Skate tripping the world

DC's Bday Race!

2010-03-22T20:14:00.000-07:00

I had gone to this race in 2008, got dead last, was planning on going in 2009, but had a broken leg, so 2010 was looking like as good a year as any!

I was talking to Kyle on AIM, and wanted to set up a roadtrip down from Norcal to Ridgecrest, and skate gnar shit in the Sierra's along the way. The original plan was to hit stuff around the Tahoe region, but eventually came to the realization most of the sweet passes were closed. So plans were made to instead hit roads in the southern Sierra's. We figured theyd be less snow, and more open roads.

We tried to get our friend Ken to join in, but he had work, so Friday morning, Kyle and I headed out of Berkeley to beautiful Ridgecrest, CA. Most of the ride was uneventful, with the notable exception of Kyle's shitty navigation skills, until we got off the freeway.

When you see a road like this

on the map, you think "yesssss!". Then when you look at the terrain features, and see it's ALL downhill, you think "YESSSSS!", then when you look at the elevation and realize it's below the snowy level (at this time of year it's a concern), you jump around the room.

so you get off the freeway, and start driving. the drive out there is beautiful, everything was in full bloom

for those of you not from California, you have to realize 75% of the year all of this is a very depressing shade of brown. and hotter. and dustier. and browner, and more burnt. you get the idea

So after 1 hour of beautiful driving, and some navigation fail, we get to the road. excited, we start driving up, pavement is good, looking sick. then, get to this.

booooo. this means the whole elaborate plan of driving through the sierra's is gone :(. this road was our entrance, and if it's closed, short of MASSIVE backtracking with dubious chances, we werent gonna do it. so bummed, but we backtrack and head south. We find some decent roads, but nothing quite as epic as I had been hoping.

so after much driving, we pull into ridgecrest and get to Danny's friend's house. Not too many people were there, but we chilled out with some guys, talked, and relaxed. Afterwards, Kyle and I went to my car for an oh so comfy sleep on the seats of my car. it sucked.

I stumbled out the next morning, back and neck aching, and went to the nearby Wal-Mart to freshen up in the bathroom and get some drinks and snacks for the day to come. Danny had gone out to score us some breakfast burritos, and we sat around eating them as people from all across Cali and the western US rolled in. The coolest thing about races is it gives you a chance to see, and catch up with people you havent seen in a while. It was rad to see all my socal homies, especially John and Brett, whom i hadnt seen in a long ass time, as well as Coloradans, Arizonians and Oregonians.

After eating and sitting around, we packed up and rolled out to the race! After a couple practice runs and picking names for heats, it was on!

My first heat we all crashed (Race photos are courtesy of Blake Smith)

Just looking at this picture I just wonder wtf am I doing. WAY too much of my body is of my board, i should know better =/ . Despite a finish involving a sprint to the finish line, I advanced cuz I held onto my board ;)

Second round was on! This time I got a much better start, managed to get out in front and lead into the turn

but still horribly messed up the drift, and went into the dirt. the only redeeming aspect was I crashed way farther ahead than the others so I advanced!

4 wheels > 2 wheels

me on the left side

so we were of to the semifinals!
I lined up with , got a decent start, but I got in a push race with Jeff Budro off the start, and he had the outside line going into the righty at the top. I was right next to him so I couldnt swing out wide to take a better line in the turn, so I was forced to take the inside line with waaaay too much speed. I drifted out into Jeff, literally collided with him, pushed him off the road, 2 of his wheels were in the dirt, and somehow he didnt eat shit and pulled through it. I felt so shitty for almost taking him out, but no time for regrets! I tucked right behind him only to have John Rogers come flying by with his damn perfect tuck. I managed to draft and pass them, only to have Ryan Sorenson come by me at the last second in the straightaway leading to the last left, and take the inside. I saw the sketchiness going down, and decided to pull back, brake a lot, and take the turn conservative. (photos from here on down are from JustinS on silverfish)

I was banking on the fact that that huge cluster of people going in waaaay hot into the turn would crash, but unfortunately they didn't. so i was stuck going slow into the turn and knocked out.

At the last minute we decided to hold a consi final, so the people that knew, piled in! Max Capps pushed off hard, took a clean line, and snagged a sick lead at the start. I was second place and slowly gaining, but by the time we got to the lefty, I glanced back and saw Jeff Budro and Hugh Kibbling just gunning for it. Given that they had been discussing going into the turn balls out and sliding the shit out of it, I said screw this, moved way right, footbroke a lot and took the turn slow. fortunately for me, they crashed out, I took the turn cleanly, and finished. Kyle Chin was right behind me, and I'm sure if he had kept his leathers on (he wasn't familiar with the concept of a "consi final" and de-leathered), he woulda smoked me.

max with a stylish win

kyle with a steezy lose

In the finals, that damn ginger from CO ended up winning it again, with Kyle Wester right behind him for ANOTHER CO 1-2 of California.

we headed over to the skatepark for awards

Blake steezing it up

rad ass kid ripping a tricycle in the skatepark!

the weiners

Then it was off the Danny's for the afterparty! And what a party it was...

THANK YOU DANNY FOR AN AWESOME RACE, AND HAPPY BDAY!

he was so happy about gettin iron maiden tickets he cried...awwwwww

the most fun is just around the corner

2010-03-06T19:45:00.000-08:00

as much as I like travelling all over the place for epic events, i still have some of the most fun filled runs just around my home in Berkeley, CA. One of these runs is what us locals call "bofax", and today was just one of "those" days.

no one else could skate, so I trekked out there solo this morning, giving myself the luxury of sleeping in, cuz i was sick and tired of waking up super early. The forecast predicted "partly cloudy", which in the bay area always means "cloudy and shitty", and it had been raining most of this week (and a lot of the run is covered by trees) so i was expecting "meh" conditions on bofax. But boy was I wrong!

Got to the hill around 11am, and lo and behold, it was perfectly dry! Not only that, but the sun was starting to poke through the clouds! I geared up and headed down the hill, not really trying hard, just carving it up, flowing with the road. And 4.5 miles of turny goodness, with a nice wavyness to the pavement lets you flow realllll good. I was testing out some new griptape, and a revised tampon cave, and they both were feeling awesome. At the bottom of the first run, I sat around for 15 min, then managed to hitch a ride with a friendly local "chuck". got to the top, all nicely warmed up, and headed down for another run. A little faster, but still not caring to go all out. That's the nice thing about skating solo, you don't care about how you do, and have no one to show off to, so all the skating is just for you, and for you to have fun. Jamming down the curves, humming tunes to myself, sun shining down, epic views of the ocean, what a run! I even got to practice toeside predrifts/pendies (i find it hard to distinguish between the 2), and even that was feling good! the new tampon cave held my back foot in perrrrfectly, and on all slides, wi th the new griptape my feet were STUCK down, and everything was smooth and awesome.

got to the bottom again, and this time, within minutes of taking my helmet off, got another ride! this time from two guys from Park City, Utah who had wanted to hit up Lake Tahoe's snow for a change, and afterwards decided to head over to the Bay to chill for a while. So i got to the top for a third run! Another gorgeous run, I sat down at the bottom waiting for cars, just enjoying the sound of the creek flowing by where i was, and soaking up the sun's warm rays. After a little bit, a family heading up to play some disc golf picked me up for #4. Headed down again, feeling one with the hill, flowing over all the bumps in the road, floated through corner after corner, just relishing the nice cool breeze and the sound of wind rushing by. That's the beauty of a road you know ridiculously well is that you know every inch of that road like you paved it yourself. you know every turn where theyll be rocks or some cracks, which turns are blind and which arent, and this truly allows you to flow down the road. Usually a run down a road is filled with a little bit of uncertainty and fear, you dont know 100% whats gonna be around the next corner, and as a result you kind of "fight" the road. When your knowledge of the road and your skills progress to the point where it's no longer a fight, runs become pure pleasure.

so I got to the bottom, hitched another ride from a local named Scott, got to the top, grabbed my car, and with the biggest smile from so many stoke filled runs, headed down the hill. I decided to give it a go for one last run, and parked my car at the bottom and tried to hitch. After 30 minutes, a car finally came by, but they didnt feel like picking me up, so I called it a day and packed up.

I headed over to the local liqour store, grabbed some chips and an arizona (strawberry kiwi...mmmm), and headed down to the beach to chill. sat out there for an hour munching on chips and watching the waves crash and seeing surfers ride them. perfect way to end the day.

on the way back I hit up some In-n-Out, and headed home. I'm still smiling from the perfectness of today's session. i didnt take any pictures or film anything, but I dont think i'll be forgetting this day for a while. pure stoke.

Barret Junction 2010

2010-02-09T22:29:00.000-08:00

I saw the post on silverfish. Barrett's going down again! After getting third last year, i was cocky and ready to do it again. The only thing standing in my way? about 800 miles of california freeway!

After a few weeks of praying for clear skies, nonstop checking of weather.com, and lots of school work, it was go time! Rain was forecasted for saturday, so I opted to sleep in saturday so i could get some rest. Mid morning, Nick from Rocklin rolled up with Sinjin, and we piled into the car for a jolly drive down the 5. 5.5 awesomely boring hours later, we crossed the grapevine into beautiful LA. Crossing 5 min of torrential downpours, with some sketchy hydroplaning, we pulled into beautiful Westwood to pick up Kyle Chin from Ashton Kutcher's house.

Heading east, the consensus in the car was despite foreboding clouds to go check out GMR. if it was dry, it had to be hit. Unfortunately it wasnt. Everything in Glendora was soaked, so we turned around and went to my parent's house. We chilled, got some food, and crashed early. I woke everyone up and gt em out of bed at 5am sunday, ate some food, and off to SD we went!

Kyle was kind enough to drive so i could sleep and save my energy for my trek back up to norcal later that day. 2.5 fun hours later, we pulled up to the Barrett Junction Cafe!

Greeted by a VERY bleary eyed looking crowd, we parked, and made use of the restroom facilities while the rest of the campers recovered from the night before.

As always it was good to see old faces, meet new ones, and laugh at others. Well rested and not hung over, my car decided to head out to the road to get some practice runs ... on a soaked road.

At the bottom we geared up, marveled at the epic pavement, and laughed at Kyle wearing Evan's old leathers.

Tai had the good idea to customize them for more badass points. Sinjin decided to practice his moonwalking skills to warm up for the race while Nick changed out his wheels

All geared up, the loaded freeride boy, who only started dh-ing last summer, was all geared up for his first ever RACE!!

doesn't he look adorable? and yes, he raced the dervish. the flex actually helped soak up the cracks and bumps surprisingly well.

So we headed up, practiced on the rough, wet road, and got familiar with the beautiful shittiness that is Barrett Junction. After the practice runs, the road started to dry more and more, and things started to get faster and faster.

this is what my board looked like by the time the road dried. Rayne boards arent so bad in the rain ;)

soon after, the rest of the folks showed up, names got pulled from the hat, and racing was on!! My first heat I lined up with James, Tai and Malakai, and was very very nervous. especially cuz I didnt have my faceshield (forgot it in OZ, and too busy/lazy to make a new one), and had a camera strapped to my head. We lined up, andit was off!

footy here with enteraining commentary summarized how the racing went. First heat was fine and dandy, I used my obesity and snazzy NJKs to draft and pass. Second heat was royally screwed up, took the turns waaaayyy to slow and sloppy, and let james and zak get out in front, and it was lost. The icing on the cake was when i decided i was sick of tucking for no reason, stood up, and got passed by Dustin too!

After the racing, Tai and me lined up for a grudgematch, with all the rest of the 'bu crew joining in. My second attempt at sandbagging failed in a similar way to the second heat, and Tai walked away with the win, even with a nice push from Dustin near the end.

Oh well, that's racing for ya. After some more heats, the finals shaped up to me Louis, Andrew, Zak and Kyle (from 'rado not chin). Unfortunately for California, the smelly Coloradans took 1st and 2nd, soon after the sky turned gray.

Top4: 1) Zak Maytum 2)Kyle Wester 3) Andrew Mercado 4) Louis Pilloni

afterwards the top 3 downhill skaters raced the top soapbox derby racer, and despite a much stronger start, the soapbox blew by the skaters in no time. Sad day indeed...

I got some footy of that from the gopro andrew strapped to his head i'll upload soon...

the main highlight of the race however, was kyle popping his racing cherry (as louis put it). watch for this skinny slider at a race near you!!

Afterwards we sat around, took funny pictures of people

and since I was in a rush to drive back up to norcal (500 miles) before feeling tired, and by a decent time, I packed my car up and left before the awards ceremony. Kyle drove on the way up from SD to LA, and after stopping by for a delicious in-n-out meal, we dropped kyle off in LA (he had a dinner date with Ashton), and hit the road for norcal. After an exciting 5 hour drive, we were back in berkeley! exhausted, nick and sinjin set off to the homes, and i slept.

High Grade Safari

2009-12-21T17:48:00.000-08:00

NOTE: i dont know why the pictures are truncated weirdly or how to fix it. sorry :(

so after heading out of OZ, I landed in Auckland hoping someone would be there to pick me up. Deciding it would be easier for people to identify me, I put on my newly acquired "My life is going downhill fast" Newton's shirt. After a lil while, some dude walked up to me and asked if i was a skater. it worked!

He introduced himself to me as "sith". i was confused. are there jedi in new zealand? then i remembered what I had learned the night before about skate decks and skate dicks, namely that "e" is an "i", and "i" is an "e" in new zealand. this became the first step in my seamless and faultless adaption of the new zealandese dialect of english. combining the swapping of e's and i's with widespread use "oi", everyone swore i was a local when i spoke (cough cough...or they hated my guts and wanted to punch me. since this is my blog i'm going with the former).

after an hour or so, mr. andrew chapman showed up, and we began sitting around waiting for the mysterious "Dan" to show up. At least we had someone with a "cellie" who could call and see where they were (sith). An hour or so and some overpriced McDonalds (with my extensive knowledge of new zealand, i hypothesize this would be called "mickies") later, in rolled a van already chock full of people! after somehow piling all of our suitcases in, we three (sith, andrew and me) piled in and we took off.

We did the round of introductions, and in the car was Striker, Kel, Dan, Jestah, Richard, Jay, Seth, Andrew, Tony, and me, following us in a separate car was Speedy. thankfully a few people went in speedys car to make the van less cramped.

Rechard partaking in some baby bottle libations?

We drove through Auckland and made our way to the first bomb. a freeway. I was a bit hesitant, but we went for it. We tucked through an onramp, striker and others were up in front, and this huge truck comes flying by! I stand up and take it easy, but Andrew comes flying by drafting the truck. gnarliness.

after that we pack back in and head off. I must say that the beauty of New Zealand is something to behold. The lush greenery is simply gorgeous.

After a little bit of driving, we get to the first non-suicidal (or so i thought) bomb. We stumble out of the ridiculously packed van, and head down what looks like a sweet hill. but we soon discovered the ugly beauty of NZ chipseal. a road can look beautiful and inviting, but the pavement can be nothing but gravel with a bit of tar. you can skate it, but itll rattle you to death, you cant turn or you'll fall. you cant slide, and you can barely footbrake.

looks inviting right?

so after getting the best footmassage to date, we booked it off to a big mountain. known only as mount rapeyou to the locals, us americans and canadians decided to give it a more proper name of ruapehue (actually it's the other way around). The entire mountain was covered in clouds, so we couldnt fully appreciate it's beauty

going further up the road, the truly monumental epicness of this road dawned upon us.

jagged volcanic rocks strewn on all sides, falling off the road looked so deadly I was kind of relieved to see some guardrails to crash into. butter smooth pavement, looooong sweeping turns, and insane speeds, this road was majestic.

freezing in the howling wind at top, we suited up as fast as possible, teeth chattering and butterflies in my stomach, we headed down

in just the first drop the speeds felt insane. going through a slight kink then a lefty, you lined up for the first turn. luckily the road had excellent visibility, because by god did we cut lanes. you fly into the first righty, admiring the beauty all around you, illuminated by the setting sun, and praying you dont get a close up look of the beautiful landscape. immediately after the righty you fly into an uphill lefty, but you got so much speed you actually need to set up well for this turn. then you line up for another biiig righty, with epic views of the entire valley, and into a straight. again trying not to get carried away by the beauty of it all, there's a tricky righty that you cant spot if it's clear, so braking is advised. then into a long straight into the never ending right. a looooong sweeping right hander. then into a slower straight, you take a slight turn and get flyinnng into death left. a 90 kink with jagged boulders just in the part of the turn where you would drift out. then tuck and FLY down the road, nearing the new pavement at the end, road cones beckoning for slalom. going through another looong righty and across a bridge, you get to the end.

Getting to the bottom, me tony and andrew looked at each other in amazement of the road and it's smooth beauty. we all agreed it was one of the most epic bombs EVAR, and jumpe dup and down in anticipation of the next run. I cursed myself for not bringing my GPS along with me for the trip. cuz this road feels easy 100+kph. finally the van got back down, and we rolled back up for a second round. bombing down again, we got to the bottom and shared smiles and laughs, but when the van took a long time to come, i got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Turns out speedy took a bad line into one of the rightys and drifted out and nailed the guardrail. We helped him into his car with Jestah driving him to the nearest hospital. Later we found out he broke his kneecap and tore his ACL. Good luck healing speedy!!!!

truly a gnar road. sobered by this, we headed up, and with in the darkness, hiked up to the cabin we were staying at. We got all the gear we needed for the night, and got to hike across a steep jagged rock field in the dark to our cabin. which was the furthest away cabin. fun stuff. Seth graciously carried the chilly bin filled with food and drinks for us. We got to the cabin and were blown away by how sweet it was. Rows of bunks, an awesome upstairs living room. So we settled down, the kiwis graciously cooked us up some awesome food, and we chilled and ate.

the next morning we woke up well rested, and stoked to hit the mountain again. unfortunately it was raining hard :( disappointed but not disheartened, we waited for a break in the rain and hiked down, packed up the van, and headed out to wellington (or "wellie" as the locals call it). Just about an hours north of Wellie we stopped by this EPIC canyon road. so very malibu-esque it was ridiculous.

view from the top

at the top, a HUGE wind nearly blew us off the cliff, and sent our helmets tumbling. At the start, pushing against this wind we would push and push and barley move. Setting down this steeeep road, I was in full slide mode, not wanting to go fast. Andrew and Tony headed out in front, leathered up and charging hard.

simply gorgeous jungle canyon bombing. A couple good kinks in the road, with one soaking wet hairpin. the wind made it really weird cuz in some sections you'd be flying, and in others full tucking but barely moving. at the bottom we were all onec again amazed at the NZ roads and headed up for another round. Tony was borrowing my gopro and took off. Going through one of the turns, I saw him looking for his board off the side of the cliff. At the bottom (after waiting a while) found out tony took 1 tumble and nearly hit a fence, his board going off the cliff, then took another tumble, with himself nearly going off the cliff. the worst part? my gopro only got the first tumble!

heading out, we got to a wet highway that strike couldnt resist bombing, joined by andrew. unfortunately, the traffic cameras caught their antics, and a little ways down the roads, some flashing lights appeared behind us.

this is the best part about NZ. the cops were totally chill! they said theyd love to see the footy we got (i guess the traffic cameras also caught that)

then we headed into wellington for the night, all very tired, some people went out to welly to party it up, i just relaxed.

we woke up the next day, and did some bombing! We hit up this steep fun straight bomb right outside of our house, bombed that a few times, andrew almost got creamed by a truck, verrry sketchy to see that going down. basically a car pulled in front of me, I airbraked and took it chill. andrew comes flying by, and goes to pass the truck in what seemed like an ample shoulder on the side of the road. problem was that the shoulder narrowed to...nothing. and andrew didnt know this. so he did a little bit of griding on his trucks in the gutter and shot back in front of the truck inches from its bumper. sketch. We also hit up this fun road next to the wind turbines, nice turny (not super turny road) with fun pavement. reminded me of california :)

we then did a lil neighborhood bomb, and headed back. afterwards we rolled out for a lil cruisin in the mean streets of welly

after that we headed back to chill with some tunes provided by dj chapman and dj strike

on the way to the house, we did some zipline racing. dh style!!

just look at how aero tony is

then it was time to head back to mt ruapahue!!! weather forecast was good, and the road was gnar. it was go time!

...slight problem

it was all soaked when we got there. and still raining. not to be deterred I did a couple rain runs, sliding around and having fun, then went back to the lodge and got some chili fries and sat down to chill and hope it would dry. good news, it did dry, bad news tho, the chili fries were...strange. I envisioned like...chili. with ground beef, some spicyness, some cheese on top of the fries. what i got was a bucket of fries with sourcream slapped on top and some weird sweet and hot sauce on it. disappointed to say the least. now onto the main story!

so andrew strapped on his boomcam of doom. a pointy metal crowbar

despite the deadly looking sharp metal nature of it, with duck tape holding it on, it worked awesomely

and soon the others were bombing in style. i was still soaked from the rain runs, so I was taking it chill

side note: gorgeous landscape no?

waiting for it to dry more, i took a lil hike with richard to a nearby ridge, and enjoyed the view

after a while I just geared up and took chill leather-less runs, carving it up and enjoying the beauty.

finally our lucky dry spell ended and we headed back in the van. and headed off to a nice coastal town. we were planning on camping, but it was POURING rain, and just plain shitty weather, and by the time we rolled into town, late as hell. So after much freezing, wetness and overall grumpiness, we found a motel!

the next morning we cruised along, enjoyed a funny christmas parade, and a poof parade

turns out all the roads were flooded, so we were kinda stuck in the town. luckily the weather cleared up real nice!

I think we were all glad to have a little break from nonstop driving and skating to enjoy the scenery and relax a little.

after that we headed out to beautiful auckland!

we spend the night at dan's house, and skated this rad set of TIGHT switchbacks. everyone had fun eating shit

I feel horrible, but I totally forget at what point in the trip/road this was, but enjoy some footy of striker ripping it up!

then we were off again! this time cruising for some jungle bombin!

we headed off to forestwhosenameiforgetbutwasepic, and skated some fun hills. sooo cool riding through the middle of an insanely lush jungle!!

on the way out we hit this hill we thought was just going to be a little tiny bomb, but turned out to be this epic bomb from lush jungle at the top of the mountain all the way down to the valley below

on the way back we had an entertaining episode involving striker attempting to chase a cattle herd

not realizing he was rolling through cow shit, having cow shit splatter all over him, his board and his clothes, and trying to clean himself with andrew's freshly cleaned pants. and licking his board clean (dont ask, but ask andrew for the vid)

hilarious to say, and very very smelly.

after some epic bombs we headed of to dan's uncle's farm to set up camp and get some sleep. we made striker sleep outside cuz he smelled of shit. the next morning, i felt like this

but our ever diligent safari leader kicked us all the hell out of bed, for some nice RnR on the beach!

chilled there for a while, striker had fun tossing his board on the water, and we enjoyed a nice relaxing break.

after that, we headed back to dan's uncle's place for a freshly caught seafood FEAST. we all ate until we could eat no more, then headed off for more more skating.

somewhere around here we hit mungamuka, this awesome turny road going off on both sides of a mountain, super nice turns, nothing too crazy, with gnarly logging trucks going up and down. sketch and awesome to say the least. stay tuned for a cool video of the runs, along with Sith doing some insane surfing of turns.

there's so much more skating I feel like I'm forgetting, so I'm truly sorry, but it's been a little while, and there was SOOO much skating.

after the day, we headed back to dan's uncles place so striker could shoot his board

and then set off for another beach to chill on!!

isn't that gorgeous?

finally we dug out a skatedick for rechard to ride on in the sand, and got a High Grade Safari shot!!

we drove some more, skated some more, and saw a cool waterfall

and saw a cool girl skating

and back in auckland we went! chilled at dan's house again, headed out to the city to enjoy a punk show, and relaxed in general

the next morning we tried to wake people up bright and early, but no one wanted to, so me and striker skated this crazy looking hill we rolled down on the way to auckland. hitting it dawn patrol style was the only way to survive. It seemed crazy gnarly, but going down it it actually wasnt too bad. fast as hell, but quite survivable.

finally, on the last day, dan took those of us left to this beautiful beach to enjoy a sunset.

and it was mind blowingly beautiful

rich dan and andrew

tony knows the right people to thank ;)

.

and with that we wrapped up the most epic skate trip of my life, the High Grade Safari!

I must apologize for all the hills i've forgotten, people i've left out, fun times i've omitted, and epic thing's i've skipped, but soooo much happened on this trip, and I didnt have time to properly write it up immediately afterwards, so my memory is a little hazy.

also, thanks go out to all the kiwi's for their awesome hospitality, their insane roads, and their funny accents. and a shout out to the crew who trooped it all the way across NZ in the smelly, crowded van! Dan, Rich, Sith, Kel, Jae, Strike, Tony, and Andrew! and those who joined us along the way for fun times, especially Jistah.

and once again, big big big thanks go out to Dan for organizing this trip, putting up with our idiocy, being the only one responsible enough to kick us out of bed so we could skate, and overall being our dad for this trip. without his diligence and awesome organization none of this epicness would have happened.

stay tuned for some videos once I stop being lazy and actually edit some footy! I have soo much footy to edit i dont know where to begin

Australia!!!

2009-12-17T20:03:00.000-08:00

first off let me apologize for the failure of this blog. i anticipated more computers and more internet being available to me. computers usually were, but internet was definitely hard to come by. and quite slow. so uploading would take like...hours.

anyways, here is a recap of my travels in australia and new zealand!

to begin, let me extend my heartfelt thanks to the AMAZING hospitality I recieved from everyone down under! You guys took me (and lots of others) in, treated us like family, and showed me an awesome time. If anyone is ever in California, you are welcome to crash at my place. Special thanks go out to Pip and Jacko for taking like...20 skaters in, feeding us awesome loads of food, shuttling us, and in general being awesome, Dan and his family for shuttling us all over NZ, letting us crash on farms and floors, and feeding us, and Richard for letting us crash at his place too!

now to begin:

Australia

After a jolly 14 hour flight (flight was mostly empty so i slept like a baby0, and 19 hours of time change, I landed in Oz. Clearing customs, I walked out the gate wondering where the hell am I gonna find David Price. Fortunately i found Pip, Kevin, Scoot and Andrew, so they gave me someone to chat with while waiting for Dave's flight to show up. Finally his much delayed flight shows up, and we go about finding a rental vehicle. Turns out that's harder than we thought if we dont have a reservation. After ~1 hr of fruitless searching, we say screw it and cab it to Pip's place in Curl Curl, just north of Sydney. We finally stumble in, set our stuff down, say hi to the pile of people already there, and wander off to the beach!

felt so nice leaving the cold of Berkeley for a nice sunny beach! we chill there for a while, then have a nice little skate back to Pip's. We shoot the breeze, finally locate a much cheaper rental, and Pip cooks us up a feast! We also get to say hi to Jacko, who just came back from surgery on his ankle for torn ligaments. Right around dinner time a whole grip of other people come back from touring Sydney, and we all dig in! We knock out for the night, and get ready for the next day!

The next morning is all frantic packing, Dave, Kody, Hallie, Kevin and me decide since we're in our own car we'll stick around and do some touristy stuff around Sydney a bit, so we hope on the ferry from Manly (best city name ever), and go over to Sydney and wander around for a few hours

on the ferry

operahouse!

this took A LOT of getting used to when crossing the street

After wandering around enough, I grabbed an ice cream and we headed back to Manly to load into the truck and head off to Bathurst! Dave was kind enough to do most of the left-handed driving madness/car full of 4 annoying people. We managed to catch the Three Sisters park just as the sun was setting...it was gorgeous beyond words, the pictures do it no justice.

Then we grabbed some food, and started heading to Bathurst. Once the sun set, rain started pouring. And pouring hard. We pulled into Bathurst not knowing where to go, what to do, and since we had missed the riders meeting, where to stay. We had no idea where the campsite was, so we tried to find the university housing I had signed up for, that way everyone could crash in the room and not worry about setting up tents in the pouring rain. After waaay too much searching/wrong turns, we found the place! And it turns out although I was signed up for the housing, apparently I wasnt. So now we were stuck in pouring rain, with no idea where to go, and no idea where the campsite was. So we headed into town to try to find a hotel. After much fruitless searching, many closed places, I noticed at a bar it was written "lodging". we stopped by and managed to get a room for not too ridiculous an amount! Except for Kody, who slept in the truck, we all got a hot shower and beds to sleep in!

The next morning we woke up to sunshine, dry roads, and it was ON! We grabbed an overpriced breakfast, and headed to the top of mount panorama! After frantic registration, and suiting up, hoping not to miss the first practice run, we sat around for a good 30 min until the first run began. First run I lined up with Andrew Chapman, from the cold land of Canadia. and headed down the road. I had never seen the track, had no idea what to expect, and was just following andrew. it didnt work out too well

Only after the first run did i start to grasp the gnarliness of the course. The only apt analogy i can think of it, is claremont, but gnarlier. for those of you who don't know clarement, speed the video up 2x, and you'll have some idea of what it feels like to be going down the road. The toughest part is that the turns are immediately after each other, theres a left, right, then LEFT one after another, with little to no time to try to brake. And drifting on this course doesn't work out too well. then a straightish part followed by a riiiight, then LEFTT!!!!, then tuck tuck tuck. It's a hellova rollercoaster that's all over in just under a minute. We got in 3 practice runs, then were cut off as qualifying began. That's prolly my only gripe of this awesome race, was not enough practice. A 4 day event with an entire day of just practice would been SO rad.

So after 3 practice runs, in which I crashed in 2, I headed down the track to actually see the track and take vids of people crashing. Let me say, i've never been on a track where seeing the road helped me visualize the lines so clearly. Before I had just been charging more of less blindly, but after carefully looking at the road, the banking and everything, the lines became significantly clearer. Having some idea, I headed back up for qualifying

me qualifying (dunno if it's first or second)

I took the first run slow, I just wanted to not crash and get a time in. i ended up qualifying in the 20s, which was more than enough to guarantee me a spot in the top 64 to race. We grabbed some more overpriced food, and I headed back to the bar/hotel to tuck in and sleep, i was beat.

Next day I woke up, drove up the hill, and got ready for round 2! Got a crappy breakfast, geared up, and lined up with some ozzi's for practice.

Newtons Practice from GLYDEaus on Vimeo.

Ash was kind enough to film this, both of my practice runs were nice and clean. It was a good confidence booster from the day before to have some good, decently fast runs, and most of all NOT crash. I was nice and stoked. The second round of quali rolled around, and i guess i was a little too comfy. I was focused on getting my time better, and tryin to quali in the top 10. It didnt quite work out too well...i flew into Forrest's Elbow WAYYYYYY too hot and slammed into the haybales HARD. I was going towards em, and headbutted the hell out of them. I was dazed for a couple seconds, but got back on and wandered towards the finish. i knew my run was done, and my quali time would suck. oh well. After the dust had settled on qualifying time, I was in the mid 30s, and quite bummed, and Martin Seigrist was #1 qualifier! Go switzerland!

Headed down to town for some food again, and an early night, my neck was too sore from my headbutt, and too many butterflies in my stomach to wanna do much else.

Woke up the nexy day, and amazingly, my neck wasnt sore! Good way to start the day. took first practice run with Olivier, nice and clean, good to see his lines and what he was doing. Then lined up with some of my fellow Rayne-ers, Nick and Brianne, and some of my fellow road trippers Dave and Kody, and headed down!

Kody had a funny crash, then I had a rad time following Nick down and trying to catch him.

So we were done, ready or not, here comes racing. and I sure as hell did not feel ready.

First heat I lined up with Gerard Cancio from the Philippines, and two others whose names I forgot, sorry!! presented below are two views of the racing, one from ASRA cameras, and the other from my goproHD mounted on my helmet! (I'm in RED)

(see ~4:10)

Newton's Playground IGSA World Chamionships 2009 DH Skateboard Rnd 1 heat 12-16 from ASRA on Vimeo.

the first heat I played it safe, I pushed out to stay behind Gerard, then when I saw no one behind me after the Dipper i took it easy. No point being stupid and trying to get first from Gerard and crashing. so i was past round1!

round 2 came up, and it got heavy! I lined up with Gerard again, and this time Olivier from France and Kent from South Africa. I knew this was gonna be one tough heat.

(see ~3:20)

Newton's Playground IGSA World Chamionships 2009 DH Skateboard Rnd 2 heats 22-24 from ASRA on Vimeo.

No go pro footy :(. i thought i turned on my camera, but i didnt

We pushed off, and I was third behind Gerard. We go through the Dipper, we all get through nice and clean, I'm sticking right behind Gerard, right where I wanna be. We go into Forrest's Elbow, Gerard slides out a tiiny bit more, and I hold a slightly better line, and I slingshot by him at the exit of the turn.

For once my master plan in my head actually worked out! Now I'm just sitting in my tuck, praying, praying i dont get passed again. And cursing my gopro strapped to my head, giving me more of a draft. I somehow manage to hold off Gerard, but it was close!

So off I go to round 3! In the heat right after mine (in the vimeo video, keep on watching), a GNARLY crash went down. Alex Lyngass from Norway broke his ankle, but somehow still got on his board and finished the heat 2nd. I guess adrenaline does crazy things huh? But it was obvious at the finish he wasnt gonna race, so I got a 3 person heat in the quarterfinals. Not that it was gonna be easier, but i guess one less person is always nicer. So we lined up, Olivier Bareaud from France, Reckless Ricky from Canada and meee.

Newton's Playground IGSA World Chamionships 2009 DH Skateboard Quarter finals from ASRA on Vimeo.

Looking at ASRA's footage, I can see Rick is one sandbagging bastard, but hey, i just did the same thing to pass Gerard last round, so I can't complain can I.

So we all fly into and out of the dipper nice and clean

We exit, and look at the Vimeo video, you can see Rick is just sitting in my draft, waiting to pounce. I had glanced back and knew he was there, but I had no idea it was so close. So we go into the Forrest's Elbow, I knew i had to be fast, but I was a lil too fast. I scrubbed waaaaay too much going through the elbow, almost hit the bales. I knew rick was gonna come flying by

and sure enough he did

he wasn't flying as fast as I expected, but still enough to pass, but thankfully I knew I had to immediately get in his draft or i'd be screwed. I got RIGHT behind him, and the nerve wracking game of drafting towards the finish began. At first Rick pulled away, and i was losing hope, tucking my heart out, then all of a sudden, i get this massive pull, and gain like mad on him and go for the pass! Now we're neck and neck drag racing. All the while I'm (again) cursing myself for wanting to film my heats, but the footy is worth it right?. We're neck and neck, but I feel like I slowly start to gain on him. As the finish nears, we both shoot our arms out and pray. Past the line, we stand up and look at each other like, "who won?". we go down to the finish line cameras, and after much reviewing, i get the win, literally by a few inches. I feel like a dick for taking the win this way, but I guess that's racing. i do owe Rick a rematch at some point though. sick sick run.

And just like that, I'm in the top8. This is definitely the best placement I've ever had in a race, and man was I stoked. and nervous, very nervous. My next heat was with Eric Lundberg from Sweden, Scoot Smith from Canada and Olivier Bareaud from France. i just looked at the lineup and thought to myself, what the deuce am I doing here??

It's a funny feeling going to the starting line knowing you're outclassed. Generally on any other course I've raced, i know i can at least hang with the top guys, and if fortune smiles upon me, maybe beat some. But here, with the amount of practice we had, on this gnarly track, I knew i was out of my league. I feel if I had ~10 more runs to just get used to the track, I wouldnt be saying this, but i guess part of racing is adapting to a new spot faster than the others. Oh, and my push, it totally totally sucks. I am so gonna work on this.

Anyways, we lined up and headed off. i was 4th off the push and not feelin it. took dipper clean, then flew into forrest's elbow too fast trying to play catchup, and down i went. funny crash. i tried to get back on my board immediately after, but it just didnt work. i've always laughed at videos of people in races fumbling with their boards, falling off at random times after a crash, now i understand!

Newton's Playground IGSA World Chamionships 2009 DH Skateboard Semi-final from ASRA on Vimeo.

so I ended up 4th and in the consis. whatever, i was super stoked with where i was anyways.

There was a long break after the semis, and we got to sit around and listen to the carnage of the track. there must have been like 5 ambulance calls in a row, it was nuts, people were wrecking, and wrecking HARD.

By the time the consilation finals rolled around, I realized, i didnt wanna win that badly. i stopped caring, i was just glad i had made it through with no serious injuries, i was happy to sit back and let the others rip the course. So I lined up with eric, Martin, and Evren Ozan, a RAD ass 16 yr old RIPPER from Long beach caliiiiiiiii!! I got a fun view of his wacky ass footbraking during the entire run. I made it down clean and in 4th, but I was happy. 8th place was mine, and i was unhurt!

IGSA World Chamionships 2009 DH Skateboard Consolation final from ASRA on Vimeo.

So I got to the bottom, we all hugged, and i took my gear off and watched the rest of the race! Kevin Reimer ended up winning this race, major major ups.

All in all it was one incredible race on an equally incredible track. 1 minute that goes by so fast, if you stop paying attention for 1 second, you're fucked. such an intense race, I'm so glad i didnt break myself.

After the race, a rad awards ceremony and after party, we all piled into Pip's truck and back to Sydney. I repacked all my junk, and got ready to head off to the airport for New Zealand!!!!

Let me also extend my thanks to my sponsors for hooking me up for my trip, without them I'd be quite a bit poorer! Rayne Longboards, for giving me a rad ass board to bomb on (dee-lite nemesis), Orangatang, for giving me rad ass wheels to roll on (did all my quali runs and race heats on orange in-heats), and Stoked Skateboards for giving me rad-ass shoe soles to slow myself down with (Roger's Bros. footbrake soles)!

stay tuned forpart 2 about NZ. I'm too tired now to write more.

NZ

2009-12-02T13:09:00.000-08:00

aite, sorry about the lack of updates, internet is far harder to come across than i thought it would be. there's piles of footy from sydney, bathhurst, and other kiwi roads that need to be uploaded, but it just takes too long. so yeah, here's mt rapahue or somehting in new zealand. crazy crazy crazy fast, not many hard turns, but there's some tricky ones. and zero margin for error.

holy hell new zealand is crazy! skated another road down here, a nice lil canyon road, very malibu esque. except everything's on the wrong side of the road. and very very very fast. and crazy ass winds. tony had one hilarious crash im bummed my gopro didnt get :(. gonna do some city shredding in wellington today, then off to mt rapeyou again tomorrow for hopefully an all day sesh!!!! then loads of other goodies.

as for AUS...it was insane. bathurst is just nuts. it's kind of like claremont condensed into a 1 min run with more turns. i'm so so so happy i made it through the weekend with no injuries. by the time the semifinals came around I was just happy to have been unhurt and was content filming evran's wacky footbraking. i have so much footy from that race it's not even funny. so rad to see locals shredding it up, and also see people from countries you never thought you'd see at races ripping it up. watch out for the philippines next year, those guys are seriously FAST! props to kevin for ripping the shit out of that course.

stoked on skating!!!

a blog!

2009-11-11T19:49:00.001-08:00

the purpose of this is to post up whatever pics/vids/ramblings during my trip to aussi/nz. Leaving nov 23-dec10. stoked!

for now, since I cant find a piece of paper...im making a checklist of stuff to bring!

boards
-deelite nemmy
-regular nemmy

wheels
-4 in heats (orange), 1 4prez (purple), 1 durian (purple), 1 stimulus (yellow)
-rain wheels
-1 used in heats on trucks

trucks
-kahalanis
-maybe crails? not sure if i wanna bother

random skate junk
-spare kingpin, spare hardware, spare nuts (axle, hardware, kingpin)
-bearings (1 ceramic, 2 biltins, 1 set rain bearings)
-blades
-footbrake soles, small jar of contact cement
-skate tool, screw driver, hex wrench set
-shoe goo

safety gear
-fullface + faceshield
-half shell
-gloves
-kneepads
-leathers+back protector
-shades

footwear
-dh shoes
-normal shoes
-sandals

technology
-goproHD+accessories
-spare sd cards
-normal camera
-500gb external HDD
-prayers that someone has a laptop i can borrow
-all necessary chargers
-plug converters
-cell phone for emergencies
-some kind of nice box to hold all this in

clothes
-underarmor pants/top
-jacket
-sweatshirt
-1 pair of shorts
-long socks+normal socks
-2 pairs gym shorts
-tshirts
-underwear
-beanie/neck warmer
-swim trunks
-towel
-toilet items
-sleeping bag

other
-call CC companies to let them know im going abroad
-double check visa
-put together first aid kit