US Open DH and GS course preview

Take a ride down the US Open downhill and giant slalom courses for this weekend with Team Geronimo.

Pro Grt #2 - Plattekill, NY

Pro Grt #2 is in the history books and Team Geronimo performed exceptionally well against some of the world's best! Stay tuned for more coverage this weekend from the US Open in Vernon, NJ.

Graeme Pitts
The Venue:
Such a pleasure to have arrived at Plattekill mountain in New York State. This resort is definitely legendary, and the antithesis of Gucci - it is a down-to-earth, family-friendly place that makes me want to come back every year. The riding is epic. This year the weather gods were kind and only deposited a sprinkling of moisture the night before the race. Kudos to JDD for a seamless event - the Pro GRTs this year are running like clockwork, turning heads and getting attention from the global racing community.



The Course:
The same course we ran for Jr. World Championships Qualifier '08. Rooty, tight in the trees with a couple of good-sized hucks thrown in for fun. Enough steepness to keep the WC guys happy and enough flat so that it wasn't going to be won on skill alone. I really enjoyed riding and racing the course because it's awesome, technical and requires a fun, playful riding style to be able to hit quickly and ride fast, and a lot of commitment for the hucks. I'm having a particularly great time riding this year with Team Geronimo team mates Michael and Brian Buell, and will be on our way in a few minutes to retrieve Australian team mate Cody Eichhorn, who will make his Team G debut this coming week at US Open.

Qualifying - Sunday morning:
First chance to ride the Plattekill course seriously on the clock. I had been doing timed practice runs throughout the week with the Epic helmet cams, and then JDD/Pro GRT was offering timed runs using their on-site timing system, but it was the first opp I had to run it under pressure since my '08 visit when I was trying to qualify for Jr. Worlds that year.



My qualifying run went smoothly - I went about 95% so that I could really test the course out and myself as well, but still save a little surprise for my competitors. During my run, I had one particular mishap, where I slip a little too far off trail and hit a very small tree with my rear wheel - I hit it so hard that I bent it over and it slapped me in the back of the head!!! Other than that, my run was a success - great fun, went fast and made myself happy. I qualified 16th, so it was going to be a long wait until my start time.

Race Run - Sunday afternoon:
I knew I wanted to really put some power down, because I had seen some other guys get crazy out of the start gate, so I gave it what I had. Had a really solid run with a couple of exciting moments - one where I ever-so-slightly clipped a tree with my handle bar, and another where I flew farther off the snaggle-tooth jump than I had in practice. So I gave it a hard sprint for the finish, and was truly happy with how my run went. Looking at the list of riders who were ahead of me on the results sheet, looks like I've made an improvement in my riding over last year.

Brian Buell
The sun had been shining on Plattekill Mountain all week; the trails were dry and fast. My past experiences at this mountain had been all riding in the wet - this experience proved beneficial as the rain hit race day eve making for an interesting morning of practice. The sun would, however, make an appearance, drying out the track and creating near perfect conditions. After three solid days of practice, my lines had been altered for my qualifying due to a few slick spots on the track. I approached my qualifying run with a conservative mindset as I was not 100% sure of my lines. The slick conditions got into my head a bit after I almost dumped it high on the track - on the brakes a bit, I ended up qualifying just inside top 30, lots of time to improve on the final. The day dragged on some as the final got close, I found myself trying to find things to do to keep my mind off of the race. The juniors made their way down the mountain and I was on my way up to the top. Once up at the start, I got my heart rate up and as the clock hit zero I was out of the gate, ready to attack untill... I clipped a tree on my handlebar not more then 10 seconds into the run. I cought a pedal and was unable to hit the jump. This was the beginning of the end for me and my run. I knew that my hopes for a top 10 result were dashed, but I rode as hard as I could and salvaged a sub-3 minute run, putting me into 26th position in a stacked field. It was a great weekend of riding and it was great to ride and train with the juniors. Time for a little redemption at the US Open at Mountain Creek, NJ!



_____________________________________________________


When the weekend came to a close, Juniors Teddy Benge and Alec Toney had made the team proud. Teddy qualified 2nd, tasting the possibility of capturing the automatic nomination for Junior Worlds. It was not in the cards, however. Riding so fast that he caught a lot of people's attention, he suffered an OTB (over the bars) and still clocked a reputable time, but not the nomination. Alec qualified 4th in a field of some outstanding juniors.



When the race was over, Graeme Pitts tied for 15th place, with a list of World Cup luminaries besting him - still a result of which the team is very satisfied!

Leogang and Winterberg - E.T.

Guten Tag!

It’s been a week since Maribor and I have a lot to write about!

After Maribor I happened to bump into the Yeti Factory Team while out for dinner and they suggested that I go to Leogang, Austria with them. For those that don’t know, Leogang is the new site of the 3rd World Cup round coming up in June. I decided to go with them to check out the area and better prepare myself for the upcoming world cup.

The terrain driving through Austria is breathtaking! MASSIVE snow capped mountains, tiny villages connected by winding roads, and ski lifts just about everywhere you could possibly imagine.



Once in Leogang, we spent the next couple days relaxing, shopping, doing laundry, working on bikes, and eventually getting to ride the bike park. The park was only partially open due to large quantities of snow remaining on the upper half of the mountain. Despite the closure, we still found and rode what should be the World Cup downhill track.

The track is fun, but different. It is a mixture of bike park (think A-Line in Whistler) and rooty woods sections (think Original Sin in Whistler). It will be interesting to see who does well on this course as it does not suit any particular rider.




After the brief stay in Leogang I drove the 8+ hours to Winterberg, Germany for the IXS Cup race. Man the Autobahn makes driving long distances much more enjoyable!

I managed to find the on site camping and meet up with my German friend and travel coordinator, Moritz. Once camp was set up (as in parking my van) I could already tell that this was going to be an awesome event…The campground was alive with energy. LOUD music, mini-motos, blow-up dolls, mega phones, fireworks, and lots and lots of beer!

Moritz and friends cooked dinner and we relaxed and watched the madness un-fold around us. Luckily the music was shut down around 12:00 at night so we were able to get some good sleep in preparation for tomorrows practice.

Winterberg is a unique event. Amatuers and pros practice on the same course at the same time making it an all out battle for a clear course. I have never seen so many people riding a course at once! It was like a constant stream!




The course here is pretty fun. It starts off with a big start ramp followed by some jumps and pedaling leading you into the woods. Fairly rooty and technical woods sections flow well from one to the next ending in a fast finish line sprint broken up by some jumps.

In total the course is roughly 2 minutes and the lift line is unfortunately 30 minutes. This made for lots and lots of hiking sections as I did not want to hit up the lift too often. Luckily the weather was amazing for the first time this trip. No rain, warm temps, and great dirt. It reminded me of Whistler except everybody spoke German.

After practice I decided to hit up the campground’s showers and was pleasantly surprised that they actually had hot water and were quite nice. Not bad for 15 euros for the entire 4 nights! After cooking up another good meal and again watching the madness unfold around us it was time for bed.

The next morning was early practice followed by a seeding run. I had a good run and qualified in 15th position with a time of 1:55.608 with the #1 qualifier (Aaron Gwin) on a 1:51.247.

After the qualifier we all hit up the showers, had a bit of a barbecue, and headed over to the 4-cross track to watch the racing under the lights.



Jared Graves won convincingly, hole-shotting every heat all the way through the final round. My personal comentator/mechanic/drunken German friend, Lukas was telling me bits of information about every rider as they went by which was cool to know. Racing was over by 12:00 at night and the live music was well under way by then. We stayed up for an hour or so more, but decided it would be good to catch some sleep since we again had an early morning ahead.

The day of the race was crazy! So many people flooded the pits and the course it put the World Cup’s to shame! Not only was there the downhill finals, but a huge slope style event as well.

My race run was strange. I knew the course would be even better come the race so I just tried to pin it. No sense in feeling like you went too slow. It seemed as if I was hitting some sections of the course much faster than I had in practice, but I had no real way of knowing. I gave it all I had and crossed the finish line, but not into the hot seat. I thought I heard the announcer say ninth position with my poor German translation which was disappointing. With 14 faster riders left to go this would mean that I would probably end up outside the top 20. I wasn't very happy with this.

After the conclusion of the race we packed up and headed to Moritz’s parents house in Ober-Morlen roughly 1.5 hours away still not knowing the race results.

Once in Ober-Morlen I was greeted by Moritz’s parents Joerg and Monika (George and Monica) and they made me feel right at home. We unpacked from the trip and Monika congratulated me on my 10th place finish. WHAT!!! I didn’t believe her until she showed me in the results page online. Apparently my German is terrible and I had actually gone over 3 seconds faster in my race run and pulled out a top 10 result only a half second off of podium! With over 150 pro racers and a bunch of FAST World Cup guys competing I was pretty happy!




We finished off the day with a killer German style barbeque thanks to Joerg and I slept well knowing that I’m not just over here wasting my time and money.

I will be here until Wednesday morning when I will leave for the long 16+ hour drive to Scotland. I think I will be breaking it up into two parts with a stay in London Wednesday night. Should be pretty cool. Not so sure about driving on the other side of the road though…

Next up is the IXS Cup race in Innerleithen, Scotland this weekend followed by the World Cup in Fort William. I look forward to gaining more speed and experience racing against some of the best in the world at these races. Check back often for updates on the site.

Prost! (Cheers!),

Evan

Pro Grt #2 - Course Preview

Check out Brian Buell and Graeme Pitts of Team Geronimo tear down the Pro course at Plattekill. Round #2 of the Pro Grt is this weekend!

2010 Spring Thaw

Team Northstar/Giant headed up to Ashland, OR last weekend for the Spring Thaw. Check out the race report from our very own Jordan Lopez:

I know it sounds cliche; but even though I was not able to race, I had a great weekend at the 2010 Spring Thaw DH in Ashland Oregon.

My race ended within 45 seconds of it starting because I flatted my rear tire on a rock in the rock garden at the top of the course. I pushed my bike back up to the top of the course and spoke with the race organizers and asked if I could be squeezed back in. Since this is racing and each rider only gets one opportunity to compete in the event I knew that I would be receiving a DNF (Did Not Finish) for my time. I was told that I had <3 min to change my rear tire and get ready to race again. I frantically changed my rear tire, re-pumped it back up, not knowing the pressure, and ran back over to the starting booth. As I got there and got on my bike, all I heard was “4, 3, 2, 1, GO!!” I looked at the guy and said “Seriously” and he replied “YEP!” I frantically took off down the course and tried to make up for my lost time. On my 2nd run I crashed twice and finished my run in 4:32. (Note: In any race, 1 crash causes the run to be uncompetitive so after my 2nd crash I laughed and said to myself “this is falling apart”.)



When I got back from the shuttle to the top of the hill I was bummed to hear that my Teammate, Jon Wilson also crashed in his race run but finished in a time of 4:18:65. But it was great to hear that our fellow Pro teammate Lizzy English finished on the top spot of the PRO Women’s DH with a time of 4:57:05
Throughout my race season, I always look forward to racing in Southern Oregon because there is such a great environment that really fosters racing and the development of the next generation of riders. OBRA (Oregon Bicycle Racing Association) definitely has their “racing” act together and they always put on a very successful event. Also, this race is a amazing opportunity that allows for racers to get very necessary practice runs on the more difficult sections of the Ashland 12mile Super D which is on June 12th & 13th. This race is very significant for me and my season because I owe that race from last year (Separated Shoulder).

Great Local News Story from KDRV 12 Ashland

Mud and Rain... - E.T.

Hello from Slovenia!

A lot has happened since my last post! Race registration and walking course inspection was Thursday. The set up here at Maribor is strange. Race registration is at the very top of the mountain away from everything. You have to ride the gondola to the very top and then walk for another 5 minutes just to pick up your number plate!

After grabbing my plate I met up with Daniel and Emanuel (Pombo) for the course walk. Again, strange set up for this. The race course starts half way down the mountain so we had a solid 30 minute walk just to get to the start. There are no lifts with direct access so every time you want to do a run you have to ride half way down first.

Once at the start of the course I couldn’t help but smile. Such a sweet start! Nice start house/roll in with a couple long sweeping corners into a big step down jump (35 foot gap or so) then you are pinned into a HUGE left hand berm followed by a right and left berm and then you are in the woods.

The woods in Maribor are unlike anything I have ridden before. Always turning and flowing so very good except for one thing…THE ROOTS! I have never seen so many roots in my life. They are EVERYWHERE! The Pombo brothers call them “snakes” and for good reason. They will bite you when you least expect it.

The course is long in distance (roughly 2.5km). Last year the winning time was around 3 minutes so the course is fast (just do the math). The course is also almost entirely in the woods so you are pinning it by trees the entire time.

After the course walk Emanuel and I went to the grocery store to pick up some food to cook for dinner. They are camping in the same area, but have a super factory RV thanks to their sponsor Liberty Seguros (Liberty Mutual) of Portugal. For dinner we made up some good salad, chicken, and pasta and they introduced me to “Brisa”. A Portuguese juice drink. I can’t remember what kind of juice, but it was AMAZING! After dinner I worked on prepping my bike for Friday’s wet practice then headed to bed around 12:00 am.

Friday’s practice was crazy! I have never struggled so much on a race course in my life. The mud, roots, and rocks are NOTHING like home. The mud is slick and the roots even slicker. No brakes or turning on roots is key. Tough to do when 80% of the course is roots and there are so many corners. I began to get the hang of things somewhat by the end of practice. Never did I get a non stop run though, which is not good.

Saturday I woke up nice and early to the sound of rain DUMPING on the roof of my van/accomodation. It was going to be a wet one! Practice was short at only two hours. Between the long gondola ride, being forced by the ski resort to wash your bike between each run (they won’t let you on the gondola if your bike is dirty), and the logistics of it all, I got two runs.



The course was really wet and it was so dark and foggy in the upper woods it was difficult to even see where you were going! I joked to John Reynolds (a videographer on course) that I needed some night rider lights to see the course. He agreed that it would most definitely help and said I should try the bike shop at the bottom of the mountain. Maybe next year!

After practice I headed straight back to the campground to wash my bike since there was a nice bike wash set up by the camp host. Unfortunately a minute into washing my bike his water pressure quit working and I was forced to head back up to the pits to wait in the LONG line for the jet wash. An hour later I was freezing cold, but had successfully blasted all the grease out of everything in my bike (I hate pressure washers!). I went back down to the camp and changed into some dry cloths, dropped off my bike and headed back up to the pits in search of the qualifying start list, a team USA jersey, and some food.

The jerseys still had not arrived. They were supposed to come with Scott Sharples of Yeti, but his bags were lost. USA Cycling notified the UCI so I was good to do my qualifying run in my regular jersey. With that out of the way I found the start list and saw that I had roughly 2 hours until my start so I decided to grab some food.



The base of the mountain has an amazingly good affordable restaurant called “La Cantina”. They specialize in pizza and pasta and they kill it! Every rider eats either lunch or dinner here everyday and I don’t blame them. As I type this I am eating my left over gnocchi from lunch today and even though it is cold now, it is still amazing. Best I have ever had without a doubt.

After lunch I prepped everything for the ridiculously wet course and weather and headed up for my qualifier. Once at the start I had to pull one of my tearoffs (due to the long wet ride down to the start) which left two for my run. In the start it was foggy, windy, and cold, but I didn’t care. The start beeps went off and away I went.

The top part of the course was super fun. It was absolutely destroyed by the 200+ riders that had gone before me, but I was loving it. It felt so good to not stop 5 times in a run. Half way down the course and things started to blur. The speed was so fast and the conditions absolutely horrible. I carried so much speed into one section I couldn’t slow down and blew entirely off the main line at a CRITICAL section and crashed. My bike was pointed backwards up the course. I quickly grabbed it, turned around, and tried to get going again. The mud was so slick and the section of course so awkward it made it almost impossible to mount my bike. I crashed again just trying to get going! By now I had lost roughly 20 seconds, coated my hands and grips with mud, but I was determined to keep going.



I continued down the course at a good pace and blitzed through a whooped-out section which splashed mud on my goggles. I couldn’t see a thing! I had no tear offs left at this point. I tried to continue to ride with my goggles this way, but it wasn’t working. I stopped, pulled my goggles off, put them on my bars, and did the rest of my run squinting through the mud. I crossed the finish line with a time of 4:22 in 173rd and did not qualify. The cut off was 3:49.

Despite not qualifying I still had tons of fun and learned a lot about riding in mud and most of all Europe. Next weekend is the IXS cup race in Winterberg, Germany. I am looking forward to building off the knowledge I’ve gained at this race and seeing what I can do there.

-Evan

Europe - E.T.

Evan Turpen made it to Maribor to race at this weekend's world cup. We wish him the best of luck!

Holy $h@t...where do I begin?

It's 12:25 pm I am sat up in the Maribor parking lot taking advantage of the free wi-fi available in the nearby hotel and trying to think of what to type.

The last couple days has been a journey. The flight was long, but went smoothly. My bike arrived to Munich un-scathed although in transit they somehow managed to rip open my reinforced packing tape job. Once in Munich the reality set in that I was on my own. I immediately exchanged the 600 U.S. dollars in my wallet for a mere 400 or so Euros, then headed outside to look for a taxi.



I found one large enough to fit my bike box but the driver was trying to talk me out of spending the 20 plus euros to take a taxi and just take the bus. I convinced him otherwise as I needed to get to the car rental company and didn't feel like dragging all of my luggage from a bus stop to save some coin.

The taxi driver was crap. His GPS didn't work (so he said) and even though I had the street address he had no idea where it was. After what seemed like forever, asking for directions from multiple people, we finally arrive at Sixt (the car rental company) 10km away 45minutes later.

I check in and I'm told that the Mercedes Vito van that I had reserved had been totaled so I was upgraded to a larger van for the same price. Basically a full size sprinter style van made by Iveco. Pretty freakin' big just for myself, but I'm not complaining.



Once we set the GPS for Maribor, Slovenia I am off driving for the first time in Europe. Excited and nervous I get the hang of things pretty quickly. Let me tell you one thing... Driving over here is so much better than back home. The Autobahn is chill. PINNED cars and big trucks mesh seamlessly on a 2-4 lane freeway. This could never happen in the U.S. There are too many stupid drivers out there.

Getting solidly into the 5hr drive, jet lag starts to hit me a bit and I consider not driving the entire way to Maribor. I decide to find camping in Austria for the night and deal with the rest of the drive to Maribor in the morning.

I set up camp around 7:00 at night and start to build my bike to kill some time before going to bed. Half way through building my bike I start to get some stomach pain and decide to call it quits on the bike build. I go to the bathroom and feel a little better then try to get comfortable and go to sleep. The pain worsens and worsens until I am spending the night either puking, on the toilet, pacing around in agony, or trying to sleep. One tip when you are in Europe: don't buy an egg salad sandwich from an autobahn gas station! It will be THE worst 3 euro you have ever spent, no matter how good it tastes in the moment.

I somehow make it through the night and spend almost the whole next day recovering, eventually building my bike, and finally leaving for Maribor around 5pm.

The rest of the drive went smoothly until the GPS took a turn for the worse and was trying to send me down roads that didn't exist in Slovenia. I shut it off and let my instinct take over, eventually arriving in Maribor at the race venue.



I pull my freshly built bike out of the van and search for a floor pump since I did not pack one due to weight. The first group I ask happens to be some privateer racers from the UK and they help me out. We talk a bit, hit it off well, and now I'm having a good time camping and hanging out with my fellow racers.

Em's (that's his nickname) is a unique guy. He is welsh and is the definition of a privateer. He has a sprinter kitted out with a kitchen, fridge, TV and bed. He offers to cook me dinner and I'm not one to turn down free food. He made "Portuguese rice" and pork chops. I later find out that he calls it Portuguese rice because he learned the recipe while down there for a race.

I also meet the Pombo brothers (a duo from Portugal) who are here to race. They are funny guys and we all seem to get along really well.

Anyway...it is now 1:10 in the morning and I need to crawl into my bed to catch some sleep. I feel good now that I'm not puking my brains out and I am looking forward to checking out the track with walking inspection tomorrow.

Until next time...Guten nacht!

CCCX DH #4

Round #4 of the Spring CCCX series was this past weekend. With a week of dry and fairly mild weather, the course was sure to be pretty dusty. However, rain was brought into the forecast for Sunday (race day) and conditions quickly deteriorated. Cold rain, and high winds made for another interesting race, but that was not the only thing. Towards the bottom of the course was a mud waterfall that seemed to have been formed from an underground spring. Riders in practice were mesmerized by this and more than a few had trouble getting down it. Several decided it was quicker to walk down it for their race run, rather than attempting it and subsequently crashing.

Co-founder Tim Lukko crashed off the mud waterfall after cleaning it several times in practice. Without the crash he would have been on the box.


Alex Amaral's practice runs are sometimes faster than his race runs. Following his brother too close in practice sometimes can put you on the ground. However Alex had a decent run and ended up 6th on the day.


Allen Stoddard had some clean practice runs and a good race time, 5th place in Pro on the day.


Ian made his return to CCCX. Running new bikes and a new attitude, Ian threw down an impressive time and landed himself 3rd place.


Founder Jimmy Amaral pulled off an impressive win in both Pro and chainless. His Toro specific Intense 951 has proven to be a winner.


John Hauer crashed hard off the mud waterfall which unfortunately cost him some points. Mike Amaral blew out his rear tire, coming completely off the bead, resulting in a DNF.

Jimmy Amaral 1st. Ian Massey 3rd. Pro Men's Podium.


After some nasty practice crashes, Scott Seery smoked the 55+ class, beating himself. It is good to have Scott back racing CCCX again.

Photos by Steve Anderson

Full results

Cal State Downhill Rd #2

The same weekend as Port Angeles for the Pro GRT. A few other Point One Racing athletes headed down south to Woodward West in Tehachapi, CA for round #2 of the Cal State downhill series. An event put on by Southridge USA. Conditions were fairly dry, with a few muddy pits from the recent rains. The course had very little pedaling, making it easy for riders to carry their speed down the hill. Allen Stoddard and Toren Stoudt made the trip to rack up some points in their respective class. Round #3 continues this weekend n Fontana.

Allen Stoddard


Full results click here.

Jungle Trail

Check out Alex Amaral rip it up at his local trail.

Sunday Santa Cruz ride

Our weekly Sunday ride is always filled with the unknown. Our rider out in the field, Scott Seery made a random appearance while we were taking a break and was kind enough to snap some photos for us. Thanks again Scooder!

PRO GRT #1 - Port Angeles

The weekend after Sea Otter quickly turned into round 1 of the Pro Gravity Series. NORBA is dead and for the last couple years there has been a Pro XC tour, with a couple downhill races mixed in on a national level. What has risen in popularity is the regional DH series. Events like Mountain States Cup, Fluidride and Gravity East have helped form a 2010 Pro Gravity tour. Great racing venues, pro pursue and world class riders are starting to bring in more professionals and amateurs alike. Every weekend at one of these races you will find a stacked starting list. Sometimes other factors can attract more participants in an unlikely way. During the Icelandic volcano which erupted during Sea Otter, most European racers couldn't make it home due to the tremendous amount of ash. Therefore a lot of them decided to make the trek up the Pacific Coast to the small town of Port Angeles, WA. Our host for round 1 of the Pro GRT.

Point One Racing made the 23 hr drive from the Bay Area to represent the brand and continue our heritage of racing. The course was similar to riding in Santa Cruz. Trees, roots, rocks and familiar dirt. It had rained on Friday night, so by Saturday the course was slick to say the least. Everybody coming down had a bike caked in mud. It wasn't until Sunday that the course really dried out and conditions were perfect. Alex Amaral had qualified 10th in junior X out of over 30 riders. Knowing he can step up his time, it was going to make a great race. Chris Lauber had some mechanical issues, needing to borrow a shock for practice runs and then completely borrowing a bike for his race run. A crash unfortunately kept him off the box, however it was still a superb effort considering the circumstances.

Alex had a clean race run and improved his qualifying time by over 5 seconds. Tough to do when course conditions changed so much from Saturday to Sunday. Although improving his time, he still finished 10th. Great job to all our racers!


Mt. Shasta


Downtown Port Angeles


View of the mountains from the hotel room


Vancouver Island in the background




Team Meeting




Post Practice


Few shots of the bottom of the course and a couple random riders











Point One Racing Athletes:

PITTS, GRAEME 2:47.78
BUELL, BRIAN 2:50.71
BELLUZZI, FOREST 2:51.21
AMARAL, ALEX 2:54.29
KEMP, LOGAN 2:57.50
BUELL, MICHAEL 3:05.92
LAUBER, CHRIS 3:20.23 (crash)

Full results can be found here.

Up In Smoke - E.T.

Check out Evan Turpen doing some downhill training in preparation for the world cups.