Everything on two wheels
Who, where and why? Hello, I´m Jukka. I like to ride bikes. It all strarted off more than decade ago with mountain bikes. Soon after a riding buddy of mine got his first bmx and naturally rest of us followed as. That is only the beginning of the story, at least hopefully. I still ride mountain bikes whenever I have the time and feel for it. Cross-counry, enduro, downhill, dirt jumping etc. Just about anything goes.
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Bmx is a whole different animal. Although it´s still bike riding it feels almost the polar opposite to mountain biking. On a set of 20” wheels you want to be as smooth as possible and go as high as you can. All this without making a sound. I´m not saying that you don´t want to be smooth on a mtb as well, but it´s a different kind of smoothness when plowing full speed through a rock garden. Soon after I got my first bmx I got hooked with the feeling of progression: Learning new tricks, doing jumps that I didn´t dare to do on the previous week. The usual stuff, you know. If you´re reading this you probably are familiar with bike riding anyways. In a nutshell riding ramps, parks and trails has taken the majority of my time for the past 7-8 years. I´m lucky and thankful for having a lot of new friends and sponsors on the way, which has been a big help. The goal is to ride bikes as long as passion is found towards it and keep progressing. If I can make (almost) a living out it, what coulde be better?
The reasons to travel If you live in Finland or you´ve visited there during the winter time the answer hits you like a two by four in the face. Finland just isn´t the place to be in the winter if you want to ride bikes (or to do anything else to be honest). When I left to my trip in the early february the coldest period of winter hit Finland. Temperature was below -30C (-22F). Combine that with a 1m (3ft) thick layer of snow and lack of indoor spots to ride and you have a pretty good idea of the situation. When I´m talking about lack of riding spots I really mean it. My hometown has a small indoor skatepark. There´s a 1,2m (4ft) high pool and and a bit bigger quarter pipe which almost falls over everytime you ride it. One must appreciate everything you have, but riding in there can be kept interesting only for so long. The place I like to ride the most during the winter time is the Signature bmx warehouse. A proper sized miniramp with a spine is worth some good sessioning. The downside is that it´s a two hour drive from my home. Doing the drive there and back and riding for around three hours basically takes the whole day. Doing the journey to there after a day in school wears you out pretty quickly – especially when doing it several times a week. Been there, done that. Hopefully you got the idea at this point. When you´re motivated to ride and the circumstances are as described the situation gets unbearable sooner or later. Probably sooner. How can you travel because of school/work/other obligations I hear you say? I´m currently studying at the technical university of Tampere. The semester is divided into four periods. In this period I had four hours of lectures altogether in one week. A joke is the best way to describe that. Nothing was really keeping me here. I had some savings left from previous years and if someone can tell me a better way of investing them than traveling, having unforgettable experiences and education I´m all ears.
When you´re old and sitting in a rocking chair telling stories to your grand children (or your bored fellow victims in a retirement home) what are you going to tell about? About the times you traveled, had some fun, pushed yourself and maybe had a couple of close calls on the way OR how you sat on the bench in a school chair following a lecture of a subject that you most likely had no use in later parts of your life? Yeah, that´s what I thought as well.
The land of oppoturnities I´ve been to US four times before, so it´s not a new continent to me. Let´s consider the pros of US as a travel destination: English speaking country, fairly good exchange rate, friendly people (for the most part) and plenty of spots to ride. How about the cons? Flights can be expensive, access to a car is a must, weird and strict laws with heavy penalties, traffic and long distances between riding spots. The weather depends where your traveling to. In winter you can end up somewhere with a similar conditions as in Finland. Or in the other end of the spectrum you can´t function properly during the mid day because of the heat. What would be the best bang for the buck when it comes to weather and riding? Southern California or briefly just SoCal often comes up when criteria like that are laid down. No matter what´s your sport SoCal is a good bet. Most of the action sports are born in there: Motocross, surfing, skateboarding, mountain biking and bmx to name a few. It doesn´t end there though. More conventional sports like football, ice hockey and basketball are big there as well. No matter what´s your sport, one can be quire certain that it can be done in SoCal.
Riding-wise you can´t really beat SoCal. The numerous parks and trails are waiting to be ridden. Not to mention bigger facilities like Da Compound and Woodward West. I´ve gotten into bmx racing in the past two years as well. The Olympic gold medalist Maris Strömberg, who I had the honour to meet, said it well: ”The best riders (in racing) come from New Zealand, but everybody trains here.” SoCal was a pretty obvious choice.
Skateparks near Los Angeles. Which ones shall we ride today? But what about street riding you ask? LA area is well know for, if not synonymous with street riding. Hard hitting riders like Dakota Roche, Garret Reynolds, Tyler Morrow, Eric Lichtenberg and Dennis Enarson (he can ride and destroy anything he wants though) reside there for a good reason. However I have little interest in that that kind of thing. The reason I started riding bikes in the first place and why I still like to do it is to ride fast and jump high. I don´t like landing flat either. Street riding often lacks those aspects. ”Ride trails, not rails,” is a the slogan of one British bmx company. It sums my opinion pretty well. Bikes are meant to move on their tires, not to grind on rails or concrete ledges with some steel pipes that are sticking from the side of the bike. Don´t get me wrong though. I do give great respect for riders like I mentioned above. Hop barspins, tailwhips and 360´s are something I´d really like to be able to do. The feel for them just hasn´t ever been quite right. Combine that with the risk of getting a ticket or having a visit to a nearby police station is not going to cut it in my book. Street just isn´t my cup of tea, as they say.
Some of the spots that got ridden.
The bikes The sharpest readers might remember that I´m a currently studying mechanical engineering in my hometowns university in Tampere. For that reason I find the technical side of bikes really intriguing. How was that part made? Why is it made like that? What are the benefits and disadvantages of certain design? Can it be made better? Those are just some of the questions that arise when I see a new bike part. It is no coincident that I´ve made some components myself under the name of Syndicate bikes. So far the line up consist of small things that are pretty simple to manufacture, like sprockets and front hubs. Bmx is born and raised in SoCal, so it´s not a suprise that some of the most influlential bike companys are based in there.
S&M S&M bikes is the definition of high quality, American made bikes. If my memory serves me right they´ve been in business from 1987 – the very same year I was born. It´s humbling to think that someone has not only ridden but made bikes as long as I´ve been alive. I do also remember reading and article some years ago from Ride US about S&M bikes. Legendary dirt jumper and all-round nice guy TJ Lavin said something in the lines of: ”Without Pitchforks, Slam bars and Redneck stems half of us wouldn´t be here. Those were the only ones in the market you could really trust.”
I´ve had the pleasure of visiting the S&M factory once before, but once I was here I certainly wanted to do another one. Besides Hannu and Outi haven´t seen anything like thsy before, so they found it interesting as well. A tour was given by no less than the legendary Sean McKinney. If you´ve met Sean you know what I mean. He is a character and never out of juice. Little has changed since the last visit and why should it? Don´t fix it, if it ain´t broken. S&M relies to true regional production. All the vendors they use are literally located in the same street. This means that cnc machining, painting, heat treating and anodizing are all made in Santa Ana. Couple of quick words got exchanged with Ryan Russel, the quality supervisor all round awesome bloke whom I met on my previous trip. Ryan was heading to Fise in Costa Rica with room mates.
A limited edition of the first ever WTF frames.
Another factory visit was made on the very next day. It was a bit unexpected as you will find out. After the visit at S&M´s we went to ride the Bellflower bmx track. It was my first touch to the racing scene on this continent. More of this later and now to the point. I was following Hannu on the second straigth. On the landing of one of the jumps he just collapsed and his bike was shattered in pieces! Or that´s how it looked like before I had the chance to stop and help him. A quick analyze of the situation revealed that he had snapped a set of Supercross forks! Apparently the stem had deformed the steerer tube over time which had led to the total snappage. The most important and amazing thing was that Hannu walked out of the crash with a slight tire burn on his calf! Besides that he lost the dust cap of his headset. Considering the severity of the situation we were pretty happy with the outcome, if accident like this had to happen. Supercross Hannu had been in contact with Supercross before arriving to US about the fork. A quick phone call confirmed that we were welcome to come over the following morning. Apart from sharing the name with one the most demanding disciplines of bmx riding.Supercross is synonymous with bmx racing. They´ve established a strong reputation of making the fastest and lightest bikes out there. Their most high end offering is the Envy frame. One of the lightest production aluminum frames out there. This was to you who aren´t familiar with the brand already. Supercross headquarters are in Apple Valley. It´s a small town couple of hours drive away from LA. I was waiting to see some work in progress: Stems being machined, Envy frames welded and that type of stuff. I was disappointed though when Bill informed me that the manufacturing of US made parts takes place somewhere in LA. Not that there´s anything wrong with that, I was just expecting some heavy work going on.
Supercorss had bunch of goodies lying in the shelves. The warehouse was stacked with stock frames, parts and rims. On one corner they even had a prototype mtb downhill frame waiting to be tested.
Supercross has also jumped on the 20mm through axle bandwagon. These puppies are already in production The coolest thing about the factory was the yard! Why you might ask? Just next to the warehouse building they had around three acres of land which had a full blown race track in the works! I wasn´t sure if it was a big race track or full blown supercross track. All in all it was big. The first double measured around 10m (35ft) if I remember right. Who wouldn´t want to have a track like that in their work place?
Zodiac eng. I´ve done my share of ”forum riding” back in the days. Therefore Bikeguide has gotten familiar along the years. Anyone who has followed Bikeguide even a bit is almost certainly familiar with Couch and his company Zodiac eng. I still can´t remember exactly how it came up, but someway I heard that Zodiac was based in Orange, which was only 45min drive from where I was staying at. I quickly emailed Ken and suggested if I could come over to have a look of his machine shop and talk crap about bikes. He was down with the idea. Soon after meeting up with Ken (Couch) it became apparent that I had met a rider who was even more knowledgeable and interested about the technical side of bikes than I am. That isn´t little to say folks. He knew tons about machining, CAD modeling and engineering in general.
This is where the magic happens.
A quote straight from Zodiac site: ”Zodiac Engineering is a high end component company based in Orange, California. Our focus is in the niche industries of top quality cycling and firearm components. This intent focus allows us to provide the kind of low volume, high-quality precision products that appeal to the detail & functionally minded consumer.” All I can say is amen to that. Ken does know what he is doing and is pretty damn good at it. The most respected companies in the industry rely on his services as well. The names like Odyssey, FBM, T1 and Animal were mentioned several times during the conversation. It even became apparent that one not be named German bike company follows really closely what Ken is up to.
The long awaited T1 stems.
Ken was cool enough to counter bore my stem on the fly so that headset cap would sit flush with the stem. Not that it would make me a better rider, but it´s aesthetically pleasing and it´s always nice to have a bit more than just stock parts on your bike. For some time I´ve been considering swapping this Wethepeople Supreme stem to top loader, but after the counter bore was made it turned out so neat that it will be on my bike for another 3-4 years.
My stem getting some modifications. The end result speks fot itself. Neat!
Oh, yeah. You might be wondering about the gun thing in the quote above. Ken got fascinated with the mechanical aspects of guns and he does pretty neat customizing on them as well. Because of that he did have couple of ”pieces” around the house, which made a good entertainment during the evening. So far bike part manufacturing has been more of a hobby for me. Time will tell if I get more into it.
The 26t sprocket I´m currently running. Made of 7075-T6 aluminum. So far my fauvorite.
Concrete LA is well know for the concrete as well. Wooden parks aren´t unheard in there, but those definitely represent the minority. Concrete as an element is a world of its own. You may think that a freshly made wooden ramp is as solid as it gets. The reality catches up with you in a shocking way at the latest when you crash on concrete. It simply doesn´t show any mercy. On the good side concrete is fast to ride. Listening to the sound of tires rolling when carving around bowls and airing hips is almost second to none. Concrete also gives the designers and builders almost unlimited possibilities. Seldom can you match the shapes of concrete when using wood.
This has probably been discussed thousand times already, but it´s still worth mentioning. Most of the parks in SoCal don´t allow bikes. Why is that? Go figure. Practically it means that you can get a ticket when riding some of the parks, which isn´t too nice. Trying to ride and enjoy the session and watching over your shoulder for the cops is something that I haven´t been used to. Some of the locals say that you can often times talk yourself out of it, but others have gotten tickets no matter what and more than once. $250 price tag for a session is quite steep in my book. This was especially unfortunate in Chino park. Chino skatepark is regarded one of the best concrete parks in the whole state and at this point you can probably guess that bikes are not allowed in there. Morning are usually quiet, so I did plenty of good sessions in there. Tickets received: None. Maybe I was lucky? Funny thing is that scooters are forbidden as well (and for a good reason!). In the afternoons scooter kids would show up with their dads. I wonder if the officers would give tickets to them as well.
Plywood and 2x4´s As said earlier wooden parks aren´t that much of a commodity in LA area that I´ve used to. I rode two parks that were made of the material mentioned. First was Ben Snowden´s yard and second the Vault park which is located in conjuction with Stolen bikes warehouse. Let´s save the best for last and go through the Vault first. It´s located in La Habra in an industrial area. The setup is definitely on the technical side. Most of the stuff is mid-size at most. Some wallrides, one quarter, a street spine and couple unique fun boxes. There is tons to ride if you run pegs. Not to say that there isn´t if you don´t, but you have to be a bit more creative. I got there around noon on my second last day of the trip. The park was empty which meant that I got a private session. Some company would have been appreciated to give some inspiration and tips on good lines. However I did spend a fun two hour in there. The park was really well built and therefore fun to ride.
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What can be said of Ben Snowden´s house? A book could probably be written what has happened in his premises. As far as I know the yard is the only private skatepark in the whole SoCal area! The setup consists of a 3m (10ft) high vert quarter paired with a super fun jump box, which is usually equipped with a resi landing. Other than that the yard has a spine ramp, foampit and a london gap after the jump box. Really cool setup it is! The people who live there are Ben himself, Big Daddy, AJ Anaya, Ryan Russell and Alex Landeroos. It´s fair to say that with a line up like that it´s constant entertainment, whether it´s about riding or not.
I got to ride the yard three times on my trip. Each session was superb! The most memorable was 22nd of february. First because Pat Casey and Ryan Taylor were in attendance and pretty much destroyed the jump box and secondly because it happened to be my birthday. I can´t imagine to spend my 25th year than having fun and riding with some of the best riders in the world! Pat did some moves over the box that I can´t even name. It was wild, that´s all I can say. Another really good session was on my second last day of the trip. To be exact right after the session at Vault park. This time riding crew consisted only of the residents with the additional guest in the form of Ricky Mosely. His riding was interesting to watch. He flowed through the park with lines that I hadn´t seen before. Going back and forth from the jump box to spine and back. Couple that with the delicate sound of Profile Elite hub (I didn´t know that you can run pegs on those too) that he was running. Big Daddy is never out of juice. Riding with him always gets me pumped up to do my best. He is progressive, encouraging and a unique rider. Some of the stuff he does is considered funny and I agree, but it doesn´t mean that it´s easy! Try landing a wallride to whip on a surfer and tell otherwise. He nailed several flip whips during the afternoon and rode well over all.
Ben was just Ben, heing stylish and erfecting his tricks. I was quite happy with my own riding as well. I got 360 one handed x-up´s down for the first time, did some barspin catch barspins and even pulled a double whip as the darkenss was about to set. The last one doesn´t most likely sound much to most of you, but the trick has been like my arch nemesis for couple of years now.
The deck was stacked almost as AJ Anaya gave some really good tips if it was Dew tour! for the double whip. Thanks for him for that. Which brings me to the fact that I forgot to mention him altogether! AJ rides big, hard and fast. He nailed sweet combos like tuck no hander to late tailwhip, no hander to turndowns and so forth. A superman seatgrab transfer from quarter to quarter was pretty bang on as well. Yes, I did some street riding since this spot was about 2min ride fromwhere I stayed.
Racing Unlike my previous trips I did a lot of racing as well. Actually this was the first time I planted my foot and tires on a track abroad. Soon it became apparent why some of the most stylish and talented bike riders have started off by racing. Mike Aitken, Brian Foster, Drew Bezanson, Dan Foley and Aaron Gwin are the just some of the names I can come up with in a matter of seconds. The raw power, bike control, style, smoothness and being fast are mixed in racing in a way that cannot be matched. Watch any pro level rider race and it can not be denied. Hell, just watch those 9 year old kids destroying the rhythm section! It puts 95% of riders in shame, no matter the form of riding they do. At least that´s what happened to me. Tracks visited were: Bellflower, Yucca valley, Palms springs, Orange Y and last but not least Whittier narrows. It was special in a way that we lived most of our trip in there. Roland, the owner must be one of the friendliest and nicest man on this earth! He helped out with every way imaginable. A big shout out goes to Steve Frazier as well who let us live in this trailer. And what a trailer it was. Almost 12m (40ft) long and with more appliances and luxuries than most homes have.
Back to business. The track itself was top notch! I can´t count how many times I rode the track during the trip. Sometimes I might even do two sessions a day. Can you imagine a better way to start a day than watching the sun go up in the track with a good breakfast and a proper cup of coffee? Then riding it first thing in the morning. The rewarding part was that I progressed clearly during my stay in there. At first I couldn´t clear the first jump, but eventually I could make it just about any time I wanted. Besides that the third straight, which was called a rhythm section got its fair share of sessioning. I got considerably faster on that as well.
It was a treat to see some of the best riders in the world ride the track. Even some of the locals were really impressive, but you can´t mistake when someone who is one of the best in their sport does his thing. Sifis Nhlapo from South-Africa was one of them. You couldn´t really tell if whether he was jumping or pumping. He rode so fast and low all the time with buttery smoothness which left my jaw dropped till the next morning.
Racing in US and back at home are completely different animals. Finnish tracks are short, bumpy and a bit dull compared to the ones in US. Who are to blame? Nobody, because the sport is still in its infancy in Finland. Although I have a lot of work ahead to get better in racing I had the most fun time. Practicing, figuring out a new way to hit the rhythm section or just pedaling flat out are fun things to do. A certain aspect that has to be said of racing is that it´s a true sport and the top level riders are true athletes. Unfortunately the same cannot always be said in other forms of bmx. Call me a jockey if you like, but that´s how I´ve always been and always will be.
This drivetrain has probably delivered more power than the transimission on a car with a V8 engine. The bike in question belongs to a fellow named Maris.
Riders. Random start. Riders ready. Watc the gate. Be-be-beep!
Riding in home turf, Whittier that is.
Chula Vista The Olympic training center in Chula Vista was an experience to say at least. It was surprising that how big role bmx racing has in there. My expectations were that the US riders have good resources to train in there. However the reality was something else. It seemed that the whole compound was made especially for bmx! Sure there were couple of soccer fields and some other stuff, but mainly it was all bmx. Supercross track, the Future bmx track and a pump track like what I´ve never seen before forms an environment that doesn´t fall short in any area. Couple that with the indoor training facilities what they have there and you´re pretty much set.
The Future bmx track was one of the longest I´ve seen.
The supercross track was pretty much over my head. I´ve seen the Copenhagen track in person while watching the worlds last summer. Chula Vista´s ”gnar factor” was at least two fold. The speed at the bottom of the starting ramp is around 60km/h (40mph), followed by a about 10m long (35ft) double. Don´t forget that there are seven riders with you into air a well. If the jumps were big in first straight they weren´t that much smaller in the second straight either. It was more like rhythm section, which ended on a double that jumped over the womens track berm.
The first straight from a riders perspective. How about hitting that?
I find it fascinating to see how world class athletes train, no matter the sport. But combine that with bmx racing and I´m like a small kid in a candy store where is no staff around. Although I didn´t see any riding during the visit was definitely worth the time and effort to get there. Another must see in there was the Bmx hall of fame. Actually I didn´t even know that it´s located in Chula Vista until I stumbled in it while exploring the main building when looking for a place to grab a cup of coffee. To be honest I have know idea who most of the guys were who were in the wall. Most of them were racers back in the day. Luckily the wall of fame had a brief description why the riders had gotten in the wall. However there were several riders who are known even in modern bmx park and street scene, as for example Chris Moeller. (If you don´t know who he is, it´s seriously time to get educated.)
It was kind of suprising to find the Finnish flag painted on the wall. Stoked.
Trails There is just something elemental about trails riding. Crafting rideable obstacles from soil with the aid of a showel is a just so fundamental that you can´t go around it. Riverside is known for its trails scene. After all the best riders are living or have lived there. Cory Nastazio hailed originally from Riverside. Nowadays he has moved up north though. The current residents are Mike Lakin, Heath Pinter, Luke Parslow, TJ Ellis and some more.
Heath Pinters trails (above) and Mike Lakins (below). I certainly was one happy camper after riding those.
On one of my early missions to Chino skatepark I was fortunate enough to meet Lance Mosley, Ryan Jordan, Andrew Lazaruk and Heath Pinter. I had a hunch that if I wanted to get to ride some trails these guys were the ones to talk to. Lance (among others) turned out to be a super nice guy who was down to help out with just about anything. It turned out that Mike Lakin had a casual saturday morning ride at his premises. Unfortunately Lance couldn´t make it after all because he had to head home to Nashville because of some unexpected events. He passed on Mike´s contact information however. I gave Mike a call and I was welcome to ride at his yard. Stoked.
Table over one of the hips at the Lakin compound.
Satruday morning came and I started with Riverside as my destination. Mike´s yard was impressive. Almost endless lines, with steep lips and landings. All was super packed, shaped and hard. Did I feel intimidated? For sure. It was something like 4 or 5 months since the last time I rode trails. You have to really know your game to be confident in an environment like that after a break that long. Fortunately Mike and other locals were nice enough to show the easier lines and I worked my way up from there. As a result I got two lines under my belt by the end of the session. Fun times for sure. I met Shawn and Nick in Lakin´s trails. Shawn helps out Stephen Murray in Riverside which speaks for itself alone. You could instantly tell that he was into trails, all to the bones.
As one would expect Shawn rode well. There was something with his friend that I couldn´t quite put finger on it. Shawn and Nick looked really alike. It was later in the session when I found out that Nicky was Shawn´s son! How´s that riding the trails with your old man? Nick flipped the biggest line which made Shawn do the same on the following run. When was the last time you flipped the biggest line with your old man? Heath Pinter and Andrew Lazaruk from Canada showed up in the later part of session. After riding for a bit Heath suggested to drop by at his house since it was located near by. Did I have to think twice? No sir! Heath´s trails were different. A bit more to my taste perhaps. Jumps were spaced out little more apart from each other and the lips were mellower. They still sent you straight to the sky, but the lips didn´t hit you back when hitting them. The soil itself was the gnarliest part. You certainly didn´t want to fall. Soil was almost as hard as concrete, but on top of that it was rough. I had the pleasure of testing out the soil by missing the landing from the side from a jump that took off right after a berm. As a result a piece of skin had disappeared from my elbow. I made the line through later though and it was super fun. Jumps grew evenly in size as the line descended along the hillside. Definitely one of my fauvorite trails so far. I was in a lucky position because Heath was about to redo the whole yard the very next day with a tractor! In other words I got to ride the lines at the very latest moment. Heath and Andrew were almost like playing around. Their riding looked effortless and flowy – the way it should be.
Heath laying down a table at his home trails.
When the sun was starting to set I was pretty much done. After all I had ridden from 10.30am to 6pm almost non stop. I felt happy to get to ride some trails after a long break. It was good to see some dirt on the tires for a change. Thanks for Heath for letting me ride his trails. I´ll definitely come back for another session in the future.
Riding the bigger wheels This time I wasn´t planning to ride mountain bikes that much. First of all I didn´t have my own bike with me, which is a bit of a problem. I did have one good ride during my visit in Colorado though, which will be covered later. Luckily the guys at Grassroot cycles were cool enough to hook me up with a bike that I could use for a ride! Shout out to that direction. I rode the Loma trail in Gran Junction CO, which made a 90min long ride in an epic environment. James said that the Moab locals come to ride here. It was that good. Moab is a legendary riding destination among mountain bike riders, so it puts the level of riding Grand Junction in perspective. All in all it was a fun ride! A bit of climbing, lots of fast singletrack and couple of gnarly technical sections that I had to walk through. I´m still not sure If I could have made them even on my own bike, it was tech. The scenery and terrain in Grand Junction are unique and breath taking. Pair that with a top notch riding buddy like James and you´re set. If you have ever a chance to go, do not think twice.
A snapshot taken with GoPro while we were coasting down the Loma trail.
“This is where the Moab locals com to ride� - James
Theservice is first classin Grassrootcycles. Funny thing that some people are actually scared to touch the button!
Training If you tend to avoid all types of physical exertion feel free to skip this chapter. I´m sure however that most of the readers will benefit greatly from reading this. At least it gives some food for thought. Sports has always been a big part of my life. I played ice hockey through elementary school and carried on training on my own after that. What do I mean by training? Or by strength training to be precise? It´s about practicing movements and eventually becoming better and stronger in them.
Practice is the acquisition on refinement of a specific skill that is relevant to performance.
You might have wondered about the trip to Colorado and who is this James guy? Let me clear things a bit. James Wilson runs a facility called Mtb strength training systems. He is specialized in training bike riders. Is he any good? You bet. He worked closely with the downhill world champion Aaron Gwin for three and half years until last season. That alone pretty much says he knows his stuff. After being in contact with him for some years and visiting his facility three times I can certainly say the same on personal experience. This time was different though. The main purpose of my four days long stay was to learn as much as possible how he trains people. This includes assessments, writing customized programs, giving coaching cues, one to one coaching and the principles behind the whole training process. You can only learn so much by studying yourself. Real life experience is where its at.
Kettlebells. Oldies but goodies!
What did I learn? 95% of people/riders out there (me included) are not that advanced. Sure some might have some appreciable physical qualities, but is it built on a lasting foundation? Not likely, if you haven´t got any professional coaching and evaluation. This was the case with me when I met James the first time and the journey is almost never ending. During my stay I learned tons of truly valuable things that helps me with my own training and to train other riders as well.
Doing a turkish get up. If you don´t know what it is then it´s time to get to work!
Supercross in San Diego My travel companion Hannu is really into Supercross. You know the one that is being ridden on mx bikes? To be honest I haven´t followed the sport at all. I´ve maybe seen some clips on Youtube every now and then, but that´s it. Nevertheless I was excited to see what kind of show they were going to have in the Qualcomm arena in San Diego.
You can´t go wrong with fireworks and lasers!
The first shock happened right when we drove to the parking lot. I assumed that Supercross was big here in US, but the amount of cars were just overwhelming! Tons of people was attending the event, that´s for sure. Once we found our seats it was 7pm, which meant that it was show time! Fire works, flame throwers, lasers, beautiful women and dirt bikes. Americans really know how to put on a show. The opening ceremony itself was almost worth coming.
Eventually when the race started it was a bit confusing to be honest. After couple of laps it was hard to tell who was in the lead. After some time you could get the hang of it but still way too much was going on all the time. Some nice passes, big jumps and mean looking crashes was seen during the evening. I´ve heard at some point that John Tomac´s (everyone who has crossed their leg over a mtb should know the guy) son Eli races motocross. My surprise couldn´t be hidden when the announcer said that Eli Tomac was in the lead - so he was this good. Unfortunately he crashed in the whoops later in the race. Bubba Harris ended his race in the same manner as well.
The amount of bike control, sense of speed, conditioning and mental game the riders have is enormous! I still can´t get my mind wrapped around how one can judge the speed for a 12m (40ft), or even longer jump with a flick of a wrist. That among many other things was something worth envying. The event and show was definitely worth going. A must to experience if you ever come the states.
Osiris shoes Osiris shoes hails from Carlsbad CA. They´ve been in the business since 1996. As the name suggest shoes are their specialty. Besides that you can wear some nice clothing, backpacks and other stuff that carries tha name of Osiris. The was established as a skateboarding brand. Later on they´ve made a strong standing in other areas as well, bmx included. The current team consists of Josh Betley, Miles Rogoish, Darryl Tocco, Marcus Tooker (he has Finnish relatives by the way) and last but most of all not least Ryan Nyquist. In the past they had Rob Darden in the team as well - one of my fauvorite riders of all time. So what´s my relationship with Osiris? The Finnish distro Cape Universal has been helping me out with for some years now and I can´t ask for a better partner to work with! Shoes are good and people are even better, especially the top man Klaus. Since Carlsbad was located near LA my intentions were to visit the Osiris headquarters on my previous trip in US last spring. Because of a tight schedule it didn´t happen though. This time I wanted to make it. After some e-mails I got hold of Joe Marckx who is the international sales manager. He was a top notch guy who has traveled extensively. You can say that when you´re even visited Finland, China etc.
One van like that please.
A shoe or two.
The tour around the headquarters was interesting. Joe showed me just about every room and corner inside the building. Product development, photo studio, coffee room, warehouse, you name it. There were even couple of Josh Betleys beat up Felt frames lying around in the corner of the warehouse. All in all Osiris has superb products and good service. The agile size of the company is definitely one of their strenghts as well. Just make sure that you wear a pair of shoes from a company that gives something back to bmx. The tour ended up in the warehouse where Joe let me cherry pick some goodies. Thanks once again for Joe! Hit us up when you´re coming over to Finland.
Because of Joe I was able to go home with a fresh pair of shoes.
Traffic and cars LA is so far behind the rest of the world when it comes to public transportation. Practically you need to have a car under your butt to get anywhere! Trains and buses are out of the question if they even exist in this part of the country. To me it was stunning that every single day at the same time certain roads get almost completely jammed because of heavy traffic. I´m not talking about small roads here, it´s freeways with 5 or 6 lanes that are completely filled with cars that barely move. It´s all about the timing. You have to know where to go and when. It took a week or so to get it figured out on a basic level. Other funny thing about US is the cars. I´m all over big trucks. Nothing beats a big pick-up with a big set of V8 under the hood. The look of peoples face is pretty equivalent if they´d found out than moon was made of cheese after all when I tell them that in Finland gas costs roughly twice what it costs around here. There´s a good reason why you don´t see that many big trucks over there. Carpool lanes are even more funny or odd thing, depending how you see it. Still even though if the traffic is almost completely jammed there is barely anyone using the carpool lane. What does this mean? Over 90% of people who drive around with those big trucks sit there alone. It´s better to make your driving with style I guess. Even the officers in the US had more kick ass rides than a above average car enthusiast in Finland.
Coffee I like coffee, I really do. The taste of good quality, freshly brewed mocha is second to none. Chilling in the morning, eating breakfast and having a cup of coffee is something I like to keep in my daily routine. I don´t notice any energizing effects because of drinking coffee. I just like the taste. Usually I stick with high quality varieties. Like organically grown, maybe even ground by myself. When traveling you have to make some compromises to make yourself feel comfortable. Therefore gas stations, cafeterias and even McDonald´s were visited on a regular basis in the search of a daily grind. Me and Hannu actually collected all the take away cups for a week and a half or so. We had quite a pile already, but we had to get rid of it when we moved to our new place in Whittier. Those coffee cups should have been really valuable to take along with us. So yes, the car was so packed. Eventually I got my hands on some reishi coffee and the problems were solved.
“Coffee and cacao are gifts from above.”
Closing words If you´ve made it this far I´m pretty stoked. Thank you for paying interest and investing your time for reading this. The language and grammar are everything but fluent, hopefully the message got through. The times I had in the US were some of the best. Riding just about every day, having fun and progressing. I wouldn´t want to have it any other way. I´d like to thank all my sponsors: Signature bmx, Osiris shoes, Battery energy drink, Poc, Wethepeople Metal Mulisha, Spy and GoPro. On top of that the trip wouldn´t been possible or at least not as succesfull without the help of the following people Roland Leal, Outi, Hannu, Steve Frazier, Heath Pinter, Lance Mosley, Joe Merckx, Ben Snowden, Mike Lakin, Ryan Russell, Ken Spaulding, Lloyd Sherron, Andrew Lazaruk and many others that I forgot to mention, sorry for that. See you next year! - Jukka Mäennenä jukkam.com