Chatel Mountain Style was last weekend and it was a pretty unique contest.   The course was big, steep, rocky, and muddy. Going into the finals I was in 10th place from the qualies.  It rained a lot overnight and the course was slipperyyyyy! We waited for it to dry out a bit, but couldn’t wait too long because the forecast showed loads of rain headed our way.  It was a two run, best-run counts format.  The judges told us that they would mostly be judging on speed and flow as it was more of a big mountain style contest and tricks didn’t matter as much as they would in a normal contest.  


My first run went good and I just tried to ride the course as fast and flowy as possible without making any mistakes.   I had a lot more planned for my second run, including going off of the big 35ft + drop at the start.  Right when we were about to get on the lift to head up it started dumping rain and the event organizers called the event off.  I ended up 8th after the first run though.  It turned out that the judges seemed to judge more off of tricks afterall, rather than speed and line choice like they had said before.  I wish I had known this before, but either way a top 10 is always a solid result.  


This event marked the halfway point in the FMB World Tour and my 8th place bumped me into 6th in the overall rankings!  Super stoked to be a contender in the overall tour and I’m looking forward to keeping my points up there throughout the season.


Now I am back home taking some time off after a long but successful trip in Europe.  My 21st birthday is on Saturday and I’m lucky to be able to celebrate it with close friends and family in my hometown. I head out again on Tuesday and I have a heavy schedule ahead.  I first fly to Highland Mountain Bike Park in New Hampshire for the Claymore Challenge.  That’s one of my favorite courses so I hope to get a good result there.  Finals are on Saturday the 17th and then I stick around for a few days to ride and train at the facilites they have there before flying to Munich, Germany for the Big in Bavaria dirt jump contest. From there I fly home for a day, to leave for Crankworx Colorado where I’ll be competing in Slopestyle, Best Trick, and Dual Slalom.  All of those events that are back to back throughout three weeks are all Gold events in the tour so they are pretty important in determining where I end up in the final standings.   


Looking forward to a fun and eventful next few weeks and as always I’ll try to send out updates as soon and often as I can.  Thanks for all the continued support and I’ll be in touch soon!


-Tyler

GEORGE RYAN'S JUNE UPDATE

The week after the US Open I was doing some downhill runs at Diablo and ran into some bad luck. During what turned out to be my last run of the day I veered off line a bit and smashed my foot into a boulder that I did not see. After an unnecessarily long time at the hospital for some X-Rays, I found out I had two broken toes. Bummer! Especially since I was supposed to head to Vermont two days later for Aaron Chase's "Hold On Loosely" tour.


Despite the broken toes I decided to go on the roadtrip. For the first few days of the trip, all I could do was sit around and watch the riding and antics go down. I witnessed some crazy motorcycle stunts including Clint McMahon(X-Fusion Athlete) jumping his sport bike over a 25 foot dirt table in the rain (with road tires). I also got to see some great riding all trip long. I did manage to squeeze in some downhill runs at Highland so keep an eye out for the video of the trip to drop on Vital MTB some time this summer.

This past weekend was the 2nd round of the Diablo Gravity Series in New Jersey. It was a very hot and humid summer weekend in Jersey. Conditions on both tracks were dry, dusty, and fast. My toes were feeling pretty good so I was ready to rip. In the best of 2 run format for Giant Slalom, my runs were the 2 fastest of the day, securing my spot in 1st place for the day. The next day was the downhill race and the track was extremely rough and rocky. I chose to run some bigger Maxxis tires so I could smash through the rocks with ease. My decision paid off, and I finished the race with another 1st place for the weekend. So after doubling up for the weekend, I am now in the overall points lead for the series.

So coming up next I will be shooting some video this weekend and then heading up to Highland for a week for a downhill race and the Claymore Challenge slopestyle comp. Thanks to everyone making my season a success so far!

Check out some photos from the race.

-GR

Check out one Athlete we sponsor outside the bike industry. He is truly an inspiration and talented individual. X-Fusion supports Aaron Fotheringham "Wheelz" with suspension for his custom wheel chairs. Aaron is a member of the Nitro Circus crew. Check out his latest video and you will see why!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr_Fxr6gw3w

After the demo in Les Deux Alpes the other weekend I went to Lyon, France for the week.  I stayed at a friends house and we rode lots of downhill and I got to see the city which was pretty darn cool. Thursday morning we woke up early to start the long drive to Leogang, Austria for 26Trix.  When we got there I checked out the course and saw that it was full of big jumps that were made out of concrete.  Kind of intimidating to say the least.  I was stoked to finally get to do a contest on big jumps as most of the contests I’ve been doing lately have had pretty small features.  Qualies were on Friday and those didn’t go as well as I had planned, but I made it into the finals and that was all that mattered.  I felt like I was riding really good on Saturday and I was stoked for the contest to start.  It was a two run format, best run counts.  My first run was a safety run just to make sure that I had a solid run in the bag.  I had a lot planned for my second run and was pretty nervous to start. The first jump was a big step up, about 25 feet out and 5 o 6 up!  I tailwhipped it in my first run and decided that I was gonna try to double tailwhip it for my second and final run.  I got it all the way around and put my feet on perfect but it was a such a harsh and flat landing that as soon as my wheels hit the ground my feet blew back off.  It was pretty technical after the first jump because it went straight into the second jump with not much time to recover.  I made it over the second jump but wasn’t able to do my tricks on it or the jump after it.  The rest of my run was solid.  I continued with a tuck no hander on the big jump and a backflip table top on the second big jump.  I was nervous going into the last jump because I had something planned that I had never tried on dirt before.   The fact that the landing was made of concrete didn’t help either! I went for a 360 downside tailwhip and landed it perfect.  My score ended up putting me into 10th place and I was pretty satisfied! I know that if I stuck my whole run I would’ve been a lot better off, but I was still happy.   My downside 3-whip ended up winning me best trick as well so that was a great way to end the weekend.
  
 
Now I am in Chatel, France for the Chatel Mountain Style contest.  It’s a pretty unique contest and I’m not too sure what to expect.  I saw the course yesterday and it looks pretty insane!  It starts out with a few options but the biggest thing is a drop off a ladder bridge that’s about 30 feet straight down.  Looks pretty crazy but I know that it will get scored the highest out of all of the lines so I feel like I will end up hitting it.  The rest of the course has a few jumps but it’s kind of just a free for all.  Lot’s of rock sections and drops and you’re supposed to just pick your own line through it.  I brought my GT Ruckus 7 and I think it will be perfect for the course.  It’s a 7” freeride bike and by the looks of the course, I wouldn’t want any less travel than that.  This contest is another gold event in the FMB World Tour so I hope to do good in it to get myself some more points.  I’m currently sitting in 16th in the overall right now so I’m getting close to my goal of staying in that top ten range.  Looking forward to the start of this weekend and I’ll try to keep everyone posted on how it all shakes down!