Guadalajara
Apr 18th, 2008I have been pretty slow lately, so I apologize on posting about an that happened event over a month ago. Dustin Nowak, aka Wacker, Paul Smith, Juliann Dussea, Benoit Milot and I joined a few Mexican riders at an event in Guadalajara, Mexico. We got there a couple days early for press, but we mostly just sat around for a couple days with about an hour of press mixed in. Wacker and I had some troubles with our bikes and didn't practice the day before like the other guys. When we got our bikes ready we had practice a couple hours before the event. We then got to find out how horrible the ramp was. The ramp had a horrible kick at the top that would throw you really nose down. No one wanted to flip it because it threw you the opposite way you wanted the bike to rotate. After jumping it straight for longer than I ever have, I decided I would give it a try. I thought that if I pulled my hardest that the rotation would be slow, but that it would come around. I pulled my hardest and the bike went nowhere. I then panic revved it as hard as could and kept yanking hoping for the best. When I spotted the landing I was still pretty far nose down and it looked like I was going to clip the top deck which would have sent me to my face. The next thing I knew I was riding it out because I just barely made it to the downside and my awesome EBR suspension absorbed the impact and put me on two wheels safely. There was no way I was trying that again and no one else was either. The promoter missed the incidence, but when I found him about an hour before the show started, I told him that no one was going to flip that night unless the ramp was fixed. Well Nicolas had someone there in about 45 minutes with a saw and a welder. We all did the first part of the show without any flips. Next up was a band that played for about 20 minutes while the welders went to work. They did what we asked and the ramp was looking good. My next time out, I was pumped after feeling how much better the ramp was on my first hit. I then went into a few standard tricks and nailed my flip. The crowd was pumped. Wacker was next out and threw in some flips as well making the fans and the promoter very happy. I am doing another show for this promoter on May 3 in Mazatlan, and now that I know there will be a good ramp their, I am looking forward to it.
