Vegas Bound....

I will be attending the Interbike tradeshow in beautiful, sunny Las Vegas from Tuesday to Saturday. I'll try to post to this blog with details of what's goin' down while we're out there. Hope everyone has a great week!

New Photos....Finally!!!!

So here you go. You can stop bugging the shit out of me to post some new photos. I didn't realize I had such a following. Shesh. Went out riding street with Tony Tyrant the other night. Here are some photos of what went down.


-curved wallride in the parking garage.


-Tony always 'inside icepicks' for the Lord.


-icepick with scary drop on the other side.


-some artsy shit right here yo!

By the by, if you're going to snag my photos for your website or your Myspace account, you'd BETTER give me a FUCKING BYLINE! I work damn hard at taking and working on these photos. If they're ending up in a place where other people are going to see them, I'd like other people to know who took them. I'd also appreciate you asking permission first. And maybe a link to this blog so interested parties can contact me if they want to contract me for work. Thanks. Enjoy!
PS- would anyone be interested in owning prints of any of the photos that they see here? I'm thinking of something like $20-$40 per print? Your choice of paper grade and size? Let me know if you'd be interested in something like this.
Ride Fast! Ride Hard!

FOM! WHOOOO HOOOOOO!!!!!

How do you know when you've finally arrived? When you make Jeff's Friend Of the Month award. Apparantly I swept the month of August in Jeff's book. Head here to check out the offical word. As a side note, I ride to work every day! I want to thank all the people who made this possible, my agent and the millions of fans worldwide! Thank you, goodnight!

Updates, Updates, Updates!!!

So here we are. I've got lots to fill you in on so heeeeere we go!
Ghettodrome Pt I
-I went down to Ghettodrome two weeks ago for the first time. A bunch of track and fixed riders find spaces to race each other around only turning left (just like a velodrome). Throw in the fact that we're sneaking into these places, generally aren't supposed to be there, and have to deal with things like broken glass, avoiding the Fuzz, and not being able to see really well at all times, and you have the ghetto part. We run races like they do on a track, Miss-and-Out (Devil-Take-The-Hindmost or Elimination), Match Sprints, Scratch, and Pursuit. Fun stuff. Everyone who races is super mellow and just great folks to hang out, ride and race with. This week in particular we snuck into a high school track and ran the races there. The track was amazing, super grippy and nice even turns. There was no lighting so it was pitch black, save for when cars were passing by and the red lights we wore on our backs to keep from rear-ending each other. Good times.

Hartford Hardcore Alleycat.
-Last Saturday I raced in the Hartford messenger race. Super fun again! There were 5 of us who wound up racing together as a team. Karp, Linden, Karp's buddy from work, and even The Fuse showed up to throw down! He swung by with his wife and new bundle of joy who seemed happy just taking in all of the strange looking dirtbags with bikes that surrounded him. The route had us going all over the Hartford area from the hospital in Blue Hills, to the eastern part on Service Road, to the Whethersfield/Hartford line. Good times riding fast through traffic with friends is what its all about. At the end, I threw down my $5 to get in on the trackstand action. Out of 7 I was the 4th one out. Was super pissed at myself cause I know I could definitely give everyone else a run for their money no handed but my legs were so burned (just like everyone else, I know) I lost it. The next alleycat is in New Haven on Devil's Night. My chance to redeem myself.

Ghettodrome Pt II
-This past Monday my buddy Pat accompanied me to check out the race scene with me. We raced around Ikea parking lot. Much different than the previous week's track. The turns were WAAAAAAY tighter than what the track was like. I wound up pedal scraping and having to turn wide on most of the turns. Definitely not the safest thing. Not being able to keep a line is death for anyone else trying to out pace and pass. On the last race, Pat and I were running a Match Sprint. Best 2 of 3. He took the first race and on the second race, serious injury just barely grazed past my being. On the second to last turn I saw Pat accelerating and I knew that I had to lay it all out to be able to go to the tie breaker. I pushed with all I had, took the turn too hard and pedal struck like a motherfucker! All I remember is sitting bolt upright, taking one foot out of the clip and turning off my thinking. My muscle memory totally took over my body and straightened by bike out and gave me control of the bike again, letting me swerve and miss the carrage return by mere feet. Upon reaching the finish line, I was greeted with 'Holy crap, you OK?' 'Nice save!' Needless to say, it was the closest I want to be to wrecking at full speed on my fixed. I don't know how I saved it. Must have had a guardian angel (or two) looking out for me that night. Shorter cranks have been ordered and will be a welcome addition to my fixed for racing. I don't think I'll be able to race this coming Monday due to the logisitics of the order, but I'm considering shooting some film and video of the races.
That's about it. If anyone is interested in racing their track bike on Mondays please let me know and I'll set a space aside in the car for you. Oh yeah! Tony Tyrant and I rode some street tonight. Go check out his blog to see some of the photos he took while we were out.
Ride Fast! Ride Hard!

Ghettodrome Results...

So the results from ghettodrome are in....I got my ass kicked! Hard! I'm blaming it on my gearing. I'm not geared nearly hard enough to keep up with everyone. I realized this about half way to the course as I fell to the back of the group. On this night in particular our race track was a local high school track. Pitch black. No lights. You could see about 2 feet in front of you. We all had to wear glowing red tail lights to avoid crashing into each other. The first race was elimination. The last rider across the line gets eliminated. You go as many laps as you have riders remaining. There were about seven of us racing. I was the second one to get eliminated. We ran a loser bracket with the first four to get eliminated racing. After assessing my last race, my strategy changed. I knew that I wouldn't be able to catch anyone out in front of me so I went out hard off the front. Got passed by one guy, caught up to him, passed him and then got caught in the last lap with about a 16th of a mile to go. Spinning my ass off, trying to choke the vomit back down. Shouldn't have eaten so close to a race. I guess second isn't so bad for my first time out. Then we raced a regular 3 lap deal. First one across won. I thought there were four of us and was so happy that I wasn't DFL. When I asked how many of us were racing I was pretty disappointed when the reply was 'three'. I'm definitely heading back there next week with a bigger gearing for more of an edge. 53x16....Next race report: Hartford Hardcore, this saturday @ 6pm.
Ride Fast! Ride Hard!

Sunday Evening Practice

So we got together tonight for our weekly practice session. Holy Crap! What an amazing experience! Definitely the strongest yet. We started off kinda shakey, but about 1/3'rd of the way through we tightened up. Two of the songs that we worked on previously have gotten MUCH stronger! There's still aways to go in terms of something finished to be considered 'recordable' quality (in my opinion). Not that songs of 'recordable quality' should be the benchmark of 'good' music, but you get my drift. After working on the two, Dave taught Sean and I guitar parts to a song that he's had 'burning' in his head for a bit. When we put it together, it was great! I always have a bit of trouble when learning new stuff on the spot. Especially when two parts are fitted together like puzzle pieces. My brain trys to listen exclusively to what the other part is doing, and I have to make a very conscious [sp?] effort to hear both parts together. When we were done exploring Dave's tune I was left noodling around with a progression that forced itself into my hands. I sometimes have moments where my hands move on their own and produce sounds from the guitar that I don't hear in my head first. I just have to go with it and see what happens. It's an amazing thing when I reflect on it. It's meditative to a point. I'm completely connected to the music that's happening at the moment. Once I realized that everyone was intently listening to what I was doing, I stiffened up and had to remind myself to breath again and relax. For whatever reason, I sometimes get caught off guard and lose the relaxed feel that I have when I play. Being in this relaxed state really allows me to keep my creative channel open. When I get stressed, I tend to lock into whatever feels safe because I get so afraid of making a mistake. Lately, I've been focusing of staying relaxed, not worrying about hitting wrong notes, making sure that I'm confident in what I'm playing. Every note I play is the correct one. A wise musician once told me that as long as you play every note like it's the 'right' one, there is no wrong note. Everything is coming together very quickly.

Ghettodrome....

Every monday night in Slew Haven, meet @ the green @ 7:30PM for Ghettodrome. Bunch of local track/fixed riders ride around and find empty parking lots to race each other in. Contact Devil's Gear for more info.

New Music

I'm wide awake, I'm restless, and I'm sick. So here I am! Tony T's been bugging the shit out of me to post something new here so here you go! I'm killing time til I get sleepy and can go back to bed so I've been surfing around some music sites as of late. Found this great band that's made up of former members of Grey Area among other bands, called The Arsons. Check 'em here. Good stuff.
Word em up!
PS-who's racing the Hartford Hardcore alleycat on 9/10/05? Be there motherfuckers! If you show up I promise to kick your ass in skids and trackstands! Suckas!