It's just business, baby!

Yes!

Big Big Big! Weekend!

I think i was due it after what was a pretty tough and thankless week.. I busted out a couple of 12 hour days, lots of stress, no lunch break to catch a breeze, and worst of all working until almost 10pm on a friday. It just isn't cricket. What what.

Anyway, the money will be incredibly useful and i'll spend it on loose cars and fast women. Or something like that.

Anyway, its all over now, i was feeling a little lost for the weekend, the weather had been appalling and my friend Giorgio called friday afternoon and told me he thought the race at Kingston Point would be cancelled, i was bummed. So i worked through the day and at around 8pm Giorgio called back.. "Daaaanial, they call, and they make a race, we go kill these fu**ers!" I laughed out loud, he is a funny dude!

So in the morning i got up at 5am, and headed out to Astoria Queens to connect with my entourage. We'll call it the Hispanic Connect. There is Giorgio a Chilean, living in the US, William and Danial from Ecuador, and a fast young yowth, Enzo Perez, a Chilean, now living in Madrid and visiting for 2 months. A fully psyched yowth in it for all the right reasons.

They are all awesome, and although they speak very good English, the majority of the time they converse in Spanish (obviously) but i was never made to feel the butt of anything, and they were all awesome, such a good vibe between them and you couldn't help be infected with their laughter even if i never knew what was being said. I'd get a translation often enough though!

So we headed to KP and it was a beautiful day, i registered with the NBL and entered my class 26-34 (ouch, what an age bracket) and the Pro Open, which was payback.



The track wasn't hard and by lap 4 i had it nailed, lap 5 i hit the pro section, and overshot the 1st one by miles, still went for the 2nd but wasn't carrying enough speed, ditched the bike and rolled out, lap 6 i got it on point, squash it down baby!

A cool family vibe, awful commentary, the national anthem, a parade lap, lots of American flags and just general patrotism that i got fully involved with, hand on heart and everything. God love America.

Holding it down for the UK!


The racing was big, i won motos in my class, and straight to a final where i finished 2nd. I got a medal and was pumped.

Pro open was a lot harder, i got a 3 2 2 in motos which i was very happy with, then in the semi i was in 5th in the 2nd turn, i was like, meh, i'll take the pro section, i overshot the 1st to land to flat and had that horrible feeling of knowing i had not enough momentum to make the 2nd, and too much to stop in time, it was another bail into the pit of death and i went over the jump to collide with a rider entering from the fanny line. Oops.

So i was out, dang it!

Anyway i got a medal, so whatever.

I made some connections, got interviewed by Crazy Al Cayne a comedian, actor, film maker and racer from Long Island who was funny as hell, i met a few guys from other tracks and got invited to ride trails and open sessions with them, so i was stoked it went down!

I was just so happy to be on my bike, racing, having fun, meeting people and feeling like i hadn't lost the pull in the downtime i've had since i last raced. In fact, i think it has done me good having the time of doing other things. Warren, you were right all along!

I was meant to go to an Architectural Ball thing with Kate, Justin and Mia on Saturday night, but it never happened, I was kinda stoked on that anyway as the week and the days racing had taken its toll and i was pretty beat, Kate and I had dinner, beers and watched Liam Neeson kick the shit out of Eastern Europeans in the film Taken, which i love!

Brunch this morning was off the chain, i had the best eggs benedict i've ever had and Kate went for what was quite possibly the fluffiest, tastiest looking omlette i've ever seen, even better than Matts at 51JR, which were pretty shit hot.

I then went for a ride in the park, listening to some heavy new drum and bass from Calibre, man he is tight! and then got my climb on for a couple of hours, a cool dude from Colorado was there and we got chatting, he gave me some useful tips and i felt better right away in my slight change of form. I love the Worthless boulder in central park, a real challenging rock, with lots of problems and so much variation. The picture shown below is at the beginning of a lovely traverse which eventually gets up to about 10 feet, i think its rated a V2, i've not made the final move yet as its a right slapper.



Hopefully the week ahead will be a little less stressy than this one, and i'm psyched for more BMX time in the coming days - Got the love back - Believe!

Check out Calibres new drop - Shelf Life, Volume 2. It's deep.