Life on Two Wheels | Editor’s Blog 2

Photo by bikeparkphotos.com

Life on Two Wheels | Editor’s Blog 2

Two weeks ago, my schedule was jam-packed with motocross bike intros and multiple days at the track, but the past week took a pleasant 90-degree turn. I still spent the majority of the week on two wheels, only this time it was in the saddle of a mountain bike.

Mike Moso – one of the toughest mofos I know.

A little back story first. A couple of years ago, I got a horrible text from a good buddy of mine, Mike Moso. “Hey, you chop,” it said. “I’m not telling a lot of people this and I want to keep it quiet. I was diagnosed with Non Hodgkin Stage 4E cancer. I’m gonna fight it head-on though…”

Needless to say, I was in shock and pretty devastated. I met Moso many years earlier through the ProRide.com message board and he became a regular motocross riding buddy. Through the years, we’ve shared a lot of laughs, and he has always been a source of entertainment for me as he seems to constantly switch up his bike strategy. One year it was a 450, the next it was a 250 two-stroke, then back to 450. One year, I helped him build his KTM 250 SX into a 300, but after one test ride, he asked me to make it back into a 250 because it was too fast! 

Quietly, Moso underwent his cancer treatments and respecting his wishes, I only checked in once in a while to see how he was doing, and to tell him that I was still out there riding laps for him. Miraculously, Moso beat his cancer after around a year’s battle. We never discussed the struggles, but when he finally posted a photo of himself on Facebook, skinny, pale and bald, I sat at my laptop and cried. I didn’t physically see Moso until he had gained weight and grown a full head of hair back, but man it was good to see my buddy’s return to health.

Since being bitten by the mountain biking bug seven years ago, I’ve constantly tried to get Moso to buy a bike. He lives within riding distance of the Santiago Oaks riding area in Orange County, after all. “No way, mountain bikes are gay,” would be his answer, time and time again. It wasn’t until early last year that I was finally able to convince him that mountain biking would improve his motocross racing fitness. Within a couple of weeks, it seemed, Moso was completely hooked. Riding on the regular with his neighbor Matt Boyd, he quickly built up his fitness and enthusiasm for everything MTB.

I couldn’t believe it when Moso joined several more of our buddies on their annual summer pilgrimage to Whistler, Canada, to ride the bike park, after only a month and a half of pedaling. I went to Whistler with a group of journalists in ’16 when Leatt held a press launch at the park, and I’d always wanted to return. Though the guys had consistently invited me to join them each summer since then, I always found one reason or another to pass. Once Moso went, though, my envy reached an all-time high and I declared that no matter what, I was going this year.

Well, the group text message about this summer’s Whistler all-guys trip came out in early February, a week or so after American Media Incorporated purchased The Enthusiast Network and shut down TransWorld Motocross down because it had no interest in operating a motorsports title. “Sorry guys, but I have to bow out,” I replied. “I have no idea what my future holds in store for me right now. I might be homeless by July!” The guys were bummed, but they understood and were super supportive of my decision to try and turn Swapmoto Live into a new media entity.

As July drew nearer, they asked if I had changed my mind. Let’s not kid anyone here…Swapmoto Live has experienced more success at a quicker rate than I could have ever imagined in my wildest dreams, but the truth of the matter is that I have yet to even take a paycheck from the company. A few weeks ago, all of us went on a Saturday morning ride together and at breakfast afterward, the subject came up again. My answer was the same.

A few hours later, I was bombarded by a series of text messages from my buddies. Led by Moso, the group of them had decided that they wanted me to join them bad enough, that they banded together to cover my expenses; the airfare, shuttle, lodging, bike rental, and the gondola tickets. Needless to say, I was floored. Reluctantly, after checking with my wife, I agreed to join them after all, completely humbled and blessed. 

Saturday – Wednesday

To say that the Whistler resort is beautiful would be an understatement. From the Vancouver airport, the two-hour shuttle bus ride to the mountain flew by quickly and Steve Emter and I joined Moso and Boyd at the condo by Saturday night. Our friend Ryan Collins made the drive from Bend, Oregon, and arrived at a hotel with his family a bit later than us. Collins is a long-time Kawasaki employee and has been a factory team race mechanic for Tim Ferry, worked in the media relations department for several years helping the media with bike testing, and now maintains a sales district that stretches from Northern California all the way up into the Pacific Northwest. 

Shane Madden: H-Law fan.

The first order of the day was getting our lift tickets, followed by an exciting visit to the bike rental center to pick up our rides. Emter had rented me a Santa Cruz V10 29er, and I was really excited to try out a 29″ wheel DH bike. Just one week earlier, I had sold my personal Specialized Demo 8 downhill bike (heavily motivated by the hospital bill from my helmet-testing KO a couple of months ago…haha!), and I was curious how the larger wheels would compare. It seems like 90% of all the employees at the resort are from Australia or New Zealand, and the Aussie guys that helped me set up my bike were super cool. In casual conversation, my guy mentioned that he was headed to Washougal for the National this weekend and that he was excited to see his mate Hunter Lawrence race. I mentioned that I lived near Hunter in SoCal and have actually ridden MTBs with him a few times, but he seemed a little skeptical. 

Hunter “T-Bog” Lawrence, in action at Skyline.

I realized later that I was a total kook, dropping Hunter’s name and showing him a photo I shot of Hunter last winter. When I told Hunter later on that I had met a guy from his hometown of Yandina, he replied, “Bro! That’s like saying we live in Orange County! It’s over an hour away! Poser, mate!” Regardless, it was cool to meet a motocross fan while vacationing in Canada, and Shane took great care of me and my bike during my visit.

Lots of man-made fun in Whistler!

The first day of riding was a little nerve-wracking for me as I didn’t want to eat shit and get hurt on the first day, but all in all, we logged a ton of laps up and down the mountain and had a blast. We stopped to eyeball a few obstacles that we wanted to check off of our bucket lists. The big man-made drops scared me. As I’ve gotten older I tend to think about the worst-case scenarios too much. Come up short? Over the bars! Too long? Ghost ride into the trees! Haha! My only goal for the week was to find a section called Captain Safety…Dirt Bike’s Travis Fant, Michael Lindsay formerly of Vital MX, and I had ridden the section in ’16 and in my mind it was the most horrifying rock face, ever.

ReLive CBD, launched by Adam Jones and Kimberly Anne.

Including the lifts, we logged 32 miles on Sunday and I couldn’t believe how exhausted I was that night. A few weeks ago my buddy Adam Jones – yes the freestyle guy who landed a dream girl from the UK with Instagram DMs – launched a CBD company called ReLive, and I bought a few CBD Infused Relief Rubs. I slathered my knees and elbows with the stuff that night and I was pumped with the way my body felt when I woke up the next morning! Check out @relivecbd

Steve Emter, Mike Moso, Matt Boyd and I at the Top of the World. Thanks to the stranger and his thumb for shooting the pic!

On day two, we took the gondola to Top of the World and rode one of my favorite trails of the week back down into the normal park area. The riding was tight, steep, rocky and technical. So good! To my delight, we found Captain Safety later in the day and as I rode down it, it didn’t seem nearly as intimidating as it has a few years ago. I chuckled later that night when I realized that on Strava, I had beat my old time by 30 minutes. (Yeah, we sat there and stared at it for a long time in ’16…haha!)

Strange, but good!

On a trip to the market on my next-to-last night, I discovered Old Dutch potato chips in a particular flavor: ketchup! After trying them, I loaded up on the final night on several different flavors to take home to my family. The verdict? All Dress is best!

The final day of riding was a combination of riding cautiously to escape Canada unscathed and managing fatigue. Remarkably, we wrapped up the entire trip without a single crash among all of us. At customs, when the agent asked why I was in Canada and I replied a trip to Whistler, he looked me up and down and said, “You’re not banged up. You weren’t trying hard enough!”

Maybe, maybe not. Either way, it was a trip that I’ll remember forever and I have to thank my friends Mike, Matt, and Steve for a heck of a great time!

Jeff Emig’s 1997 Kawasaki KX250 race bike.

Thursday

On Thursday morning, I woke up early and headed to the Fox Racing HQ in Irvine, California, to meet with Global Category Director Mark Finley and take a first look at the MX20 line of apparel and protective gear from the brand. Mark’s knowledge of the product and ability to speak about it with authority while keeping it interesting is impressive…he just may be the best apparel brand guy there is when it comes to explaining stuff. We can’t show you the new gear until August 1, but if you watched either Millville or today’s Washougal race, you’ve already seen some of it in action on Adam Cianciarulo and Ken Roczen. 

While I was there, I took a close-up look at one of the coolest things you could ever find in any company lobby: Jeff Emig’s 1997 Kawasaki KX250 race bike. With the exception of the works Kayaba gas fork, the bike is completely intact, just as it was when Fro piloted it to the ’97 Supercross Championship. After shooting photos of the bike, I called Emig and his mechanic at the time, Jeremy Albrecht, to gather some info about the bike for yesterday’s Fox Racing Friday post. CLICK HERE to check it out!

Troy Lee and Block trails make the misery of climbing Skyline worthwhile. Hey, is that toilet paper?

SoCal is suffering through a summer heatwave at the moment, so I waited until later in the evening to jump on my MTB and hit my home trail. At the top of the hill, I thought about sending it and getting a new PR with my newfound Whistler skills, but I decided that it would be just like me to ride at the world’s raddest bike part for three days without falling, and then crash and get hurt the day I got home. Haha! Still, my familiar Specialized S-Works Stumpjumper felt like a comfortable shoe and I was glad to be back on my normal bike.

Me, Dommer and Scrub Daddy, who said I didn’t show him any love in last week’s blog.

Friday

Anxious to get on a dirt bike, I loaded up and headed to Milestone MX Park on Friday morning to spin some laps with Dommer, who sells ads for Swapmoto Live. When he does a good job I let him out of the office and let him come out to play. Haha! Milestone MX Park has been incredible lately, as the jumps on the main track have all been rebuilt and the dirt prep has been epic. I rode a long, fun moto with my friend Brian Smith AKA Scrub Daddy AKA Big Geezoid AKA Reverend Quinn. To be honest, I haven’t felt right since eating shit and getting KOd a couple months ago, but chasing him around was so fun that I kind of forgot about things and started to feel like my old self.

Ryan Federow: Surfercross Factory Rider.

One of the main reasons I went to the track on Friday was to meet my buddy Ryan Federow. Fed has trained many of our sport’s top racers like Wil Hahn (did I just write that?) and Justin Bogle, and he’s also a super-accomplished MTB racer with multiple National Championships to his credit. Fed has always been very encouraging a supportive of my pathetic MTB adventures, and he’s one of the coolest dudes I know. That said, I’ve helped him out for a few years now every time the annual Surfercross event rolls around. Ryan doesn’t ride regularly anymore, but he likes to dust off the cobwebs a few weeks before the race every year. He’s raced my Kawasaki KX450s for the past few years, but this year I convinced him to try the 2020 Husqvarna FC350 that I’m so pumped on. Fed was equally stoked, and I told him that it wasn’t nice to ride another guy’s bike faster than he can…

Ricky Brabec is an animal.

I must make mention of rally racer Ricky Brabec, who is a regular site at Milestone MX Park on weekdays…on his full-blown rally bike! Not only does he do all of the jumps; he freaking hauls ass, too! I got to chat with him a little bit and when I asked him how much the bike weighs, he thought about it and answered, “If the gas tanks were full, around 400 pounds.” FOUR HUNDRED POUNDS? Holy moly…he is a bad dude.

Yeah. we’re dumb, and ARay is the clown prince of forgetfulness.

HEP Suzuki’s Alex Ray was also at the track riding, and after me made me film some Instagram BANGERS for him with his phone, we loaded up and headed to Roy’s Cyclery in Upland to harass our buddy Mike Nittel, who owns the shop. Mike wasn’t in, so we stopped by Cafe Allegro for a quick lunch, and then headed to Marshall Canyon for an MTB ride. The popular parking area when riding Marshall Canyon is the parking lot of a middle school. It’s pretty obvious that they are mountain-bike friendly, as there is a permanently mounted floor pump and some tools stationed in the corner of the parking lot. How cool is that? With dirt bikes in our trucks, ARay and I backed our trucks against each others. They were both locked up in the beds, but with his tendency to be victimized by thieves, I was a little uneasy.

Marshall Canyon is mostly covered by trees and has several water crossings, so I figured that it would be the least miserable in the 100-degree heat. While this did ring true in the shaded areas, the last mile or so to the top is a steep fireroad climb in the direct sunlight. Truth be told, I tapped out as soon as we hit the exposed area of the trail, but I did make it further than my buddy Jason Hapa McCune, who bitched out much earlier when we rode there a couple of weeks prior. Haha!

Too hot for this shit!

Ripping back down the canyon proved to be a lot more fun than climbing up, and though we knew Mike at Roy’s would not approve, we splashed through the streams in order to cool down. Strange…my bike has an odd squeaking now. Guess I’ll take it in for a tune up!

Sorry, Mike.

After the ride, as we got back to the trucks (with dirt bikes still there!), Alex looked a little panicked for a second as he couldn’t find his truck keys. Had they fallen out on the trail? Riding back to look for a set of keys on the trail, in the grass or in the water, would have been a nightmare. Thankfully, they were safe and sound, still in the ignition of his Tundra! I’m starting to wonder if ARay’s bad luck is just by chance?

Saturday

Since Anton and Chase were working Washougal, I was assigned to sit at home during the afternoon to help with the race report. Knowing that my Saturday afternoon would be spent at a desk, I got up early and drove to Santiago Oaks to ride with Matt Boyd, one of the buddies I went to Whistler with. Even at 8:00 a.m. it was already brutally hot, and I felt like an over-cooked meatball as I climbed to the top of the park. Coming back down was fun, but certainly not as fun as it was bombing down Whistler Mountain only days earlier…

We’re not in Whistler anymore, Toto.

That’s it for this week’s blog entry. I got a couple DMs about the first and it seems like a few people are interested in what goes on behind the scenes, at least. Maybe I’ll keep them going.

Next week, I’m headed to Grey’s Harbor ORV to race my first WORCS event aboard a fuel-injected KTM 250 two-stroke. I’m not really sure what to expect and I’m not even sure it’s a good idea, but that’s how KTM wanted to let the media test the exciting off-road machines: in race conditions. I’ve got a new set of Moose Racing gear already packed…wish me luck!

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