In August we posted the return of the Red Bull Rampage.  This weekend The Evolution is set to go off near Virgin, Utah.  New and old (from previous Rampage events) riders will be showing off their freeriding style, hucking off huge boulders, gaps and man-made stunts.  Here are the confirmed riders:

Andrew Taylor
Alex Prochazka
Ben Boyko
Brandon Semenuk
Cam McCaul
Cameron Zink
Cedric Gracia
Chris Van Dine
Dan Atherton
Darren Berrecloth
Garett Buehler
Gee Atherton
Geoff Gulevich
Graham Aggasiz
Guido Tschugg
James Doerfling
Kelly McGarry
Kurt Sorge
Kyle Strait
Matt Hunter
Mike Hopkins
Mike Kinrade
Paul Basagoitia
Robbie Bourdon
Steve Romaniuk
Thomas Vanderham
Trond Hansen 

Check out the man-made stunts. These guys are looking to go BIG!     photos by: Christian Pondella/Red Bull Photofiles  

For more information, log onto www.redbullrampage.com.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Not the ex-UFC light heavyweight champ, but rather the Red Bull Rampage… Ending its four year run in 2004, the Red Bull Rampage was the premier freeride event at the turn of the century.  Many may have seen DVD movies and pictures as this was a widely covered event.  Held near Virgin, Utah, many professional downhillers and freeriders flocked to the Rampage.  The likes of Cedric Gracia, Kyle Strait, Andrew Shandro, Thomas Vanderham, Wade Simmons, Josh Bender and Robbie Bourdon, just to name a few… were all competing.  This year there are about two-dozen invited guests.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Cabin sweet Cabin

This past weekend three of us went up to the local mountains for one day doing lift-assisted riding and the second day riding the Santa Ana River Trail (SART). We drove up on a Friday night and stayed at a cabin that had a front porch with full view of the lift we would be riding up on the next day. The bikes got a great spot in the kitchen. Every time I glanced at the bikes that first night I smiled. It’s just one of those things that bikes do to you.

The slopes & lift could be seen from our cabin porch!

Things had changed over the years in our local mountains. Just a few years ago the local mountain lift, Snow Summit, allowed you to bomb down the ski slopes with huge downhill/freeride bikes. But as the years have gone by, the local mountains have banned downhill/freeride bikes as well as riding down the slopes. In the meantime, great XC style & downhill trails developed as alternatives to the straight downhill slopes used by the winter skiers and snowboarders. The only difficulty? The XC and downhill trails are not marked, not on the trail and not on the map.

First ride up to the top: Khoa, Jeremy & JJ

We met up with two other friends when we got to the lifts. The other two guys decided to only join us for one day of riding… the wusses. j/k. 3 of us had never ridden the lifts before. 1 guy had but it was years ago and he spent most of that time on the now forbidden slopes. The last guy did the same lift-assisted riding last summer, so at least it wasn’t totally blind leading the blind. But still, we basically guessed wrong the whole morning.

A paragraph ago I mentioned that there were XC style & downhill trails? Well, all morning, except for maybe a short 1 mile section, we rode downhill style trails. “Rode” may be too generous a term here as you’ll see in the pictures below I did very little “riding” and lot more walking. And as always, the camera never makes the trails look as steep as they actually are.

Jeremy walking

Jeremy walking… some more

Jeremy walking… even more

OK, just so you know it wasn’t just me… Jeremy, Tim & JJ walking

Some random pictures:

Gotta love them lifts

The great thing about walking our bikes is that we get to see things we don’t normally see, like this caterpillar that Tim picked up. Tim nicknamed him the dinosaur caterpillar due to the horns and weird tail.

RL, you like the caterpillar?

Justin hitting the log jump

Justin, adding some flair to the jump

JJ, grinning like a mad man

Justin riding a log, no sweat

Redline Mono 9 & Trek 9.0 ready to hit the trails

Well utilized Honda Ridgeline

Part II, a HUGE lesson learned as things get much better.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Here at MtnBikeRiders.com, we’re big proponets for excellent customer service. Just recently we were impressed by Sugoi’s response to Cheong’s review of a rain jacket. Another company that just recently blew my socks away is Spinner USA.

A few months ago, Spinner USA hooked us up with a couple of forks. One was for the KHS AM2000 and the other was for me to test. The fork on the AM2000 has been working remarkably well. But the one I have, has had a few issues. For one, I lost air about 5 different times on my Cargo DH/FR fork. I swapped out the valve core to see if that would help. For the most part it did. But on a recent trip to Aliso Woods, my air leaked(left stanchion) and I may have blown a seal on the right stanchion…how do I know this, well I see some sort of oil slathered on the dust cap and on the stanchion itself.

Old fork with blown seal and no air.

So I emailed my favorite guy at Spinner, Steve Richey. He actually runs a great company called Promo Logic USA where he and his staff provide sales/service/marketing and support for companies like Spinner, Ice Toolz, Yaban Chain,Nokon, Rubena and many more.

I told Steve about the problems I’ve had with the fork. I knew this was a fluke because, the fork on the AM2000 has seen the same amount of abuse as the fork on my bike, but it hasn’t had any problems at all. So rather than trying to diagnose the problem over the email or phone, Steve opted to send me a new fork and a return label to have me send the old/broken fork back.

Within 4 days of that email, I came home to this…

I immediately installed the fork and rode it the next day through Aliso Woods. I had a great time and the new fork was flawless.

I think what I appreciate the most about Steve’s customer service skills, was the fact that he wanted to get to the bottom of the problem too. So rather than messing around, he just handled it like a professional and took care of me. You know, if he’s that attentive with me, can you imagine how well he’ll take care of you in the event you’ll need help?

Thanks again to Steve Richey of Promo Logic USA for taking care of the issue!

Popularity: 10% [?]