Orange Bikes
Hola from South America
Friday, March 13, 2009 - posted by Zedsport's Mikey
First off I want to give a huge thank you to the boys over at Zedsport/Unique Sports Co. for getting me all sorted out on such short notice to get this trip rolling.
Week 1: Ashland bound.
It’s Thursday morning at 6 am and I’m loading up the sprinter with Steve and a few random bike bits from Fox Shox, Maxxis, and Easton all to be mounted soon on a fresh new Orange 224 Evo frame waiting for me on the other end of a 6 hour drive. One tank of gas, 2 puppy pit stops and a bit of snow driving later I arrive just in time to grab some lunch with Lewigi and start the build up on my fresh new whip. Sprocket (lewis’s pup) did his part to keep Steve entertained until dinner time.
We awake the next morning with plans of finishing the build and maybe getting a maiden voyage to find a solid 4 inches of fresh snow out the front door. The build became complete but taking a few photos anywhere but deep snow proved a lot harder. After a happy send off and a few fresh new bits to test over the next few months I was driving back to the bay in a hurry but also thru a near white out snow storm through Shasta.
The plan to ride some local trails before boxing the beauty up and heading to South America was spoiled by 3 straight days of pouring rain. First test ride? My first Urban Downhill event in Valparaiso Chile.
Week 2: Summertime in So hem
After a solid 20 hours of traveling I finally arrive in Santiago Chile with all luggage surprisingly intact. I meet up with a fellow US rider in the airport and we arrange to get picked up by some co-workers of the promoter. They didn’t tell us that we would be getting picked up in “the GRIZZLY.” This was honestly the sickest shaggin’ waggin’ conversion I’d ever seen.
A short 45 min drive later we in the port city of Valparaiso which is unlike anywhere I have ever been. It wasn’t a place you’d ever see a downhill bike except for this event. First few days were just messing around doing wheelie contests in front of the hotel and hanging out on the beach. Finally Friday comes around and we get to take a look at some parts of the track and ride some Dirt jumps in an old Chilean prison. Saturday was a solid one quick run down each section of the track to test out the HUCKS! And let me tell you..they were all HUCKS! Lets not forget the stair sets that has worse timing than a white guy at a dance club.
Sunday was a gong show for pre race practice. So many sketchy Chileans on track both trying to ride and others trying to take pictures made a full run impossible. The bike was feeling pretty good but I was still unsure how it would react to such a crazy amount of abuse. Needless to say the bike held up fine but I wasn’t quite in the race as much as I should have been. Qualifying run comes up and as I’m trying to pin it through a narrow super long stair case, I tag a guy with a camera leaning out onto the track and end up riding out a nose wheelie/stoppie for about 4 stair sets before I can slow down enough to get in under control. After that it seemed like it was more a people slalom than an Urban race course. I ended up missing qualifying by less than 1 second. I’ll be back next year but will have to learn Spanish for “GET OFF THE TRACK!!”
Week 3. Isolation in the Andes.
This week was off to a Bike Park in the Andes just outside Santiago. We all arrived there Monday nite to find that the term bike park had been stretched a little. It was more a group of very old ski lifts that only work on the weekends. Our “house” was more like a cottage that was about 1 mile from any other buildings and the fact that it is summertime here meant that nothing up in the village area was even open. That meant for a pack of gum or bottle of water it was a 45 min drive each way and we had no car. So for entertainment everyday around sunset became a drift competition on the driveway to our place. Surprisingly enough just goofing off in the front yard got me so comfortable on the new Orange that I ended up winning the competition 3 out of 5 days.
The week moved on and we got to ride La Parva Clasico which is a trail that ran basically from out cottage all the way down into Santiago. Almost 4500 foot elevation drop on 35 minutes at trail riding pace. It was crazy riding all the different types of terrain as we dropped climates.
After some days of trail riding and drift sessions it was time to start getting into race mode and looking up to riding with some lift access. The mountain was like putting a bootleg canyon track on the top of the Andes. Not a single tree or bit of vegetation to be seen anywhere. This made for jagged edge rocks, skree filled chutes, and blown out dusty corners….at least that was the case on Friday.
After sunny and hot Friday we headed back up Saturday for some actual race track practice with overcast and windy skies. After about 2 runs it looked pretty certain that it was going to dump rain but a few of us decided to get on the lift for one last run of the day. BIG MISTAKE! About half way up the 20 min lift ride we were greeted by dumping cold rain and wind, which turned to colder hail, which turned into even colder SNOW! By the time we reached the top we were soaked and frozen solid. Now we had to ride down a snow covered track without being able to feel hands or fingers. Not the best time. After thawing a bit we decided the best way to finish out the day (since it was only 1pm) was to kick back a few brews to stay warm. After some mildly bad decisions of rolling huge boulders down a hill some local Chileans picked us up and took us to their condo to enjoy the local drink of choice PISCO. Lets just end the night right there and say we don’t all remember how we got back to our cottage.
Race day morning was another sunny starting day with the exception of looking out our window to see snow covered peaks instead of dry dusty mountains. The top half of the race track ended up being under several inches of snow while the Wide open bottom half ended up being BONE DRY.
After a big glitch in qualifying times, which had me seated almost last in front of someone with a flat tire, it was time for race run. The snow and melted at the top and even that was almost all the way dry at this point. So I decided the best thing to do was to go fully pinned and see how things would turn out. The top half and technical part of the track was going great until I got a little too happy in a set of switchbacks and the tire got stuck in the rut and sent me OTB down a nice skree chute. Got up as quick as possible and got back to the bottom wide open bit but knew I wasn’t on pace for a good time. I ended up with a 4th place worth time but was still a good bit off the pace with my crash. Overall a good learning weekend for me. Found out a lot about the bike and how to ride so next time I hear a clock ticking I’ll be ready for it.