes. I am very, very happy with my stable.


Black Market Riot Hardtail.


Fat Ibis Mojo with coil 160mm front fork and Pushed coil rear shock.

Sept 29th - Sol Vista Closing

Really out of date on keeping the Blog up to date. We lost our Camera for quite a while there so our weekends were without photo's.

This was the close for Sol Vista and it was very fun times seeing many of the people we raced with over the Summer. We took it easy just doing runs down things we had done plenty of times before. I had picked up a DMC moto trainer so I was getting some base times to be able to compare to next year. Sadly I was lazy with updating the blog so I have already forgotten them.

Anyway, a great way to wrap the Downhill Season.

August 28-31- Sol Vista MSC G3

So this is the final race for the Mountain States Cup for 2008 and it was over a long weekend at Sol Vista. The format was G3 again where we would do three different races on each day and overall standings were determined by cumulative time over the three stages. You also got to podium on each individual stage of the event.

Amber and I both took Thursday off from work to get another practice day in. We both had a fun day of it, but unfortunately Amber blew out the rear shock on her bike and it was out of action for the weekend. Sol Vista has a great range of demo/rental bikes from a bunch of manufacturers, sadly though they only had one bike in Amber's size which was a Trek Session 10. Amber never really got to like that bike as it is more a Free-Ride oriented bike that also downhill's than a pure DH bike and it rode very differently than her 2004 V-10.

Day 1 was down Cheez-It to Ashy Larry ending down the main track over the little road gap and into the moto whoop section at the bottom of the mountain. I don't think I rode my race very well at all having a lot of problems with the steep rocky section at the top of Cheez-It but I still managed 5th place which I was happy with (and somewhat surprised at). Amber crashed pretty badly in her race run going over the bars and badly bruising various parts of her body in the process. She was on a good run and still managed 3rd place for the stage.

Womens Beginner (top 5)

1	Katy Monger	4:26.49
2	Jamie Edgecomb	4:31.05
3	Amber Price	4:42.91
4	Jill Behlen	4:43.93
5	Kristin Buell	5:04.27

Mens Sport 40+ (top 5)

1	Jack Serra Jr	4:01.48
2	Michael Monsauret	4:09.73
3	Steve King	4:11.44
4	Michael Lees	4:15.47
5	Sean Smith	4:21.46

Day 2 was Silk Johnson. The pro categories were all "required" to run chainless, however the other categories got to decide amongst themselves whether to run chainless or not. Sadly that meant that Amber's category was mostly not chainless as not of all of the girls wanted to run without a chain. The peer pressure built in the later groups and pretty soon all categories ran chainless which was an absolute blast. I was pretty happy with my run, I messed up in a few of the dusty corners in the middle section but had a pretty good run and got 3rd for the stage.

Beginner Women (top 5)

1	Jill Behlen	5:19.39
2	Sarah Rawley	5:24.36
3	Katy Monger	5:25.52
4	Amber Price	5:30.71
5	Kristin Buell	5:37.02

Sport Men 40+ (top 5)

1	Jack Serra Jr	4:57.81
2	Michael Monsauret	5:07.83
3	Sean Smith	5:08.00
4	Michael Lees	5:08.22
5	Steve King	5:15.34

Stage 3 was Buck Nasty. The final stage was down a new trail section call Buck Nasty that had a pretty nasty new steep rock section that the trail builders built by dragging in rocks from nearby. The rest of the trail was not as technical and was a lot of fun to ride. Amber rode the rock garden well but was still having a hard time on the Trek. I rode poorly and opted for the ride around on the rock garden. I rode the rest well but was pretty certain I was on a terrible time so I didn't push it in for the road gap or the whoops section. I guess I was actually on a good time coming out of the final trees and had I pushed it at the end as well could have easily made the podium. As it ended I placed 6th and Amber placed 4th for the stage.

Beginner Women (top 5)

1	Katy Monger	3:34.97
2	Jamie Edgecomb	3:43.15
3	Danielle Shewmake	3:49.89
4	Amber Price	3:54.54
5	Kristin Buell	3:56.55

Sport Men 40+ (top 6)

1	Michael Monsauret	3:00.26
2	Jack Serra Jr	3:08.14
3	Michael Lees	3:15.97
4	Steve King	3:16.84
5	Mike Haley	3:23.12
6	Sean Smith	3:24.30

Another great race weekend that was also the wrap up for the season. These were our overall standings for the weekend.

Beginner Women (top 5)

1	Katy Monger	13:26.98
2	Jamie Edgecomb	14:01.95
3	Amber Price	14:08.16
4	Kristin Buell	14:37.84
5	Danielle Shewmake	14:44.15

Sport Men 40+ (top 5)

1	Jack Serra Jr	12:07.43
2	Michael Monsauret	12:17.82
3	Michael Lees	12:39.66
4	Steve King	12:43.62
5	Sean Smith	12:53.76

Amber also placed 4th place overall for the season which was great since she didn't race Angel Fire or SnoMass and did race any of the Mountain Cross.

We finished the season really motivated for next year!

August 23rd, 24th - Sol Vista

We opted to head to Sol Vista again this weekend as there was the final race of the season coming on the next weekend and riding had just been a lot of fun the previous weekend. We rode full days on both days and much good times was had!

We ended up riding quite a bit with Santiago Garcia who is a great guy to ride with. He is that perfect riding partner - funny, motivated but relaxed. We did a bunch of runs and on Sunday started to do some timed runs with Santiago. Timing your runs in practice changes the whole ride! It stays fun, but now there is an extra element in every run down. I was so impressed with the approach that I ordered a DMC moto-timer that you can leave on the bars of your bike and will use it as a matter of course now.

On Sunday afternoon a rumor starting around the mountain that for the race we would be doing Silky Johnson chainless as one of the stages. We started doing chainless runs timed to get a feel for where the tough spots for flow would be. Wow, riding down hill trails chainless is a totally new experience for me. Since I couldn't pedal I was really forced to concentrate on the flow of the trail and I was riding so much better than when I was pedalling! It opened my eyes to a big area of opportunity in my riding and I think that for every race track I need to do some chainless (no pedalling) runs very early in the practise sessions to get a feel for the flow trail.

All in all a great weekend! (no photos sadly).

August 17th Sol Vista

We had planned on riding Saturday and Sunday at Sol Vista but we had some crazy weather come through and everything was unrideable on Saturday. The mountains actually got quite a bit of snow and Sol Vista closed their trails on Saturday.

I decided before the weekend that I would demo a new Intense M6 so I was looking forward to being able to ride on Sunday.

Wow! conditions at Sol Vista for Sunday were, quite simply, perfect! the dirt was tachy and the trails amazing. There were also two new trails Tron and Ashy Larry that were new sections that you reached by going down Cheeze-It. The new trails were rated as Blue trails but both had all sorts of optional black and double black features and trying to ride them at race speeds is just crazy good fun.

It also turned out to be a very poor financial decision on my part to demo the M6 as the difference in how it rides to my current frame is similar to the difference in a $30K sports car and a $150K sports car. Both are fun and decent at what they do, but the high end version just leaves the low end version for dead in terms of fun to use and performance! Between how the M6 rode, the perfect condition of the trails and the new fun trails that were added it was one of those dream days of riding. Amber and I pretty much did non-stop runs all day with just a break for a beer and lunch. We did a few runs with a great guy by the name of Santiago who I chatted to a little at Snomass. Riding behind someone who is better than you is great fun and really helps you push yourself in skills and effort.

All in all an awesome day of riding and the race at the end of the month promises to be even more fun than what Snomass was. The trail builders at Sol Vista really have it going on up there. If you are in the area during the summer find a way to make some time to do some DH riding there.

some vast action photos

Some action shots from the recent races taken by the guys at vastaction.com


Crested Butte Wild Flower Rush - Amber


Sol Vista Sol Survivor - Amber


Sno Mass G3 - Amber