7/28/2019 Fontucky Report

1/4

The Fontucky Expedition

Training season has been going hard for a few months now and with the first of MadHaderer Racings new bikes arriving this past week, it was time to put that training to thetest and head south to race the Fontana ProGRT race with Matt Condrashoff and Steve.

We loaded up theSprinter after agrueling 18hour workday at nearly 4am onWednesday morningand set out on theinfamous I-5 Southwith a meeting in LongBeach scheduled for12 noon. After a little

power nap in the backand a quick wheelbuilding session at75mph we arrived intime to grab lunch withthe guy at MarzocchiUSA and pick up some fresh new goodies to bolt on the new Zerode G-2. The meetingwent really well and hopefully lead to some great new opportunities but that is anotherstory.

Next it was off to Shimano to visit Joe and pick up some more fresh ZEE components tohang on the rig. After a quick stop overat Shimano it was time for us to catchthe traditional Wednesday Night Ridewith the Laguna Rads. These guys arenuts! We started the ride with about 45guys and 2 minutes in we were hike-a-biking up 1200 vertical feet of a pirateDH track. I ended up getting a flathalfway through the ride and Matt andI ended up getting lost for anotherhour and a half trying to find our wayout but what an awesome group ofguys and rad trails. Definitely gonnahave to come back (and parksomeplace different, Blick) and try tohang for the whole ride.

7/28/2019 Fontucky Report

2/4

Thursday ended up turning into a beach andbuild day and special thanks goes out to Joe atThe Bike Company, for the help with tuning andsetting up the new suspension on the DH rig.We also went out on the town in Newport with

out old friend Casey and Matt ended up playingbouncer at a bar while cutting a rug out on thedance floor. Kind of a strange night really.

Woke up bright and early to start making ourway off the beach and out to the desert to visitthe boys over at HT and Novatec. After a quickmeeting with they guys we were able to work outa great deal and get a whole mess of awesome wheels for all the bikes. Super stoked

on the products and the guys are topnotch. We finished up the day with a quick

drive up to the Fontana City NationalTrack and after a long wait in registrationand a long wait in the shuttle line we wereable to head up for a few quick runs and acourse walk right before sunset. Steveeven showed me some sneaky lines.

Saturday morning it was bright and early practicefor Pro/Experts and it took me no time at all to getused to the new rig. It was actually uncanny howat home I felt even on the first practice run. Matt

and I smashed out about 4 runs andhad a quick bite to eat before thewaiting game of downtime betweenpractice and seeding. After puttingin a solid top section with only a fewhard pedal strokes I was happy with

7/28/2019 Fontucky Report

3/4

my run and came down with asolid 15th place on the DH bikewith uncut DH tires. With onlyneeding to take out a fewseconds from my run to make it

into the top 5 I knew I was onpace for a good result and thatmy training was going in the rightdirection. We decided to rewardourselves with a good BBQdinner with the Furbee brothersand camped out on the track tobe ready for another 8ampractice session on Sunday.

Race Day rolled up on us very quickly andafter a long bit of thinking I decided I wantedto try a few runs out on my 650b Trail bike.With the track only have one really steep andtechnical section I figure that I could make upa few extra seconds on the infamous FontanaWall with the lighter and bigger wheels. Myfirst run of the day went pretty well and I feltlike it was time to make a push and ride mylast practice run, one at race pace. That iswere things ended up going wrong. I came

into the long steep section with just a bit toomuch speed and with the shorter travel bike it

just was too much speed to scrub off andwhen I the turn in the bottom of the section

my front end knifed in and I folded overinto a stack of huge boulder while my bikeflew over both sets of catch netting androlled pretty far down the hill. After visitingthe medic and a lot of sitting down Irealized that I was not going to be in thecards to race and I was actually very luckynot to have broken my pelvis and that Iwasnt going to be able to race finals.

7/28/2019 Fontucky Report

4/4

It was a bitter sweet ending to the trip butwith a long drive back to Nor*Cal and withthe way I was feeling there was no way Iwould be able to roll down the hill withany sort of speed. We loaded up the car

after Matts race run and started the longdrive back home. All and all it was anawesome little road trip that means agreat start to the rest of the season.

Thanks again to Casey, Hector, Henry,Joe, Steve, Joe L, Ian, Braedon, Donnie,The Furbees, and everyone down atSouthridge. See you all at Sea Otter!

www.Zerodebikes.com

www.shimanousa.comwww.schwalbetires.comwww.ijwphotography.comwww.thebikecompany.comwww.novatec.comwww.marzocchi.com

http://www.marzocchi.com/http://www.marzocchi.com/http://www.novatec.com/http://www.novatec.com/http://www.thebikecompany.com/http://www.thebikecompany.com/http://www.ijwphotography.com/http://www.ijwphotography.com/http://www.schwalbetires.com/http://www.schwalbetires.com/http://www.shimanousa.com/http://www.shimanousa.com/http://www.zerodebikes.com/http://www.zerodebikes.com/