Check out the new video from Take the Day, they are local Kansans!

Hey all my bike buddies, the guys in this band are really good friends of mine so if you could go check them out on face book and like them it will be great for all involved.  This song  kicks butt!

Mason's Midsummer Meltdown, Top fuel bearing rebuild, crash

Racing the Marathon class at Wyandotte lake,  finished 11th out of 19

Prior to racing on Sunday I had to tear the topfuel way down to replace all eight of the suspension bearings.  I did a complete overhaul on the bike.  I started to think I wasn't going to get it done in time for race day.  This picture was the day before the race.  Yikes, I started to sweat a little, because I was having trouble getting the lower pivot back together; the inner sleeve that protects the bearings from being crushed was making it difficult to push the pivot bolt through.

Here is an exploded image of the bearing replacement I had made.  I do not recommend trying this the day before a race.  I had no choice because the bearings were trashed.

Here is the the trail head that I crashed on just 30 minutes before race time!  I felt like a tool!

Here is my ugly mug sporting my team colors.  It looks like I knocked my teeth out!  They are all there, lol.

So It's been a while since I have been around the race scene.  I just finished up grad school after two years and I am now a licensed school psychologist.  Whew, who would have ever known? 
         I have been getting some miles in this summer, but during grad school it was very difficult to train.  I have only been on my mountain bike three times since last September,  all three being races.  I was really rusty and I wrecked within 5 feet of hitting the trail!  LOL.  It was prior to the race so the only thing hurt was my ego, although my ribs are a little sore right now.  The picture of the rocks were my point of impact, I went right down the middle which is true to my fashion.  My rear brake pads were evidently contaminated which in turn were squawking really badly, I tried to use too much front brake to compensate for the awful noise and over I went.  This made me really timid on the first lap, but once I got going I was OK.  I made it over those rocks all four times during the race without incident.  Well, anyway I will be competing at a bunch more races from here on out,  hopefully I will be ready to get back to cat 1 racing soon.  Until then I will be training and prepping for my first full cross season.  See you all soon!

No Handed Bike Moves // "Golden Tree" by Martin Brooks

I Found A Bike Today

Get Dirty

SRSLY

So what have I been up too?

      Well it's been hectic, but the dust is starting to clear!  Graduate school was a bear, and I had to shut down my training regimen for a while.  I was out for several months, gained several pounds, studied a lot and completed my Master's degree.  I'm now working on my Ed. S., and have also gotten back on my bike to prep for a big month of racing in August and September.  I'm also thinking about racing cyclo-cross this season, but I will see how I feel in September when I'm in my practicum work. 

    The pictures below are of the Dirt Jump track that we are building; we finished Phase 1 today.  It has 8 jumps ranging from 7 feet tall to 3 feet tall, 2 berms ( the first one is 12 foot tall and doubles as a wall ride, and a 40 foot mogul set.  The following Phases will include a 12 foot tall DIRT HALF PIPE!  A pump track, and a pyramid will be coming also.  In the more distant future we will make make bigger jumps!  But we are waiting for  a few logistics to fall into place.

above we are sculpting the first two jumps, each jump has a table top on the left and a spine on the pro-side The first jump is 7 foot tall and the second is about as tall.

Here is a before picture

 Bob is in the bobcat starting to build up dirt mounds to work with.  On the far left he has started clearing the woods so that we can come out of the trail network and down the drop-in hill to access the jumps.

 Here me and the boys are sculpting the pro side of jump one, as you can see the spine is about 3 ft.  The table top side is about 5 feet deep.

 Here is a picture of the first two jumps and the first berm,  that's me  Waaaay back there standing in front of the berm, this might give a perspective of how big it is. 

 just trying to sculpt the landing side of jump 1

We decided to play a little bit!  This kid was  digging the jump, and it wasn't even finished 

This little guy was getting some good air and Roger is talking about giving some helmets to some of the kids that helped us build.  That's a relief because these kids have too much going for them to take a digger on the noggin.  I will try and get some pictures of the complete track.