Finally a new post

Been back to reality for a while after an amazing trip to South America. A little over 4 weeks flew by like a long weekend. Been back on the bike and managed to get a sponsor for this year through NorthStar ski area and Giant. Thankfully this is based on last years results and not current fitness!

Ecuador was the first stop and was a great starting point.

We met up with a couple of friends that were wrapping up their trip and spent a week on a secluded beach in Ayampe Ecuador. We spent the entire time in a place called the Finca Punta Ayampe. The daily routine here was pretty simple....wake...surf...eat....explore the area...surf...eat...drink.
This place really was amazing with miles of beach and perfect waves all to ourselves. It was tough to leave but we were just getting started and headed to La Paz Bolivia via Lima Peru.

Our first view of La Paz from the side of the road winding down from El Alto. Bolivia would end up being our favorite country we visited. There was so much culture here that hadn't been lost in the big city.

La Paz is a very large city in the base of a dramatic valley. The houses are spread from the valley floor on the outskirts of the city all the way up the valley walls. Everywhere you look 360 degrees there are houses on the hillside. One of the main reasons for coming here was to mountain bike on these hills....so off we go!

One of the main rides in the area is on the famous Death Road....no thanks! Long dirt road with steep drop offs...we wanted some tight technical downhill trails. It being the rainy season we had a little trouble finding someone to take us on single track with only two of us. Then we found someone. Turns out he's new....really new in the mountain biking business and things were going pretty well after our first ride. We had just finished a long descent through villages, running into herders...it was really great.
Then......let's just say bald tires, steep muddy "roads", no 4x4, and pouring rain don't mix. This is where we got out and left the tour guide operator and the van stuck in the mud...never got that second ride in and had to take three "buses" to get back into town. Actually after nearly sliding off that "bridge" we were glad to be out of the van.

One other place i really wanted to visit in La Paz was the San Pedro Prison. A prison governed by the prisoners, with entire families living inside, and no guards except at the front gate. I had done a little research and heard about ways of getting inside for a tour (bribes). After checking it out it seemed pretty straight forward and not too dangerous. Money talks down here so 250 Bolivianos a piece paid to some sketchy lady walking around the park out front and we were in a room outside the front gates getting ready to be signed in as visitors.

Inside one of the many sections of San Pedro Prison. This place really is a city within the city. There are restaurants, stores, everything. Prisoners here must buy or rent their cells and either eat the once a day slop the prison provides or buy their own food. Some sections are pretty basic cardboard walled "cells", and others are much more elaborate.



After Bolivia we headed south to the Lakes District of Chile and Argentina. This is the gateway to Patagonia. Our first stop was in a place called Pucon, Chile were we did some more biking and climbed the volcano Villarica.

The top was really cool. It's the second most active volcano in the country and it was obvious. The smoke was continually coming out and lots of noises could be heard deep down in the hole.
Well......a pictures worth a thousand words.....Pucon, Chile to Bariloche, Argentina to El Bolson, Argentina to Buenos Aires....

Winter is here....shortly i'll be there.

The end of November and first couple weeks of December have been very mild here making for some of the best biking conditions in a long time. Between hitting the Tahoe trails and working the pump track i've been getting a lot of saddle time.

The pump track is completely rideable so i had a little bbq/pump track session under the lights a few weeks ago....lots of fun. The originally planned 4 or 5 people sooned turned into 12-15 and a late night! Seems like as soon as i got the track all dialed in the weather changed. Put the bike away and get out the skis.

It's snowed nine feet this week in the mountains...that's right NINE feet! Surprisingly avy danger has been fairly minimal. I've been backcountry skiing the last few days and plan on breaking down on xmas day and paying for a Squaw ticket. With another three feet forecasted for tonight and two more tomorrow i can't resist! It's gonna be DEEP! Break out the snorkel!

The timing for this snow is great. Two weeks from now and i'd miss it. I'm hitting the road for a while, taking a leave of absence from work! South America here i come.

I've booked a flight to Guyaquil Ecuador, one returning out of Buenos Aires Argentina, and a few others around South America. I've had my arms poked with all sorts of vaccination shots and i'm stocked up on Malaria pills. In a bit over four weeks i should see and do quite a bit. Surfing in Ecuador, Mt.Biking in La Paz Bolivia, Climb an active volcanoe in Pucon Chile....too many things to do...can't wait!

Been A While

I was just looking and realized i haven't posted since July!
It's that time of year out here when the riding is at it's best. We had an early snow that has all but melted off the trails which has made for some of the best riding I've had out here.

I decided to do a little exploration ride a few weeks back with a couple of friends. (Disclaimer: i did mention this was a hike-a-bike....and didn't specify the hike to bike ratio). My plan was to ride the Donner Lake Rim Trail to the Warren Lake Trail and try to work our way over Castle Peak from east to west to the Hole in the Ground Trail....bad idea. My GPS died but you can see where we were headed.

I'd done the first leg a few times but accessing the Castle Peak ridge was new. We were able to quickly get on the eastern ridge and realized it was VERY rocky and steep.

There is no trail but we got the idea if we made it past the first rock spires we'd be able to ride below the ridge....again...bad idea. Our route required some extremely exposed scrambling without rope while passing bikes to each other. Once we got past the crux we found ourselves in miles of loose boulders that had fallen from the summit. It took us about an hour and a half to hike across this steep loose slope.

Luckily Justin was smart enough to have a six pack waiting back at the truck.

Amazingly just a week later we got a good dumping and it just so happened to come the day before i bought some new skis! Riding one day and skinning up for the first turns of the season the next! The G3 El Hombres proved plenty capable on this quick outing.


The cold weather didn't last and this past weekend we hit Downieville for some super fast flowy runs. I've never gone that fast on Third Divide before....my eyes were watering like crazy but i didn't even want to blink for fear of hitting something. After Downieville on Saturday i couldn't make it through the week without another ride so i took the day off Wednesday and did a nice big ride up in Truckee. The trails were once again in prime condition.

More riding this weekend and probably more time tweaking the pump track i'm trying to get ready for winter.

Split Second

Thanks for not stealing my race bike.

Came home one day last week and noticed the dog kennel was blocking the dog door from the house to the garage. Just then my neighbor came over and i figured the garage must have opened and he had to put the dog back in the house....not the case.

He procedes to point out that my Iron Horse DH bike is gone! Some punk high school kids jumped the fence into the backyard and came into the garage through the dog door and took the bike. The neighbor noticed them running across the back and called the cops, but they couldn't find the bike or thieves.

Luckily they knew nothing about bikes and left my new Blur LT sitting on the stand so i was able to get out and race that weekend. Would have been really pissed if i couldn't race Downieville. Good thing i hadn't bought Mustard (my new commuter bike) yet....i'm sure she'd be gone.

With a season pass to North Star already purchased i decided to upgrade the Iron Horse with a new Giant Glory DH....This bike rides over any and everything....it's a tank! Been up to North Star several days with it and it's a ton of fun on all the trails. Whether riding the technical rock gardens and steep loose stuff, or hitting the jumps down Livewire it's a blast!

Downieville:

Couldn't get into the All-Mountain race this year so ended up signing up for the Expert XC race. They've added the Sunrise trail to the course this year and times were expected to be 8-10 minutes longer. My game plan was simple...keep my buddy Don and Jude in sight on the climb and pin it on the descent. My goal if all went well was a spot on the podium.

We start out as usual....about 10 minutes of 110% and extreme pain until we've seperated the enormous field and settle in. ~3 miles into the 7 mile climb i come across Jude pushing his bike...he's cracked. I have Don in sight about 1/4 mile ahead up the fire road climb. At the four mile mark there is an aid station and we finally get off the unsheltered fire road and into the trees. At this point i can no longer see Don , but i'm feeling really good. I turn it up a notch and with about 3/4 of a mile to go, on the last rise i catch Don.

I go into the newly added Sunrise trail at the top of the climb and quickly pass around 7 people that decided to mellow out and eat. This trail is only about a 2 mile stretch that dumps out to a long fireroad section so i decided i'd eat and drink later and ride hard now. When i hit the fireroad two Trek pros came up on me and one of them was nice enough to pull us along the entire way to the start of the single track descent into Downieville.

Just before we hit the Baby Heads trail from the fire road i passed the Trek riders and went into DH, high speed mode. I was having a smooth run and feeling strong. I ended up passing a lot of the pro field and eventually finished in 2:20 minutes, fast enough to take the win!

Don went on to finish 2nd in the All mountain category for the XC portion and put in an incredible ride the following day on the DH course to take the overall in expert All-Mountain!

Last Thursday was the first race of the Thursday night North Star XC series. The race started out with two guys pinning it up the climb with Don and I chasing. I dropped back off the rediculous pace, settled in and caught back onto Don. The others were just up ahead.

Apparently these guys made a wrong turn because on lap two as i'm chasing Don we see them coming out of the downhill section ?? Don and I race on up the climb and i decided that after sucking the dust off of Don's wheel on the first lap downhill i'd go for a pass at the top of the climb. We get into a technical switchback section and Don's telling me how he hates it as i go around and his chain falls off! Obviously i get away and end up staying away to take the win.

Mario, the original leader that got lost, ended up catching and passing Don to take 2nd. He was not too happy and was trying to convince us to give him the win! We rubbed it in that part of racing was knowing where to go and told him he'd have his chance next week.

Fixie Fun

Unfinished from Tony West on Vimeo.

Fastest 3rd Place Ever

Sam Hill's Insane 3rd place run. The announcer provides as much entertainment as the ride itself.



And the winner.....Gee Atherton

Only in Reno

Friday night Alex, Shelly, and I grabbed a couple of beers at one of the local breweries and then headed off to Nikki Beach, the outdoor club at the Grand Sierra Resort. Alex hadn't told me who was playing that night, she had heard a rumor but thought it was a joke. Much to our surprise it was no joke although when he hit the stage it was the funniest thing I've seen in a while. Ice Ice Baby! That's right...Vanilla Ice...! He provided some entertainment for an hour or so and that was all we could handle. Some other guy in the crowd was pretty entertaining (weirdo) as well so Shelly decided to sit down and chat with him.


Saturday morning we'd try to enjoy the better side of Reno.

Saturday was the first ride of the year for me on Dirty Harry's and Alex and Andrew's first time ever. We slogged out the ~ 9 mile road climb and headed into the single track. Some guy had told us "A" trail had logs all over it and was impassable for almost 2 miles but it didn't sound like he knew what he was talking about. Well he did and we ended up hiking our bikes around about 1.5 miles of the start of the trail. Apparently there was also a sign saying to start from a new location but we were not very observant.

After a miserable hike a bike we made it to the good stuff. This trail has it all from real technical loose shale to ripping sticky burmed out corners to big step up/downs and gap jumps. We took our time playing on all the good sections and got back to the car about 4 hours later. We had parked at the access road to North Star Ski area and ended up sticking around that night to watch the circuit race for the Tour De Nez.

Sunday's original plan was to hit up Downieville and get a practice run on the XC course, but sleeping in Sunday won out. Alex ended up showing me a new ride Sunday over near the Flume trail at Tahoe. We parked at Chimney beach and climbed the road about 6 miles to Spooner Summit. Then it's a 4 mile fire road climb (get the idea of riding out here...climb...climb..climb) to the start of the Chimney Beach Downhill.

The Chimney Beach downhill is a fast, steep descent from a peak above Marlett Lake down to the parked car at Chimney Beach. It's the typical decomposed granite dirt which takes some time to get used to. Rather than stick to the corners you need to get used to drifting through them. We ripped this up in about 20 minutes or so and grabbed a backpack of beers and hit the beach for the afternoon.

The action didn't stop here, once at the beach we were lying around and two groups of people decided they didn't like each other so we were treated to some ultimate fighting for a few minutes. Both groups cleared out shortly after the chaos and we had the place mostly to ourselves and just hung out jumping off the rocks and swimming in the cold water. Once again no great photos...maybe if Alex would have cooperated i would have gotten one or two of her jumping off the rocks but she's apparently camera shy unless she's on her bike and quick to turn away so this is what u end up with...

Now it's back to the grind and start to prepare for a couple of local races this week.