Flat out all over the place

Sorry peeps, I got a little off of my game the past couple of weeks.  Since I last wrote, I decided to do exactly the same trip the following week with my International crew of buddies as I did in my last post.  It was tough, but I dug deep to find a couple of days to take some really talented international FMX friends out to Beaumont and Ocotillo Wells for some real American Freeriding.  I figure it is great training for my Freeride Tours that I am planning to start booking up this Spring.  Eigo Sato of Japan was the trooper of the fielfd that also consisted of Frances' Thomas Paget and Jeremy Renuat, as well as Italion Stallion Massimo Biancanchini..... And Crew of course.  Eigo went wild out in the hills and charged everything without hesitation.

I would have loved to stick around for their final few days, but I had to head out to the Indianapolis Motorcycle Dealers  Trade Show.  When I say "had to", don't go thinking it was too raw of a deal.  Ogio basically flew me out to start a band, name it 'Cheap Date' and rock the house! (in a nutshell).  HaHaHa, ok, they brought me out to be a dork and play Rock band with my little buddies Cam McQueen, Jeff Williams and Andy Bell.  Yeah we rocked.  I also found a bit of time to goof off with the folks from Racer x. Check it.

  http://www.racerxfilms.com/20080220_Mon-Tradeshow/20080220_Mon-Tradeshow.html

After all of the rocking out and mega rock star parties, I made it back to BroCal in 1 piece and exited to get a few days of riding in before heading to Vienna Austria, but of course, it rained me out.  So I hopped on a plane to Austria with zero ramp practice in nearly a month.  I'm not sure if its the old age or what, but man it gets harder and harder to sleep on planes.  Its like they made my chair with mahogany and was planning to fit  Gary Coleman in that musty, Euro Armpit smelling corner that they called Seat 23a.  Anyhow, made it to the show a bit jet lagged and lazied around the first day and won the Whip comp, Step-Up comp and got 6th in the FMX final.  Sunday I won the Whip and Step up again and actually rode with both eyes open and got 3rd.  The Masters of Dirt Show was really cool and had a bunch of highlights.  I could go on and on, but I gotta send love to my Nitro Circus Sister (and 1onWon Team Rider) Jolene Van Vugt for performing in her first ever FMX show.  After only practicing FMX for 3 weeks, she opened both shows with a 1 woman demo that was rewarded  with Standing ovations both days.  Looks like someone has some potential to go with all that craziness!

Directly after the Sunday show, I hit the Road with my Belgian Buddies Peter and Stoica, headed for the West Austrian Alps, aka, Ze Halps!  Before I knew it I was carving corners in T-Shirt weather (Al Gore is pissed) and tumbling through the many of the "Montafon" area's terrain parks.  With that said, I'll move right along to tuesday and sum that day up with the phrase "Bed Ridden"!  Now I'm in Belgium, prepping up for a show in Rotterdam that I really have no Idea what it is about.  So now u know, and knowing is half the battle.

Awesome week of Freeriding!

Awe man, I have lived in SoCal for 8 years now and have never seen the dirt as good as good as it was this week.  From my track to Beaumont, to the abandoned wastelands of Ocotillo Wells, I will be forever spoiled.  Saturday we had a little ride day @ the Ranch and were stoked out by mama nature with a little rain in the a.m., making the track "tits".  It was so god in fact , that my dawg Hot Carl and I were grinding gears in our BobCats for 5 hours tuning up the track and making a couple of new sections.  Everyone was really pumped with it, including myself.

Tuesday was unreal as well, as I helped organize a bunch of guy's out to Beaumont and session the "chocolate cake" covered hills.  you can check out the footage Simon Cudby threw together at www.racerxfilms.com .  I'll let the vid from Cudby and the Pics from Carl Stone do the talking, as I got to ride with David Pingree, Eric Sorby, Myles Richmond and Steven Haugelstein.  We didn't find many huge hits, but some fun little hippers and a wicked natural moto track that Pingree made up.  

Speaking of Carl Stone, I was lucky enough to connect with him while he is on the West Coast shooting Supercross for Racer X.  He rolled out with myself and renowned cinematographer Taylor Congdon to snag some shots.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkKzkPoBtIU . I tried my hardest to wear them out by riding from sun up to sun down, but due to there addiction to my single cup coffee maker, I was no match for them! .. We crushed it, to say the least!

Since I was lucky enough to round them both up, I decided to rally out to Ocotillo and meet Tommy Clowers and take advantage of a perfect scenario.  Imagine, 2 riders, a filmer, a photographer and a million acres of virtual wasteland that was freshly saturated with the perfect amount of water just a few days before (definitely not a wasteland to us).

I think you got the point.  I'll quit bragging for now!

Dang I love my job!

RR

Loma Linda Childrens Hospital Benifit

It was that time of the year again.  I believe it was the 7th time that MX riders had the opportunity to come and cheer up the kids at the acclaimed Loma Linda Children's Hospital near San Bernardino, CA.   It was the 4th year that Jeff Tilton and Tommy Clowers' Red Bull TnT show came to rock the  house.  I have ridden the 3 previous years, but had to pull out of the demo this year due to some soreness from my foam pit session the day before.  Being  a parent of two crazy little dudes may help intensify the situation, but even though it's sad tpo see some down and out groms, the smiles than we muster up out of these kids is priceless and will keep me coming back for years to come!  Big props to all of the sponsors and especially all of the riders and moto celebs that were a part. Steve Bauer, Jeff Tilton, Tommy Clowers, Erin Bates, Myles Richmond, Zach Osborne, the folks at Smooth Industries, FMF, Troy Lee Designs, Pro-Circuit, Transworld MX,  MXGirls.com, and a lot more including myself were all very fortunate, grateful and blessed to be a part of such a cool deal.  Big props to Steve Bauer for making this happen! Also, all of the parents being supportive and tough during hard times, much respect!

Enjoy the photos courtesy of  http://www.racetime.com/index.php/LIFESTYLE-PHOTOS/Loma-Linda-Big-Air-Kid-s-Fair.html

Also give a looksy to http://www.mxgirls.com/LLCH_KidFair/ . as they have some cool pics of the event too.

RR Ranch in full swing

Thursday I had a bunch of riding buds over to the ole Ranch to do some riding.  It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but I think I may have over done it a bit, because I woke up Friday morning with one heck of a tight body.  i think the years of crashing things is finally catching up with me.  Hopefully it just had something to do with the lack of riding the past couple of weeks though.  Orrrrrrr, it could have something to do with me doing an impression of an ostrich jamming my head into the foam pit while trying front flips on the 110.  Who knows!  Anyhow, I'll let the photos do the talking.  These super crisp shots are courtesy of Racer X Canadas own James Lissimore. Check out is other works @ www.lissimorephoto.com  . Thanks Dude!

Riders: Tommy Clowers, Jeff Tilton, Myles Richmond, Benoit Milot, Mat Rebeaud and Muah.

Rain Rain Go Away!

It seems that the ole saying, "when it rains it pours" is not just an analogy.  My compound is under water right now and of course I finally have gotten past my holiday slump.  I am sooo ready to ride right now.  Due to some prior obligations though, I can't just pack up the Rage'n and head out to the hills, but I can still reminisce!

Check put these Rich Van Every pics that he took while we were filming the Ocotilllo Wells segment of "the Great ride open" on Fuel T.V. And the Dune pic is another RVE classic from Red Bull Ride to the Hills 06' @ Glamis.

ok, I'm keeping this one short and utilizing my time to catch up on my house stuff!

RR

So far so good in 2008

i'll be pretty brief in this one, but thats not a bad thing. i am too darn busy having a good time!

We started new years out in the desert at Ocotillo Wells doing some riding and Ranger rallying (or as the socal locals call it "mobbing" the hills). Nate had his 8th birthday on Dec 29th and got a new KTM 50sx. He got the hang of the bigger bike really fast and decided that he is going to be a Freerider like Dad when he gets bigger. His main goal of the weekend was to get some big air and he got it! It was so fun to ride through Ocotillos' majestic hills with my little man in tow. It was awesome stopping and watching him find his little "kickers". Josh on the other hand rode for a total of about 4.5 minutes. He says he don't want to crash. Ironically, he must have bumped his head a million times playing and just being a kid during the week.

Being that the first few rounds of Supercross are held on the West coast, January is always a blast because some of my buddies come into town to play a couple of days before hand. Now that I have the "Renner Ranch", we have had a couple of good ride days. A couple members of the the Nitro crew even stopped by and put it on there blog as well, check it, http://nitrocircusblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/renners-ranch.html . Andy Bell, Tenacious J and myself headed up to do battle at the annual Racer X Industry party @ Pole Position Raceway in Corona (in which I dominated). It was a riot getting to battle with guys like Windham, Reed and the MX industry big timers. Best part of the night was when Pole Position Founder, Ken Faught let me take my boys on the track after hours! They loved it! I think Nate may have some potential in finally putting his middle name (Racer) to use! Either that, or I have to change it to "Freerider".

Another big shout out to Live Nation and especially Nicole Mancuso for setting up some tickets to the Monster Jam at Angels Stadium.  I was their scouting the Monster Jam scene hoping to see that their is room for a "Who's Your Daddy" truck!  It was a great show, but I will admit that it sucked watching the FMX show and letting 4 other riders get the spotlight in front of a sold out stadium.  Also, I'm not sure if it was gravedigger, or someone in my group, but some one was running some "Bad Gas" in Anaheim!

Until next time. RR out.

2007 Year in Reveiw!

Happy New year everyone.! I know, I know, it’s hard to believe that 2008 is already here. I can’t believe it, I’ll tell you that. It seems like 07’ was a flash until I really start looking back at my year and think about all of my amazing travels of the year. I’ll point out my highlights of each month of 07’.

I’ll jump right into January: it was the last day of the month where I broke the world record for step-up at 35’ 6” or for my Euro fans, that’s 10.75 meters. I did it within the specifications for X-Games competition, so I was hoping that would get me into Step up at Summer X in August.

February was a great month as well. I did a lot of cool stuff, but my highlight was definetly getting the chance to ride my friend Robbie Maddison’s now annual Red Bull X-Ray freeride event in Pikton, Australia. It has one of the coolest freeride lines ever put together and the crew from On the Pipe 4 was there to document it. So you gotta check that out.

One of my checkmarks on my todo list was fulfilled in March, as my bud Jeff Tilton and Rd Bull put together the opportunity t do FMX demo’s at Supercross. Tilton, Tommy Clowers, Jake Windham and myself were given the chance to ride 6 of the Supercross rounds on the TnT Setup an hour before the races got underway. It was a big hit and hopefully I get that chance again.

April was hands down my favorite month, due to one event. Hopefully most of you have seen it on Fuel TV by no,. it was called The Great Ride Open; a 14 day road trip that Included a cast of ix top FMX riders and and some of the best terrain that the Southwest U.S. has to offer. Another Jeff Tilton inspired project that I am greatful to have been a part of. Seriously though, the trip changed me as a person as well as my attitude as to why I ride my bike. Good news too, we start filming this spring for the second season!

May was the month of the Quarterpipe for me. First off, it was the second annual Doug Parsons Quarterpipe challenge. This year it was dubbed an actual contest and had the riders going bigger than ever to try and bring in some extra coin. I’m happy to say that I won the event and was rewarded with some cool media exposure and some newfound knowledge of a new, super technical aspect for FMX. I brought it with me to the second stop of the Red Bull X-Fighters tour and went really big on the Quarterpipe that they built there (unfortunately I choked on my tricks and finished poorly).

I have to say that June is a hard month to pick a favorite. I was flat out busy all month. I guess not too busy to celebrate my 30th birthday though. We ended up having a pretty big get together don at my ranch. Nothing out of the norm; just a bunch of family, friends and a good ole fashioned day of riding to keep everyone happy. Cool presents included a blown up pic that was framed of my whip over the infamous Louisville step-down, a custon skinned Gutar hero Guitar courtesy of Ogio and a Cowboy hat to remind me that yes, I am a redneck at heart!


July was a busy one as well. But to break the monotony of the American lifestyle, I headed to Europe for 2 weeks and did some events fro Red Bull in Poland. It was really colol do do dems with my good friend Jimbo Verburgh and crew at some really unique locations on the seaside of Poland. I met some really cool people and had and amazing time.

Ok, I’ll have to go on a rant for August. I had an amazing month. It started with winning the Gold at the Summer X-Games in Step up (highlight of my career so far, I still cant believe it). I really didn’t have a day to spare all month, but still headed south of the border to Baja Mexico to film for the Transworld Movie called “Why”. It was unreal, as Todd Potter and I got to ravage virgin landscape nearly a hundred miles from civilization. We rode trails, hit tons of new jumps and I even got to surf a perfect point break without another person to either side of me for literally miles! Check out the movie to see how it went down.

September was pretty mellow. You know standard…… haha, yeah right. My big adrenaline rush of the month came at the Miller Motorsports park in Salt lake City as I was involved in a 4 way duel at the celebrity car race during the Nascar West series. I had driven my car to the limit trying to keep the pace with Pastrana and I unfortunetly drove too squirrelly and roasted my tires and brakes. On the last lap, 3 corners from the checkered, I tried to outbreak Chad Reed and Andy bell while not having any brakes. I know, you may say that does not make since, but after hitting the wall at 90mph, you may start talking silly as well. Sliding into a wall at 90 is so far the biggest adrenaline rush I have ever had. Even if it cost $18,000.00 dollars, it was awesome!

I decided to spend 2 weeks in Florida during October. My son Josh wanted to go there to celebrate his 5th Birthday, so I decided to do my now semi-annual show at my old home/local track Dade City Raceway on Halloween weekend. And since I was going to already have a big in town, the Dew Tour was coming to Orlando just 1 week before, so I was given a wildcard to ride there. I could go on and on, but there is something about returning home that really makes me want to stay. I don’t know if it’s the Family, Friends or just the good ole humidity, but I love stepping off of the plane in the good old F.L..

November started awesome as Red Bull and Travis Pastrana collaborated to have the movie premier of Thrillbillies (aka, Nitro Circus 5) at the ultimate SoCal fall/winter weekend destination, “Glamis”. It was a production like no other of its kind, I really can’t even describe it. Its another one that could make a story in itself, but to keep it short, I’ll just say that it was rad to ride the dunes on my 450 for 3 days and hit jumps flat out as fast as my bike would go only to come back to camp with a bunch of friends and expensive dune toys to tear up the night with. I have to add that later in the moth I did the A Day in the Dirt race with my little Brother Ricky and had a blast. Lil bro made me proud as he took my KTM to the front of all of the Pro races, beating some big name s and talents. In a nutshell it was top 5 weekends in a long time.

December was one of my busiest, but I’ll have to share my obvious favorite. Even if its not as big time as X-Games Los Angeles, X-Games Dubai was special to me because I brought home a Gold Medal for the first X-Games whip contest ever. My buddy “Huck-a-Chuck” Caruthers gave me a run for the money but unfortunately hit the dirt hard and got knocked out. This trip was amazing to say the least. Besides the Gold Medal, I had a killer time.

So there ya go…. Wow, that really turned into a mission.. Well, if you made it this far, thanks for reading. Stay tuned, hopefully 2008 is even more eventful!

RR