So what happened was-

To give you a general understanding of this whole story/rant/crybabyness I'll have to give you the full details before the good stuff so grab a snack this one's gonna end in a storm of harsh words. LOL So the USAC championship race was this past weekend in Chula Vista down south about an 8 hour drive from Nor*Cal. I had the opportunity to start working more hours at the hospital which I gladly jumped on with the extra money going toward my worlds expenses, house downpayment, and just whatever. So I worked Friday night til 8pm and embarked on the journey drive south after a days work and knew Id have to drive overnight to arrive in CV at maybe 4-5am but in enough time to practice a lap or two and race the USAC race. A lesser and wiser man would have skipped it and just petitioned into the worlds team, but me trying to do whats right and support the good ol BMX scene I was gonna do it right. Drive went well, arrived at 4am slept in a cozy bed thanks to Lisa Masterson for the spare bed in her room xoxoxo and woke up with a brief 3hr nap ready to do the thing. I get to the track and meet up with all my boys and shoot the shit getting ready for practice. Only had 15 minutes and ahdnt been to chula in a bit so was kinda stoked. Practice starts and I get yanked to the side by a UCI guy telling me that Im ok to practice in jeans, but will not be able to race in them. Im annoyed in my head because I know the rulebook only states pants must be a tear resistant material. Levi's were effin created on the basis of a better set of pants 500 years ago in the gold rush time fools, dont get much better than levi's. Now lets all be real here. Its an olympic year and we as snobby BMX'ers are now looking down on jeans because we want this new clean cut image. Keep it real is what Ron Wilkerson says and Im just following his lead. I know the rulebook because Ive had this issue with team USA coaches at the worlds in years prior, Ive heard every excuse as to why I shouldnt ride jeans but the down right facts are they are legal to ride in and your dislike of them is fine but you throwing your UCI weight at me tellin me I cant race is fuckin BS. Here is where I feel I made a mistake and I regret it. Instead of arguing with the guy, I simply said I dont have any race pants because I always race in jeans, Ive raced this race in years past with no issue and I even raced the worlds in jeans. He replied no sir you havent. Pffffft ok buddy. So I didnt argue and I went to J&R and hit a bargain bin. $27.00 later I was rocking some bright yellow Answer Edge pants from 1994. The sizes in the bargain bin were all off sizes and my chunky ass couldnt fit a 28, so 36 was my next option. They looked funny as shit and all kinds of long/baggy but the yellow really went well with my Australian jersey I was rockin. See Im in the process of moving every 2 months it seems and buying a house so I dont even unpack my clothes anymore. I have about 5 shirts in my closet 4 sets of jeans 1 hat and socks and boxers and thats it. All my other stuff is boxed up. Yes I have 25 jerseys, and a full race kit but its all packed up. My australian jersey is the only one I have out and thats what I run. So motos start up and the ABA crew makes the announcement that this year you'll be able to race in jeans but not next year at all. Im quickly annoyed because thanks dicks you just cost me $27.00 to buy pants that I knew I didnt need, but to play nice I bought to conform to your imaginary rule about jeans. Whatever I was gonna be racing and I already dropped the cash. Racing goes decent I felt slow as could be but I was beating Nate and thats all that matters :) After third round the same asshole from UCI approaches me and asks me if I have dual citizenship... Im like what? He says are you a dual citizen? Im like ummmm not really man. Bizarre ass question, he follows it with a statement about how he doesnt think its ok for me to ride the Australian jersey at the USAC race. Im like excuse me? Its a jersey. I immediately regretted bending my backbone for this dude with the jeans issue and was now heated. I didnt drive 8hours overnight to support your fuckin race and then to get shit from you over a fuckin jersey now. I stayed calm and all the funny things in my head were enough to keep me entertained as he explained more and more about how that jersey cant be worn. I told him flat out, Sir I already wasted $27.00 on pants that I obviously didnt need and I refuse to buy another jersey when I have raced 3 out of 4 laps in this one and it hasnt been an issue. He said I need to find another one for the "finals" or I would be DQ'd. Shit at this point thats fine and fuckin dandy to me. You can give me 8th place in the main and Ill be fine. Everyone I race knows what place I got, everyone that is there will know and who gives 2 shits about you DQ'ing me. It aint that serious buddy. He tells me that I will need to turn this jersey inside out or I will be DQ'd. I finally start to ride away and say thats fine, do what you have to do. Never disrespectful at all, I saved all my shit talk for Nate and Brian in the stands haha. So main events come up and Im on the hill behind the gate. Laurie the stager, bless her heart, tells me I have to flip my jersey inside out. I tell her dont worry Laurie its cool if they DQ me Im not worried about it, just a finish. She says well they informed that if you dont flip it inside out they just wont drop the gate... WOW. Now Im like fuck it. Soooo over the UCI/USAC bullshit. I give Laurie a piece of my mind and she laughs because she has known me for 15 years so she doesnt take it personal, she knows I love her. I explain to the rest of the gate why Im taking my jersey off and flipping it, to which they all seem stumped LOL Race the main, have a decent lap 2nd place to the last corner but the drag created by the stitching being on the outside slowed me down so much that 2 guys snuck by me on the last straight. Its all someone elses fault, I had plenty of gas in the tank! Hahahahaha Took a 4th and got ready for my 8hr drive back home before going to work Sunday morning at 8:30am. So in closing all Id like to say is I will definitely not be attending Worlds this year. Sucks because I look forward to that race every year, but at some point in time you gotta stand your ground and not continue to get fucked over because someone is in a higher position than you. The folks at USAC/UCI wanna ban jeans, thats fine n dandy. Do it the right way. Ban them, let it be known before I show up to a race. You wanna ban another countries jersey from being worn at a certain event. Fine. Do it the right way. Because when it appears you are nitpicking at someone things get realy annoying really fast and you start to come off like an asshole. You wont get my hard earned cash this year as part of good ol team USA, and I hope everyone else thinks about the bullshit that we are being thrown. Shout out Carla for always having the Levi's hookup, J&R for the bargain bin special, and best of luck to all my boys going to London. Im sure I'll regret not going but "Sometimes you have to stand up for whats right, even if your standing alone" Sorry no pics of the aussie kit in action MC hasnt posted much :(

We still out here, and Saturday Il be down there!

Just signed a new 1 race deal pretty stoked on it. Everyone is all about the olympic hype, so I too went out and hustled up a corporate sponsorship to keep up with all these goons. Stoked on it for sure. Driving overnight to Chula Vista after work Friday night arriving to CV at maybe 5am? Racing Saturday then driving straight back home to get back to work on Sunday morning. Beastmode fools act like you know. Click the picture to blow it up and see the new hype, and if you think I didnt submit it hahahahaha yes I did.

Ramp Rats?

Yep. Amazingly after riding the old RR park for years, they moved to a new location which was farther from the old location and I moved farther from my old house. So the new location is already years old and was only new to me because I never drive that far to ride for the most part. It was well worth it though. The session was pretty hectic and the park is fairly small but I got some fun time in and hadnt ridden a good mini ramp in some time. It wasnt the best mini Id ever ridden but it was dry and the session was solid. Headed up with Nyquist in his green machine prius so I think the bridge toll cost more than the gas we consumed which was kinda nice. Met up with a few SJ heads there and things were fun. Andrew Lang was going nuts on the box along with another UFO who was laying waste to that box jump as well. Highlights were Nyquist flirting with the upper lights along the rafter, it was good to see but scary all at the same time. I did absolutely nothing but a few turndowns and some high airs, and wrapped up the day with a few flyout barspins on a borrowed bike. I said Id lift my seat up cuz trucks over dirt are pretty sick, but well see. Droppin off my racket to get restrung today so that will be kinda nice to get that all done and the tennis center near my house has like leagues and stuff so I might check that out and see if it fits my schedule, been wanting to play more and the new racket mojo should keep me interested. Contest at LCRSP has been moved to the 24th aka SATURDAY. Take note and Ill see you there. Thats all for now.

Ode to another set of grips...

Im gonna keep this up until I get forgetful about it. So in my salute to this set of grips that arguably should have been replaced about 3 months ago I can only think of the good times. Uncle Nyquist offered em to me about 4 different times and I always feel weird accepting things from him, but they were unique Carhartt grips which is a denim work clothing type company so I was kinda stoked that Id have a one off set of grips. After needing em for awhile I caved and accepted em. Soft and fairly thin, greyish color so not a bad look on my bike. They were the best pair of grips ive had in some good long time even when they became a grip set going from 2 grips to 3 grips I still loved em the same. They throttled from time to time, but always were ready for another run through the trails or a day at the park. When I finally went down and fired out the watts gap, it was these grips that accompanied me. I broke a pedal that day, but the grips? They were there for me. First 360's and flips in the post office hip line. Again the good ol carhartts held true. I am going back to an old favorite grip the cleveland signatures, and Im sure it will be a good trip with them, but the carhartts have been a blast and sure any grip could have been the grip to get it all done but facts are facts. Carhartts got a special mojo on em for sure. Til we shred again fellas!

Aptos it is.

Hahaha packin my shit and gettin a hardtail apparently. The meeting went ehhhhh today. I blame myself, I brought along this noob rider hoping to show that some jumps at LCRSP could help less skilled riders than myself to become better not just on bikes but better people as well. The kid just didnt relay the point well enough I guess. Maybe next time Ill be more selective, maybe an accomplished rider with a long track record to prove I mean business. Yep thats what ill do. Anyway so I agreed to be a part of a workgroup, and basically see how the group sees things playing out. I know what I want and hopefully they see that Im right. LOL In all seriousness jokes aside. The meeting went pretty ok. I like Steve the director and he seemed sincere in wanting to help me out with my aspirations of some dirt jumps. How to go about it may get tricky but thats juts city politics. For now, hang tight and keep drivin over 17 to Aptos.

Clutch.

Crucial. Imperative. Pivotal. Essential. 5 best words to explain my meeting today. Hope it goes well or Im moving to Aptos.

On the edge.

You ever be on the edge in a good way? I feel like Im at a point right now where things are going to start moving at a fast pace and it may come off as a blur but will be great when its all settled in. City work has been minimal IMO but at the same time Ive been putting in heavy work, if that makes sense. Camp wrapped up and things just havent slowed down really, BMX birthday party tomorrow for a camp kid should be fun, work weeks have been long and will start a double up routine very soon as I start working into some other operations at Cunningham. Longer hours and more work put in will stack paper at a faster pace :) Boutta book this London ticket when I get around to it, Heading to Chula to qualify in for the worlds in a few weeks. Did I mention the city meetings for the next project Im pushing through the pipe? Busyness. Wouldnt have it any other way though Im pretty sure. Even been playin tennis with Matty, J, and Alicia. As soon as we get Matt a lil more skills we should be the next big thing LOL Thats all for now check back as all this stuff slowly develops. jyeah