On Satuday there was a contest at the Cow Palace in San Francisco called AT's Showdown. It was a head to head format with an hour qualifying jam beforehand to determine seeding for the finals. There were about 25 or so riders and that got whittled down to 16 riders. From there it was like dual slalom where the 1st place qualifier does one run against the 16th place qualifier and so on til it's down to 2. There were 4 judges that determined who would advance and who would be sitting on the sidelines. The course was biggg and definitely suited my style. I felt real good during the qualifying jam and when the results came up, I was in 1st!! I was feeling pretty confident and made it to the round of 8 easily. Then I was matched up with Jamie Goldman who was the 8th place qualifier. He threw down one of the best runs of the day and ended up knockin me out of the game. I was pretty bummed and wished that I had strategized my run a little better to beat his but it was all good, he deserved it and later went on to get 2nd place. My brother Cam won and I was super pumped for him. I ended up in 5th and was happy with that, but have higher hopes for the next contest I do. Check out some pics that I attached from the contest...the jumps were huge!
In other news, I recently signed with X Fusion and there was a press release that came out about it the other day. I shot with local photographer Justin Brantley and we worked hard for two long days of shooting to get the shots. I'm super happy with how it turned out and I'm also very happy to be working with X Fusion for 2010! Here's a link to the press release:
http://www.pinkbike.com/news/tyler-mccaul-x-fusion-2009.html
-Tyler
X-Fusion is proud to announce the signing of Tyler McCaul to our 2010 roster. Tyler continues to build his name in mountain biking excelling in Slopestyle and DJ contests, but still has the ability to race gravity events at the elite level. We at X-Fusion feel that he is a great ambassador for our brand and will be of value helping with R&D and product development.
Tyler is located very close to our US headquarters, which will allow Tyler and our engineers to work very closely and efficiently. When we first looked at bringing Tyler aboard it was a no brainer for us and we are very happy that everything came together so perfectly.
Tyler adds, "I’m super pumped to be working with X Fusion for 2010. They've got a great group of riders already and I'm honored to be in the mix with them. I'm really happy with the product so far and the fact that they are a local company (only about 25 minutes away from where I live) is definitely an added bonus. I think we'll be able to work well together to benefit both of our endeavors for 2010!"
Tyler will be seen all over the world in 2010 riding our latest products such as The Vengeance, Velvet and Velour forks matched with our O2 and Vector series rear shocks.
Welcome to the team Tyler!
http://www.x-fusion-shox.com/team/Athletes/mid/24
-John Hauer
US Marketing
X-Fusion Shox