Keystone Colorado's MTB trail system offers plenty of chances to practice changing tubes.
Keystone. Trees. Rocks. Hard to argue with that.
Tony Lo is always a treat to listen to.
Lee from leelikesbikes.com built a nifty pump track for us then proceeded to go really fast around it.
Post Pump Track. We fit 13 bikes in the back of the demo truck.
Some people pay big money to keep from going bald. Patrick paid big money to go bald.
Pinned.
I'm all for rain. I love it most of the time, but it seemed every time I went to shoot people riding bikes in Keystone it rained. Sometimes we resorted to shuttling in trucks instead of using the gondola. This photo pretty much sums up the feeling after a few days of dealing with perfect blue sky mornings and afternoon thunder showers.
During the epic XC ride in Keystone we came upon this really cool creek crossing. Back in the day it was required that you must enter and exit a crossing like this full tilt warp speed, hydro planing out of control certainly getting you and everything within 20 yards soaked. Apparently that isn't the case anymore. Out of the many (over 10) editors I watched come through this crossing on the 2010 Trance Advanced SL0 Ryan Cleek from MTB Action paid homage to the old school way. Everyone else rode it like pansies worried there shoes would get wet. I liked this photo of James better though.
Even though I follow the mtb freeride scene pretty close I still can't keep up with the speed of progression and kids coming out of nowhere so I wasn't surprised to see someone I didn't recognize throwing some wicked super flips at Crankworx Colorado. I was surprised when I realized it was Graham Agassiz. I'd only seen him ride in person back at the Red Bull Rampage which is more big mountain and all the photos I'd seen of him he was mountain biking instead of doing circus tricks. Not that there is anything wrong with circus tricks, it just turned out he had more in him than I thought.
Whistler's Crankworx Slopestyle is a competition of circus tricks on mountain bikes. Brandon Semunuk is currently the hottest rider out there for this type of competition. What seems to seperate him from the pack for me is that when he's not doing a trick he looks smooth as all get out.
Andreu Lacondeguy owned Crankworx in 2008 with a double flip. This year the wind and few close calls with others seemed to have many riders toning it back a notch. Andreu had a few bobbles but when it came to best trick he didn't let anyone down. In what I thought was way cooler than a double flip was this stalled out superman seat gab 360. He held it so long I had time to switch lenses and set up a second flash.
Paul Bas is dialed. He was one of the few guys doing something other than 360ing off the SRAM feature. Thank you Paul for doing something different.
I really wanted to see Jared Rando win the Giant Giant Slalom at Crankworx. Search around on the Giant Bicycle Facebook page for a few pics of him and Kurt Sorge He was super focused all week and needed a win badly, but it just wasn't meant to be. Lopes was unstoppable (I am not endorsing the Lopes weblink as I really don't know him personally I just thought it was funny that someone feels so strongly about someone they wasted hours... ok maybe minutes creating the site) He probably would have won the Slopestyle had he entered it.
Hot Dog racing the "Dual in the Sun" race on the same property that Charles Manson used to brainwash his gals. I went out there with the goal being to find a way to make the new Giant 29er' look like a 26" wheeled bike. After all it rides like one... I think I pulled it off. Yes Hot Dog is racing in a t-shirt and jorts. No he is not wearing any under garments.
Sizzlechest, Natedog, Buttercup, Dusty. Whatever you call him to get his attention doesn't seem to matter. He was Hot Dog's partner in the "Dual in the Sun." Racing a a 6" travel all-mountain bike to what was effectively a short road circuit. Yes he was in a matching kit to what Hot Dog wore. Yes he took the race very serious as you can tell by the stash he had drawn on his finger for special display as he rode past me.
1 comments:
Sick pic's and love the descriptions of what was going on.
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