France World Cup

This past weekend in France was very exciting. The ski resort of Val d'isere put together an awesome race course in the southern alps, one the World Cup has never seen before. I had some bad luck, with a crash in my quali run and a broken front brake lever keeping me out of the final. This was the first world cup that I have not qualified for and it felt pretty bad to watch everyone else race. However, I made positives out of the weekend and learned a few things from watching my teammates. It was a really cool venue, and I look forward to getting a chance to race there in the future.

NM

2012 National Champs

We had an amazing weekend at Beech Mountain in North Carolina at this years Gravity National Champs. I really enjoyed the event because it was close to home, there were lots of friends and family there, the tracks were awesome and I was the defending National Champion. National Champs is one of the few races that I get to race dual slalom anymore and I started the weekend off right with a win on my Trek Ticket hardtail. It felt really special to win the slalom with so much local support cheering for me. Racing two events was pretty tiring by Sunday, but I hoped to give Aaron a run for his money and defend my National Title. I pushed myself hard in the final run and as a result came off my line in a few places. It was a solid run, but I knew it would need to be perfect to beat Aaron, so I was happy for the two of us to take the 1-2 for Trek World Racing. Huge thanks to Ray Waxham from Trek and Frank Stacy with Bontrager tires for being there to support us and keep our equipment race ready. Aaron and I just got into France where we will be racing this weekend at the new World Cup venue of Val d'Isere.  New tracks are always fun and this is sure to be another great weekend.

NM

Racing at Highland, Chilling at Home

This past weekend after some time back at home with teammates Justin Leov and Dennis Dertell we traveled north to Highland Mountain in New Hampshire for a national race. Highland is a fun place to ride and race, it's one of the best bike parks in the country. I raced there twice last year and won both times, beating both Aaron and Justin in the national. I felt good and was having a fun time all weekend. I qualied 1st by 5 seconds and was looking forward to attacking the track in the final. Unfortunately I had a big crash and was not able to do the run I was looking for. My quali time held up as the fastest of the day. I was disappointed to throw the race away, but happy that I pushed myself to ride the pace I want to ride. I had some good times this week at home with Justin and Dennis and looking forward to some more this weekend. We had a great time celebrating the 4th of July last week with some good old USA activities. My buddy came over with a bunch of guns and we shot targets all day and set off fireworks. It was a great day. It will be fun to have the weekend off this weekend and chill out before national champs in 2 weeks.

NM