SIGMA ORDER HAS ARRIVED!

The team's SIGMA BC1106 Team Issue Computers have arrived!





Vanessa Humic races exclusively on SIGMA products. Designed and built in Germany, they are shipped to our friends Brian and James at the Batavia, Illinois facility.
Vanessa then gets it, reams it out as only a top-tier athlete could, and then changes the battery and does it some more.




Vanessa was snapped at Sea Otter and this pic was in a magazine! Photo by John Kerr.




Vanessa's TOMAC CARBIDE looks great w/her SIGMA computer on the bars!





The uninterrupted SIGMA digitally encoded signal means she wins...and you could too if you ran a SIGMA HRM!






Thanks VERY MUCH to the unrivaled support from SIGMA, and thanks to Vanessa for being an absolute bad-ass.

Merry Christmas Bitches!

Merry Christmas everyone, we miss you immensely and wish nothing but the best for all of you for 2009. O.K, except maybe Jim Roff, he's a pickle smoocher for sure. :)

It's Officially Cold As F**K!

In The Hocking Hills, Old Man's Cave sits at three degrees right now.



It's officially colder than f**k today, and pretty much everywhere across the United States. Our heater was set to "incinerate" all night, and it still barely kept the house at 65 degrees! It was colder than a mother-in-law's heart here yesterday evening, and a call to Riverside California revealed temps in the mid thirties. All of Vegas was shut down for a couple of days while the mobsters tried to figure out how to drive Cadillac's in the snow.



Snow in the City of Sin, the former home of fabulous Vegas Bob!






Yesterday we had some pretty sweet freezing rain that came down in small and jagged daggers from some angry cloud. Today it's actually sunny and kind of nice, but still about as icy as a stare from Dirty Harry. "...make my day" indeed.
Bundle up out there kids, it sucks outside! Call Ed at Voler Team Apparel and ask him for a deal on a thermal long sleeve jacket so you can go ride...


Snow in Malibu at Calamigos Ranch, near Kanan Dume Rd and Mulholland.

Resourceful

I need to say that, when a situation becomes difficult or rough going, mountain bikers are the most resourceful athleetes on the planet.
While riding or racing mountain bikers have come up with some of the most ingenious way to repair problems on the trail to get back home or cross the finish line.
Many ideas from stuffing leaves in flat tires or using pine tree sap to hold a handle bar grip from slipping, my favorite wrapping a inner tube around a snapped off seat post, so it doesn't poke you in the ass. ( I know Vegas.... I said poke. )
Anyway, the other night when the north east was getting hammered by a snow storm. Here a little further south were getting rain and high wind, soon my family and I are setting in the dark with out power. Yet, my little girl wasn't about to let a little power outage stop her from drawing and coloring by defying the dark, with a little help from Sigma lights.
Like I said us mountain bikers are creature of difficult situations.

Talk later
Tookie

WHEELTAGS 26" Wheel Demo Is A Success!

Although I KNOW these are road wheels...I tested the sample 26" Wheeltags template that Jenn Vona made for us today, and they were frikkin PERFECT for the DH wheels. They will need about .25" taken off the width for the XC rims, but look for the team to get these if the budget remains intact after the economic meltdown for 2009! I am working on the artwork as we speak. SUPER FRIKKIN TRICK, and I imagine that many OEM SPECS will be flooding in for this by next year's Interbike show..

Thanks to Jenn, Matt and Kevin at WHEELTAGS.COM!

Randy And Trevor Called Out At SRC Awards!

Hey Captn, I got a cool e-mail from Robert Herber ( he runs the Vail lake races ) yesterday asking were I was on Sunday because he was at the SRC awards banquet and heard my name called so I went on there website to look at year end standings and found out that I ended up fourth overall in the XC sport 35 to 44 class and also ended up third in the sport super D. I also looked up Trevor's results and he ended up twelfth in the 18 to 25 sport class for downhill. well that's all just wanted to pass that along. Hope things are good and your staying warm. Have a good one man.

Randy

FUZZY's Birthday!

TODAY IS THE FUZZIEST's BIRTHDAY! Holla' at the Fuzz and buy him a beer tonight, and one more from me! Happy B-Day Fuzz...NOW GO SHAVE FOO'!

Wheeltags R&D Arrived!

The peeps at Wheeltags sent me their mock-up for a 26" mountain bike wheel yesterday! They have been working on the template since Interbike for me, because I would LOVE to do custom Wheeltags fo the team bikes! I will try the samples out on the Spinergy's and start working on the artwork. Thanks to Wheeltags for all the hard work and creating this special template JUST FOR THE BACKBONERS!

Water

You may not think you study flow dynamics, but you do. Those who have been riding mountain bikes since the days before front OR rear suspension (or even linear pull brakes, for that matter) learned to ride rocks, steeps and chutes with an amazing amount of fluidity. The first mountain bike ride I ever went on was a 25 mile out and back on San Juan Trail in the Ortega Mountains. It was then (and still is) one of the top ten trails in the country. Rough and rugged, skinny and fast, it has everything. It also has the ability to make you an expert rider in a single trip. Luckily I was with a member of the legendary Laguna RADS mountain bike club, and the guy taught me one thing that saved my life. " Be like water."




Water likes to follow the path of least resistance, and that he did. Riding a fully rigid (that was all there was back then) Fat Chance bike in a pair of flip-flops and a torn set of khaki pants, this guy was amazing to watch as he managed every single gigantic boulder pile and vomit-inducing switch-back with ease. Water. He was water on the bike. Since that day, I hear myself say "be like water" on every inch of trail, all the time. I don't wear i-pod ear buds because it will drown out that life-long mantra that has saved my bacon (mmm...BACON!) countless thousands of times.




When standing on the edge of that drop, or even tearing into that fully-pinned scree field descent at 60 miles an hour....just think about the line that water would take through the section. It's usually the one way out that won't take you'r wheel and make it look like a taco-salad shell, or have you lying on your back asking the dusty sunlight where your bike went....

Pro Tour Shuts Out Gravity Racers For '09

I know right? Who would ever want to do this? Oh yeah, just about everyone...

















Just about every company that makes a XC product also makes a gravity racing product. From Sunline's bars and stems (and their other full line of pads, jerseys, helmets, etc. from 661 and Royal), to ALL major bike manufacturers, drivetrain and wheel makers, suspension companies like Fox, Manitou and Marzocchi, and yes..even TIRE manufacturers (by the way, it is SUPPOSED to be the U.S. KUP Series..y'know, because of the "K" in Kenda...one of the title sponsors?). They all have a vested interested in 4X, Slalom, and DH. It is unfortunate that such a large and exciting segment of the mountain bike community has been left out, both as athletes and as potential industry sponsors who have been shut out from the latest fiery Phoenix of mountain bike racing. It's unfortunate, too, because a lot of teams here have amazing DH racers who would love to travel WITH THE REST OF THEIR TEAM to solid venues and compete side by side with the nation's best. It would also give their sponsors a chance to completely and fully represent their product lines at events that could be and should be high profile.

Sorry gravity guys, I guess you'll have to be happy with Diablo and Tahoe for the next two years...but be sure to pay those racing license's on time!

TOOKIE Coming To Sea Otter!

Jeff "Tookie" Williams has announced his schedule for 2009, and it includes SEA OTTEER! He can't wait to come and meet the rest of the team, and see how bad he can whup up on the XC field while in Monterey, California. I can't wait for you guys all to meet him, he's a funny sumbitch and you all will get along with him quite well. Tookie has been a great asset to the team over the past three years, and I am glad to have him around....





....he will be racing a TOMAC CARBIDE for 2009 as well, which is going to be a far depareture from his ten year old 29er hardtail...