Blue Mountain, Ontario WC

It was a short trip to Canada this time and we arrived to find a course that a lot of people felt was less that satisfactory. A lot of small jumps for the speed we were carrying and a lot of narrow places that would allow multiple riders to make it through at once. This had its obvious effects come race day, with crashes in nearly every men's heat. Qualifying day was another stressful one as I had some trouble in my first run and had to rely entirely on my second. I played it a little on the conservative side and crossed the line with a time of 68.72, finishing in 18th place. I knew after running practice with a few of the other guys that things were certainly going to get dicey in all areas of the course. In my heat I had a good start and came through the first turn battling for second place, I wasn't able to take the line that I wanted through the turn and I lost some ground. The same rider collided with me going off of the double in the second turn and I was able to power through the next roller section and pass back into third place. A few turns later the same rider collided with me again on the take-offs of one of the jumps. I was down and out of the race, another unlucky turn of events. Thanks for reading.

X Games

After a lot of flying we arrived to Aspen at what would be our house for the week. It certainly felt good to be back in the States but my body didn't seem to care that there had been a significant time change from Europe. It was safe to say that I would never be late to our 9am practice sessions because at that point I had already been awake for 6 hours. The practice sessions were going well and the course was very mellow in comparison to past X Games venues. But it was plenty of fun still. The qualifying day came around on Friday and I was feeling good. The format had changed so all of the riders only got one time trial run, so it was all or nothing. Snow had fallen the night before and the speeds down the course slowed to a crawl. I had a great run going but I didn't feel that I was carrying enough speed in the last jump, which was imperative to clear, so I popped as hard as I could off of the lip but this placed me in the back seat. So I landed on my butt and struggled across the finish line, crossing in 18th place. It wasn't the best finish but I made it into the heats. I had a tough draw for first heats the following day, couple that with a less than desirable lane choice and some mistakes on my part led me to not advance out of the first round. Definitely a bummer but there will be more races and that's how things go sometimes. Thanks for reading!

Swiss Recap

In the first of two races over there I took a spill during my first run of time trials and couldn't get it together for my second run. It was completely a mental block and I learned a lot from the experience. So for the first set of heat races I was a spectator, which did allow me to get a great perspective to help me out with the next race and let my lingering aches and pains heal up a little bit.

The second day of qualifying came a few days later and after a couple of training runs my riding had come back to where it was and I finished the day qualifying in the 14th position. This is a great considering the big cross wind that was sporadically blowing along the length of the track. The heat racing was a great battle as is always the case as World Cups. In the first round I had a top to bottom battle with Paulo De Le Rue, an olympic medalist from France. We had a photo finish for first place crossing the line, even though the top 3 were advancing from each heat it was better not to take any chances. Quaterfinals came and I was lined up in the gate next to fellow American, Nate Holland. Nate had finished 2nd in the first race and so he had been riding the course very fast. We both had great starts and dominated most of the top section together, until a German rider, Konsti Schad, snuck in front Nate. Konsti and I were back to back battling going over a hip in the top section and when we landed we locked edges and I caught the raw end of that deal. I went down and watched everyone buzz  by. So in a few seconds I went from first to sixth and ran out of real estate before I could make up the distance. My riding has been great thus far in the season and I'm looking forward to X Games at the end of this week. Thanks all.

Veysonnaz, Switzerland WC # 2 and 3

Greetings!
So I found out that the language automatically changes on here depending on where I am. So I'm trying to navigate the sight in German so bear with me. I've been in Veysonnaz freeriding for a few days and we are finally getting down to business. Training day tomorrow and the first qualification day will be the day following that. We will be running two races over here to make up for the cancellation in Austria. I'll check back in soon.