--5/4/08: Copenhagen, Denmark
I haven't been able to ride since my crash in Australia a few weeks ago but am leaving in a few hours for the supercross race in Copenhagen next weekend. The track design looks cool so I'm looking forward to it. Masa flew in from Japan earlier this week and tonight I half jokingly told him he should go to Copenhagen as well so he wasn't hanging out at my house all week while I was gone. We ended up looking up some flights curious to see what the prices would be for an international flight less then 12 hours before, and ended up booking him on the 7:51 AM flight from San Fran to Denmark. It was quite a hassle sorting it all out though, kept running into problem after problem. First off none of the websites had Japan listed as a country in the drop-down menu where you type your credit card info. So then I tried to pay with mine but by that time, half the websites with flights we found were gone and some wouldn't accept the cards at all. I called one of the websites help line and spent twenty minutes answering to a recorder until I was finally passed onto an operator who just continued to pass me on to others. I finally ended up with the person who can book flights over the phone but I couldn't understand him at all. What a joke those systems are. Masa got on the phone to his parents in Japan who called their travel agent to look into flights but didn't have any luck for a while. Finally we call Masa's mom back an hour later to tell her we booked a flight that flew out of San Francisco connecting in Seattle on the way to Copenhagen, Masa's mom laughed and said that she too had just booked a flight over in Japan but was on the same flight as me. A few hours of work and now Masa's on two different flights leaving for Copenhagen tomorrow. Thinking it would be easy to cancel the flight it wasn't, we clicked the icon saying we didn't want to pay the thirty extra money to have the option to cancel, thinking there wasn't enough time in just a few hours to cancel the flight anyways. So I had to hop back on the phone to another websites help line, found my way to their operators and after some time got the flight that we booked here in US canceled. Everything ended up working out and as I type this now the bags are being loaded up into the truck soon to leave for the airport. If there is internet at our hotel I will try to post some updates, later - JB
--4/27/08: Sea Otter Classic, Woodbridge, Echichens, Switzerland
I hurt my shoulder when I crashed during the quarter in Australia and haven't been able to ride since, but here are a few updates from the races over the last couple weekends.
Usually it rains every day two weeks leading up to the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, CA but this year it held off. I remember three years ago when they were building the 4cross track on the side of a hill the tractors kept sinking and had to be dug out. One of them sunk almost all the way down to the top railings on the tractor and they had to dig it out with another which ended up getting stuck as well. Big mess! The last two years they have replaced 4cross with an NBL State Qualifier which is good for the sport but takes a lot of excitement out of the event. People would line up along the whole course with bells and horns cheering for everyone in 4cross but the BMX track couldn't be in a better spot, right on the pits next to the bridge people have to walk over to get into the pits, and everyone walks past it like its not even there. My only guess is the track, looks lame every year. Everything is short, flat, and boring to watch. Build something that looks halfway interesting and people might come watch. In other Sea Otter news, South Africa's Greg Minnar dominated, he won both Dual Slalom and Downhill. Downhill went 1) Greg Minnar 2) Chris Kovarik 3) Justin Leov 4) Steve Peat 5) Nathan Rennie. Dual Slalom was 1) Greg Minnar 2) Steve Peat 3) Andrew Neethling 4) Kurt Voreis.
The NBL national in Woodbridge, VA was webcasted live on GO211.com this weekend so I watched a few of the races. Didn't see much but the track looked really good. Saturday Kris Fox took the win in A Pro followed by Matt Kelty and Gavin Lubbe. Gavin won Sunday followed by Logan Collins and Kris Fox. In Elite, Saturdays top three were Becerine, Robinson and Rogers. Sunday Stumpy won with Pohlkamp in second and dR in third. Lil Anthony DeRosa won on Sunday with a really good lap. Connor Fields killed it both days and Jordan Ryan beat Rusty Nesvig both days.
Rounds 9 and 10 of the European Championships were in Echichens, Switzerland this weekend. The European finals were on this track back in 2005 and from what I remember the track looks exactly the same. Saturday Maris Strombergs (LAT) took first, Sifiso Nhlapo (RSA) was in second around the whole track but bobbled a bit coming out of the second to last turn and was passed by Allier. On Sunday, Sifiso had a good first straight and beat Strombergs into the first turn from the outside. Strombergs was just holding his line behind Sifiso on the inside but slid out and ended up with an 8 for the day. Sundays main went 1) Nhlapo (RSA), 2) Prokop (CZE), 4) v/d Wildenberg (NED).
The South Africans were did pretty well over the last two weekends. Minnar stood atop the podium in both slalom and DH at Sea Otter, and Andrew Neethling finished third in slalom. In Woodbridge Gavin Lube finished 3rd and 1st in A Pro. and in Switzerland Sifiso finished with a 3rd and 1st in Elite. Not a bad couple weeks for them! Later - JB
--4/18/08: 4 Months Later
Finally updating. Have just been running into problem after problem with the computer and all. First deal was my computers hard drive crashed and I lost everything which was a bummer. Then I bought a new Mac and have always used a PC so didn't have the programs to run the website on here and didn't really want to buy them because they cost nearly $2,000, so I went a month trying to find someone who had them but didn't have any luck. So we ended up buying them and then I have been on the road at places that didn't have internet so when I finally could update there was no internet.
Anyways, quick update on what's been going on the last four months. Liam Phillips from the UK had been living with me for a while and Dean Holdstock from South Africa was at Gavin's house so we always had a good group to ride with and have a good time. Team China has been living here the whole time as well which has been interesting. They showed up on bikes with the biggest tires I have ever seen, some 2.225'' tires that were nearly twice as wide as the ones on my bike. Took them to the trails a few times and they rode these little jumps in the trees that the MTBers always ride and they took a few diggers, but always got back up dustin the full race gear off and charged it again.
Have had a few races in the last couple months as well. First was Madrid Supercross which was a lot of fun. Desoto for the USAC National Championships and then the Supercross race in Adelaide. I'm starting to really like supercross races. Just something different and the whole track is a pro section so its all just big jumps. Started qualifying pretty well too, top 10 in Madrid and then in both Spain and Adelaide had the fastest split times to the second turn but just made a few bobbles on the last half of the track which would cost me but was still pumped. The Sea Otter Classic is this weekend so all the MTBers are in town. The DeRosa's flew in and lil Ant is racing DH and Slalom so it will be cool watching him tear it up on a bike two times the size of himself! I'll have some more updates when the racing is over. Later - JB
--1/23/07: Black Jack
Liam and I drove down to San Diego yesterday and until then the longest drive I had done was 30 minutes. It didn’t seem too bad though, car pool lane helped out lots!
Today Liam, Nick Long, Joe Zurek, Matt Tischler and myself headed over to a casino on an Indian reserve where you only have to be 18 to play. While I was in South Africa I had some decent first timers luck winning 800 the first night, breaking even second, 400 third night, and 600 the last night all on roulette. I went to try my luck on it over here but didn’t like the style they played with the ball determining which of the three cards they pick and then the card being the final number or color. We all played 21 for about an hour and had some fun.
Leaving for the UCI race in AZ tomorrow but then driving back Friday afternoon after racing. Will be riding the track at the Olympic Training Center next week so will hopefully have some cool videos/pics to update. Here’s a pick from the trip to SA a few months ago, never seen a gate piston this big before! Later - JB
--1/20/07: New Bikes
Built up the new GT just before Reno and the road bike the day after. Both are pretty dialed in and feel great. I'm prety pumped on the road bike, its all carbon so it looks cool and feels really good. Here are a few pics. - JB
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--1/14/08: Reno
Back from Reno now and it was another rough weekend. With all the rain we haven’t been able to ride at all the last month so Fridays practice was spent trying to adjust to the bike again. Saturrday I took a digger first round in the last corner so started the day off with 8 points and the rest of it didn’t get much better. It always takes me a long time to fall asleep at home as well as races but for some reason Saturday night the last time I saw the clock was at 3:06. Woke up a few hours later, drank coffee for the first time and went through packs and packs of Powergels to keep me awake the rest of the day. Sundays racing went a bit better, won some motos but got 5 in the semi. Going down the second straight I was an nearly hitting Bubba the last half doing opposite lines and I was worried we were going to hit or land on each other but knew I wouldn’t be thrilled with myself afterwards if I backed out so kept going. He moved out and I landed on the side of the last double going into the turn, don’t know how I didn’t crash.
Denzel Stein turned A Pro this weekend and killed it, he’ll be AA soon. Liam Phillips also turned up and finished 3rd and 2nd. Danny C was looking good this weekend and won both days in AA. Over in Europe Strombergs won day 1 followed by Matisons and Sunday went to Prokop. Sebastian Kartfjord from Norway almost holeshotted the main the last day of racing which was good to see, check out the videos on www.bmx-videos.com.
Not much to update about, Liam’s at my house now and we leave to San Diego next week and will stay down there for a few weeks until Spain. Just going to be back training hard again. For any of you who want in on some elite training schedules you can check out a couple of the euro’s websites and they will fill you in on their daily schedules! Later - JB
--1/7/08: Website’s Back Up
My laptop’s hard drive took a crash a little over a month ago causing me to loose all the files I had saved from the past few years, so I was told. I was pretty bummed because this meant I lost all the photos and videos from the trips I took to Europe, Japan China, and South Africa this year as well as everything else from previous years, and I didn’t have it all backed up. I took my computer down to this store and the guy told me the hard drive was done and there was no way to retrieve the files from it but I could contact this company that can usually get them from burnt computers etc but it would cost me a couple thousand, passed on that one. I thought lesson very well learned, back up your filed regularly but I took it to another store to get one more opinion and she was able to pop in some disks and pull up the hard drive somehow and pull everything off, thanks Betty!
I bought a new laptop a few weeks after and ended up getting a MacBook Pro. I wasn’t a big fan at first having worked with a PC my whole life but now that I’m getting used to it it’s pretty sick and has some cool features to it. The only bad thing is the programs I need to update the site (Photoshop/Dreamweaver) make different disks for a Mac version so I had to shell out the money for those which wasn’t something I really wanted to do but had to be done.
Not a lot has been going on the last few months. ABA Grands was in late November and that went well, made the Pro Spectacular main and got 4th. X-Mas Classic was a month later and that was a rough weekend. I flew out Christmas day so I would be there in time for practice but my connecting flight was in Denver, last place you want to be flying through during the winter. Ended up not being able to fly to Columbus and was stuck there with a Christmas dinner of a Powerbar, some peanut butter cookie snack from a vending machine and a water bottle, was pumped on that! The race itself wasn’t the best, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. I set a new record for most unclips in one morning. After coming unclipped first round the second day of racing it was my 11th time of the morning, ridiculous. Chucked those pedals and cleats out and never had a problem with it again. That days racing went a little better, won a few laps and ended up 5th in the Semi so it was a nice change of pace with how the weekend had gone up until that day.
Dean Holdstock from South Africa moved in with Gavin a few weeks ago and it has been good having another person to ride and train with. Dean’s been good to train with the last few weeks and a cool dude to hang out with and with Liam Phillips flying in this Thursday we'll have a small but good group of riders everyday for the next year. I have started training with German Medina a few months ago and am really liking it. It was a lot different from what I have been doing the last few years with Ken but I am adjusting to it now and really liking it. I want to again say thanks to Ken Cools for all the help over the years, I definitely wouldn't be here without him and he has been a great friend. I am still young and hopefully have a long career ahead of me, and am looking forward to working with German from here on out.
The weather here has been crap, trees falling over left and right and blackouts everywhere. The power went out for an hour while I was a the gym one day but came on and has stayed on since. Gavin’s house hasn't been very lit up the past few days with his power being out since Friday and the electricity company is saying it wont't be on until Tuesday or Wednesday, bummer ha ha. We have been building a lot at the trails in Fort Ord near Monterey and have been getting a lot done. New bikes built up, both 20’’ and 24’’, and road bike is coming in this week. In the US the first ABA National is in Reno and the 3rd and 4th rounds of the Euro Rounds are in Zwolle, Netherlands this weekend. Will be posting up about everything coming up! Will post some picks up over the next few days. Later - JB
--11/16/07: Bought My First Truck
Christmas came early this year. Woke up at 7:30 this morning to go do some ABA gates with Gavin at his house so I wouldn't feel like a euro during practice trying to figure out the cadence at the ABA Grands and then did some DH sprints a few hours afterwards. When I got home there were 14 huge boxes from different people on our door step. Some of the GT Bikes came in for my little dude team, some Fly product (New Fly helmets are so nice), and a bunch of boxes of Powerbar products. I activated my credit card which I'm going to try to never use, and then when my dad got home I wanted to show my parents the trucks I liked down at the Toyota dealership, had no plans of buying anything and was expecting to be there for 10 minutes tops. 2 hours later we end up walking away with a Toyota Tundra! My cousin is the General Manager at the Toyota dealership and he knocked down the price a bit which helps a lot, thanks Pete! It's a pretty sick truck, has four doors but in the suicide style which I like because it keeps the size of the truck down, and has a retractable tonneau cover over the bed which is perfect because it will be easy to throw bikes in. Anyways Gavin and I both have another gym sesh tomorrow morning so I'm going to pass out. Here are a few pics of my truck, later - JB
--11/10/07: Masa Video lV
A couple years back Masa learned backflips into the foam pit at the Ogio warehouse in Salt Lake City, UT and decided he would give it a try at these little MTB trails. Things didn't quite go like he wanted though. The jump he tried it on had no lip, was really short, and he took AT LEAST 20 too many pedals up to it haha. Here are some pictures of the aftermath. I think this video could be on both Americas Funniest Home Videos and the MTV Show "Scarred". Check it out - JB
CLICK HERE to watch video
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--11/7/07: Masa Video lll
Here is a video from earlier this year in July about a month before worlds. Nick Long, Johnny Woodmansee, Masa, Nyhaug, DeRosa, and the Woodcocks from New Zealand were all at my house training up for worlds so we had a good group to ride and train with. The first bit of the video is of when some asian dude on a MTB told us we could make it to the top of the hill and we shouldn't have quit, we explained to him that we were doing uphill sprints and were just resting in between sets right there. He said something about sprinting on a bike and said he would challenge any of us to a race up the hill. Everyone kind of just laughed thinking he was just trying to be funny but he didn't laugh, dead serious wanted a race. Gavin and I took him up on it lol. Later on in the video Masa breaks his chain and then, just acts like Masa. Later - JB
CLICK HERE to watch video
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--11/5/07: Masa Video 2
Here's the second video of Masa. This one is of 13 year old Masa jumping the pro section during at moto at the 2003 ABA Grands. He almost made it lol.... - JB
CLICK HERE to watch video
--11/4/07: First of the Masa Videos
Some of you have seen bits and pieces of the footage I gave to bmx-videos.com but here is the whole video. My dad and I were brought over to China a week and a half early to work with the Chinese team and Masa came with us. I tried riding the first day after resting my hand a few weeks but it wasn't healed yet so I didn't ride anymore. Masa was the test pilot for everything but a few jumps needed some major changes to be jumpable, just no one knew it until after he did them. Check it out. Its about five minutes long so it may take a while to download but its worth it. Later - JB
CLICK HERE to watch Masa in China
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--11/3/07: ESPN Magazine
I made this months ESPN Magazine with Paul Pierce and the Celtics on the cover in the Relays section. Not much, just a few words but kind of cool. Anyways, posting those pics of Masa's Halloween got me thinking how much video footage I have of the kid. Some of you have probably seen his crash on the Beijing Supercross Track, but I have a few videos of him that make that crash look like it was nothing. One being his half back flip to over clear by twenty feet, and not exaggerating at all, he literally over cleared the jump by twenty feet when trying to do a back flip haha, he only rotated halfway though. Check back for those tomorrow or the day after. Later - JB
--11/2/07: Watsonville Trails
Here are a few pics of the trails over in Watsonville. Gavin and I checked them out today and rode for 5 hours non stop, good stuff. Hopefully going back tomorrow. Later - JB
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--10/31/07: Masa's 2005 American Halloween
Here are a few pics of Masa when he was over at my house two years ago. He had never been trick or treatin so he dressed up with a pair of oakley goggles and went roamin the streets with a grocery bag asking for candy... had the trick or treat smell my feet song down and everything! - JB
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--10/29/07: ABA Blow Out Nationals (Fall Nationals)
The blow out weekend has finally come to an end! Three days of racing waking up at 5:45 AM to go pedal at 7 wears you out a bit, especially with the ABA three main format. Racing went well though, it was my first AA Pro race and I made my first mains winning the semi and ending up fourth overall. The second days mains were rough though. In the second round a few pedals before the first jump it felt like I came unclipped but my my foot was still on the pedal moving around a lot. I just kept pedaling and going into the first turn Khalen and I tangled a bit so instead of blasting him I slid out. The whole bottom of my shoe was torn out and almost split into two. The third main I had to use Eric's clip shoes which felt good but weird because it was a lot stiffer and my pedal strokes felt different. I had a good gate but came unclipped so those three mains weren't the best. The two GT riders in the main, Mikey and I, pretty much killed it though pulling in the 7th and 8th with both of us crashing in the second main haha. Kyle Bennet is still on fire right now winning the first two days and second the last. Dale Holmes.com won every lap all three days in Vet Pro. Mariana Pajon made the trip up from Colombia and dominated the women's pro class winning almost every lap. Will be good racing between her and Post if she makes the move to the US next year. Buddys Logan Collins and Kris Fox both made the move up to A Pro this weekend which was fun to watch. Both of them are going to be killin it soon. Sergio Salazar was looking fast. I had never watched him very closely until this weekend but he has tons of skills and is really good around the track. Tory Nyhaug has been on it focusing on BMX and you can tell, he is pulling everyone down the first straight right now. Props to the ABA for putting on the event, I don't think anything went wrong this weekend. They know whats going on and get the job done every time. When racing was over everyone was beat and didn't feel like doing anything but passin out. I stayed with DB44, Khalen, and Logan Sunday night and then Logan and I had to wake up at 4:30 to take a taxi to the airport to catch our flights. ABA Grands is next in a few weeks, should be good. Here's a pic of my shoe. Later - JB
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--10/23/07: Leaving for Orlando, FL
I have been slacking big time on the updates but will be back on it from now on. I can't wait to leave for Orlando tomorrow morning to go race three days in the mud. It has rained everyday the last few weeks and looking at the weather now says its suppose to rain everyday this week as well. I will be rocking some Fly 805 shorts this weekend with knee pads because it feels a lot better not having the restriction of full MX pants. I have been wanting to try it out for a while now and decided this would be a good time to test them out. I rode with them tonight at the track and it felt so much better. Easy to make too, just take the normal pants and cut the bottoms off below the last logo. Time to change things up a bit. Looking forward to this weekend being over though, I won't be traveling anywhere for a month so will be good to spend some time at home to just ride, train and chill. I'm tired and going to bed now though so I can wake up and go back to sleep on the flight at 6 AM in a few hours. Later - JB
--10/21/07: UCI Boulder City
I grabbed a 6th in Elite Men in the first days racing and got balled up the following in qualifiers. Wasn't what I was looking for but was happy to get into the main and learned a lot from the weekend. My motos both days were stacked! I was in the group with one rider more than the others and every guy in it was quick. Robert DeWilde, Ramiro Marino, Danny Calaug, Derek Betcher, and Jimmy Brown, the 7 guy switched the two different days but the rest stayed the same for the second day.
The first day of racing was pretty rough during the motos. I slid out on the gate all three laps and would have to fight in the pack the whole lap making tons of mistakes. I made it into the quarter where it was me, DeWilde, Calaug, Marino, Becerine, and Pohlkamp. I had a good gate and went into the first turn second but Pohlkamp was in between Becerine and I on the inside so I tucked into Pohlkamp and came out in third. I'm still getting used to riding through the corners tucking in on guys like Pohlkamp but I'm starting to get used to it, was a bit scary the first few times though lol. My semi was stacked again, but then again every Elite semi will be stacked. Me, DeWilde, Becerine, Pohlkamp, Kolich, Betcher, Colombo, and Robinson. I had gate 7 but went into the first turn on the outside of Donny and came out and finished second. Was happy to be in the main but still had to race it and wanted to do well. I had gate 4 but my back tire decided to slide again causing me to get shoved off the back. A big ball up with four of us going down in the first turn and a 6th for the day. The second day sucked. It was really windy so they decided to close the pro section making us come out of the first turn and cut back towards the amateur section. No good coming out of the first turn on the outside with no where to go twice and having to practically stop to jump from the first pro lip into the am sections flat ground. Your ending up in the back of the pack after doing that and with a stacked moto your not coming back through that quick.
All in all it was a decent weekend. I learned a lot and that's what this next year will be all about, learning as much as I can while racing Elite. Looking forward to the next few races though. Here are the videos of the quarter/semi/main. Later - JB
--10/8/07: JB In Africa and finally home (Sun City, Vall, Flight Home)
Thursday we went to Sun City which is in Botswana and by far one of the coolest places I have ever been. For those of you who don't know, the 2010 UCI World Championships will be held in South Africa and if you are looking for a vacation spot afterwards there couldn't possibly be a better place then here. I can't get the pics we took from being there but CLICK HERE to go to the pics of it on Google. The place is insane!
Friday we went to the Vaal which is a huge dam/lake with a few of the SA BMXers. Gavin, Wayne, and I drove down with Kane to meet up with the Dodds and stay at their lake house. It was raining off and on with the temperature being a little low and the water freeeeeeeezing. They were going to teach me to water ski but because it kept raining we couldn't. I didn't want to waste the opportunity of being on a lake in Africa so Gavin and I hopped on the tube for a while. As soon as you jumped in the water your body went numb. I had never been in water that cold. We stayed the night and rode 50s the next day which was a lot of fun. They had a clutch which I had never used before and to shift up you had to push down but I got the hang of it and was killin it. Good times good times. Here's a few pics from the day. Check out the last of the four pics. Gavin takin a digger on the tube. Later - JB
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--10/1/07: JB In Africa Days 7-8 (Stumpy Flys Home)
Today was a pretty chill day, not a whole lot going on. Randy and I went to the gym in the afternoon while Gavin visited some of his family then Stumpy flew out mid-afternoon. Later that night Dean, Michael, Paulo and some of his friends came over to the place we were staying and then went out that night and hit up the casino towards the end again. Didn't loose but didn't win either so its not good but not bad. Just played pretty slow tonight, wasn't really feeling it and was just laughin at everyone else. Wednesday was another chill day, Gavin and I were both beat from being so busy the last week so we tried to sleep in a bit but woke up early on our own and couldn't go back to sleep. The rest of the day we didn't do a whole lot, Dean came over and the three of us went and did a few sprints. Tomorrow we are leaving for Sun City which is some huge resort with everything and anything so should be sick. Here are some pics of Stumpy's stay here in South Africa.. Later - JB
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--9/31/07: JB In Africa Day 6 (Tour of Soweto)
Today Fanni (The dude who owns the place we are stayin at 
) took us on a tour of Soweto, which is the section of Johannesburg where the colored people were forced to live during the apartheid was going on in South Africa. You always see the less fortunate families on TV in Africa but you don't realize what its like and how bad it really is until you see it in person. It was honestly life changing stuff we all saw and a good experience. They told us this would be like Beverly Hills compared to how families live in other countries in Africa and I couldn't imagine even staying here for a day. We drove around and listened to Fanni talk and then went to a few museums, Nelson Mandela's house, and then Wandees which was the first restaurant business to be established in Soweto a long time ago. Wandee himself popped in and we got to talk to him for a bit. Definitely pumped I had a chance to see all of that though, here are a few pics from the day. Later - JB
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--9/30/07: JB In Africa Day 5 (South African National Championships)
Today was the South African National Championships. Their format today was semi normal so I was looking forward to racing it. The motos still counted as mains but at least we only had one race to do instead of 2. The motos were split up well, all of us were in different motos apart from Gavin and I being in the same moto. Going into the main Randy, Sifiso and I had won all of our motos so it would all come down to the main. I had a good gate and got into my spin well and was going up to the first jump a little ahead but his the little kink on the lip that's in the middle of the track. It didn't mess me up just threw me a little higher so I got squeezed by Randy and Sifiso after that. It was single file until the last two straights were I made the same move as the day before. Randy passed Sifiso on the fourth straight and then I passed them both in the fourth turn. Sifiso high lowed Randy and then came on the inside of me in the last turn a little but only had enough to bump me in the back a little. It ended up me in first, Sifiso in second and Randy in third. I was kind of pumped to win that with that being my first Elite win and making it to where I have won a UCI race on every continent apart from Antarctica.
After racing before the award ceremonies I handed over all the product to the development riders and threw the small items out to the kids. It got pretty hectic though. The kids were doing their normal jumping to catch the product and playin tug-a-war with a few things but one of the moms got pretty butt hurt. She came running over yelling for everything to stop because kids were getting pushed around and I didn't hear it but everyone else said she also said nothing was being thrown their way. I didn't want to be rude so looked to the officials and people who run SA BMX to see what I should do. They told the lady to beat it and continue on with what I was doing haha. I was glad I could help the riders out and am looking forward to going down there again soon if possible.
On our way back to the place we were staying Wayne took Gavin and I through Reiger Park, which is one of the bad ghettos in Johannesburg. It was pretty scary going through there. It was a couple little neighborhoods away from the city and each street had 50-60 people standing on the sidewalks and everyone of them just stared at you as you drove past. I had never seen Gavin scared before but when I saw him locking all the doors and grabbing one of Wayne's crutches I was kinda worried myself. All of us were glad to get out of there though lol. Later that night we went to go-karts which was a waste of time. We couldn't go a race without one of the carts breaking down but had fun because probably 15 people went. I got kicked out in one of the last races which I was kind of mad about because I didn't mean to do what I got kicked out for but oh well. After that a few of us went to this big Casino nearby. In the US you have to be 21 to gamble and there's no way you are getting away with it if you are underage. Here you are suppose to be 18 but they don't care if you are 18 or not. This was my first time gambling at a casino so I was just trying to be safe, set 200 aside in my pocket to use and sent the rest back so I wouldn't loose my money. I played roulette all night and walked away with 800, not bad for my first time hey haha. Here are a few pics from the day. Later - JB
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--9/29/07: JB In Africa Day 4 (First Day of Racing)
Saturday was the last two rounds of the South African National series. This morning when I woke up, before I had even moved, my legs felt were feeling yesterdays training. All of us were beat so today's two nationals in 3 hours was going to be rough. They run nationals waaaaay different here then anywhere else. All motos count just the same as a main, so you have to win every lap if you want a shot at the overall. They don't really have an actual main, just three mains, a semi, and then another main. Weird, but their reason makes since trying to get everyone to go fast every lap instead of rolling. That definitely wouldn't work in the US. To make it even more confusing they run a second national an hour after the first one comes to an end, combining the second race with the first to come up with a winner from the day, so you actually end up having 8 mains. In the main Sifiso had the inside and came out of the first turn out front. I came out behind him with Randy in third. Coming out of the third corner I got too close to Sifiso's back tire and kind of leaned into it thinking I was going to hit it and missed a few pedals. Randy came by on the outside so I was two bikes behind going into the fourth corner but it was really flat and I dove in on the inside and passed both Sifiso and Randy. Randy high lowed us both and went into the last corner ahead of us but I went underneath him and came out of the last turn in first. When I went to pedal my foot got stuck in his front wheel and he said one of his spokes were ripped out, that kind of balled us up and then we had to ride through the soft spot on the outside and this allowed Sifiso to go back by. During the break I threw out all of the GT stickers and the Fly beach balls and frisbees which everyone went crazy over. When racing was over we didn't do much but eat. Randy was tired so we dropped him off at the place we were staying and he went to sleep really early. Here are a few pics from the day. I will post pics tomorrow if I can. We just got back from the lake today and are leaving for the casino now so I will try to get it all up tomorrow morning. Todays pick is of me getting my foot out to go from third to first in the flat turn. Later - JB
--9/27/07: JB In Africa Day 2 (Kicked By A Giraffe And Bitten By A Lion)
Everyone woke up early this morning. Gavin was up around four, I was up around 6 and Randy was woken up at 8. The breakfast here is pretty cool, the day before you check off what you want on these lists 
and tell them what time you want to wake up and then eat, and everything is taken care of. You are woken up and then by the time you get downstairs they are walking out with your food. After breakfast we left for a Safari Park which was really cool. We pulled into the entrance and were cut off by a giraffe that was walking by in the road. We opened up the door to the van and it was popping its head inside just hangin out. We took a bunch of pictures with it and it was really chill and didn't care. I went to take a picture with it and it kicked me. Not hard just nudged me away haha. We walked around there for a while then took a drive through the fields were all the animals were. It was cool seeing all of them in the wild. When we were done with the safari drive we were planned to go play with a few lion cubs but it was too muddy to go in the big section so we had to go to these two other ones that were next to one of the buildings. They were like little puppies, we think they were just wanting to play but it was still scary when they would snap at you because it's, a lion. Before we left everyone went to buy a few items at the gift shop but after Randy bought his and I was next in line the facilities power went out so we left with nothing.
On the way back to our guest house we stopped at a stand on the side of the road for some food and then one of the local tracks. Check out the pics from it, the first double is insane! Today was our first full day in Africa and it was a lot of fun. I can now say that I have been kicked by a giraffe and bitten by a lion and wont be telling a lie! Those aren't normally on a persons lists of things they have done so I'm kind of pumped on that haha. Here are a few pics from the day. - JB
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--9/26/07: JB In Africa Day 1 (Flew In Today)
We flew into Johannesburg, South Africa today in the afternoon and were picked up at the airport by the Gerbers. I was kind of expecting to fly in and see a bunch of fields with people walking around with water buckets on their heads and little huts for houses but Johannesburg is just a normal city, you could probably compare it to a nice city in South America. The building we are staying in is really nice. It used to be a big house but now they have turned it into a guest house/hotel for people to stay in. Today we didn't really do a whole lot, all of us were pretty beat so we went to dinner and then passed out early. Here are a few pics from when we were picked up at the airport and then at dinner. Later - JB
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--9/24/07: Leaving for South Africa Tomorrow Morning
Gavin and I are flying to Johannesburg, South Africa tomorrow morning for the South African National Championships and to do a few clinics for the "less fortunate" riders down there. Lots of people there don't have enough money to afford bikes and ride on bikes with no pedals, just a bar sticking out of the crank, no tires, parts fallin off, no shoes, etc. A lot of my sponsors sent me tons of stuff to bring and GT sent a lot including a bike down to SA for me to give away. I am really looking forward to helping some of those kids out and seeing everything in SA. We are staying for almost two weeks and will be staying on a huge Safari Game Resort that's suppose to be over 100 square miles with thousands of every animal. Gavin says it is unlikely but you have to check every time you go out into the front yard because a lion or something could be near by so you aren't suppose to go walk around by yourself. Should be cool seeing all of those in person, especially when they're wild. We will take a few tours to see everything up close and I will take a lot of pics and video to post up on my site and GT Bicycles' website everyday. Here is a pic of Yvan, Gavin and I at the mall today and then one of the extra suit cases I am having to bring that is over filled with only product to give away. I have probably this much more spread throughout my bike bag and clothing bag too, will be good. Check back everyday during the next few weeks to see what's up in South Africa! Later - JB
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--9/23/07: Random Dude Jumps Supercross First Straight
I guess these two guys who were at the dew tour to watch the event snuck onto the track with their bikes and tried to jump the third straight a couple times and just kept casing and casing. When they went up to the starting hill they met DB and Young who told them the first straight was easy and they could easily do it. Anders, Sifiso and Sebastian were up there video taping them the whole time so we have it all on video. The first guy said no and rolled down to the side. The other guy wasn't going to do it but Khalen told him all he had to do was take two pedals and he had it. The guy said no again and then changed his mind and said alright, and took off. He took two pedals and somehow made it down the first straight without crashing. Just some random guy who doesn't even compete made it down the hill and over the first two jumps....................... in a t-shirt, shorts, flat pedals, no helmet, pegs, and no breaks! He didn't really have a choice after he took those two pedals haha. Here is the video of him boostin it up. To watch it go to my GO211.com Profile by CLICKING HERE. Then videos. - JB
--9/22/07: Dew Tour Results
Round three of the UCI Supercross has come to an end, but never really started. Racing was candled due to rain so they ended up using the time trials as the finishes. It gives the guys who qualify well a little break but it isn't racing. Qualifying was all so close, 10-45 were all within about two bike lengths at the finish line, which isn't much at all. It started raining again when motos started and by the time the sixth moto of the first round went, which was mine, the hill was slippppppery. I came out and got my second pedal around good but after that every downward pedal motion my back tire just spun and went no where. Jason Rogers was to my left and he said when he hit the bottom of the hill his back tire slid and shot him to the right. My front tire buzzed his pants in the air and I thought I was for sure going to die. I landed and had to skid to keep from falling over his back tire and then turned right to stop thinking no one else was over there but Michael Robinson came from the inside to outside behind everyone and had to jump off the track, and his bike to keep from hitting me. His crash was pretty bad, I stopped in the last turn after getting back on it incase people crashed and he was alright, not sure how though. They didn't even run motos seven or eight, just candled it right there. Not too much more to update from racing, nothing really happened apart from 45 minutes of practice which was really windy and hardly anyone would go down the hill in it.
Here are some pics from the ogio party the other night and the first days trip to the track. - JB
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--9/19/07: Flew into Salt Lake City, Utah for UCI Supercross/Dew Tour
Yvan and I left the Monterey airport for Salt Lake this morning at 6 AM, over it. At least the flight was from Monterey and not San Jose so we didn't have to wake up as early. The Monterey airport is probably the easiest to get in and out of, takes 2 minutes to drive there, 5 minutes to check in, and no time at all to get through security. Stumpy and Eric flew in the same time as us so we went and grabbed a bite to eat and then checked the track out. Tom and Johan weren't thrilled to find out the Dutch team had supposedly sneaked onto the track and were riding it. The UCI is going to come out with a new rule where if just one rider is caught on the track when they aren't allowed, everyone single person from that country will be disqualified. That should keep people from riding the track when they aren't suppose to, pretty harsh rule haha. This afternoon was pretty chill, didn't do anything but go on a ride through the city. Tonight we are going to the Ogio party so I will post some pics from it afterwards. Later - JB
Pictures are from the airport. I have always called Donny Donald and Donard just as joke but for some reason forgot over the years that his real name actually is Donald. I pulled his bike bag off the belt thinking it was mine and read the name Robinson/Donald and started busting up laughing and took a picture of the tag for some reason. Second pic is of Randy and his sweet jeans
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--9/19/07: Pics from Canada
Here are a few pics from this past weekend in Canada. - JB
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--9/18/07: Ridge Meadows UCI Update
They ran the Elites only Saturday night after amateur racing and took no break at all in between motos. They told us during practice they would have thirty minutes from the last moto of each round to the first moto of the next, but ended up not even taking a minute. We were riding out to the parking lot for a short recovery ride when we look over and the girls are back on the track and had to run back up.
First round I had a decent first straight and went into the first turn in first but on the outside of Pohlkamp. I came out behind him and going into the last turn got squirl next to Pat and Mike Day and then ended up hitting someone's back tire and crashed. My breaks were rubbing really bad but didn't have time to fix them so I just loosend the tension up as much as possible which did nothing except make my breaks not work at all, still rubbed just as much, wouldn't spin more then 4 inches before coming to a complete stop. I couldn't feel it that much around the track though, made the gear feel a bit harder but not too bad, just had to be careful manualing because I didn't have breaks. Pohlkamp won that moto again, I got second, Mikey got third, and I think Lapraz got fourth. Third round I had high points so had to get a low finish. I won the moto but was beat afterwards. When I was riding out in the parking lot my leg cramped up really bad. I had never had a cramp before so didn't really know what to do, just tried to shake my leg out. I was laying down when I was doing this and when I stood up I threw up a whole bag of Uncle Bens rice haha. That went on for a few minutes but then I had to wipe it off and run up for my semi which was on the gate. I felt ok, thought all the stuff was out of my system, but when I stood up on the gate I started to feel a little queasy again. As soon as the last word in the cadence went off I started to throw up but held it back. I went to pull for my second pedal and it just came out. It wasn't much though, just went on my helmet and chin, which really sucked actually, wasn't sure if I should have kept pedaling or just stopped. I ended up trying to keep going and was in 5 down the second straight behind Brown and Day. The turns were really sandy and I slid out but put my foot down to catch it, everyone but Meadows went by so we didn't qualify out. The main was crazy, Bennet had 5 bikes by the second turn, even bump jumped the double on the second straight. Sammy Cools won Elite Women, Doug Hayes won Junior Men, and Tory Nyhaug won his class earlier on in the day. All in all the weekend went alright, my first straight felt a little better then at Grands, wasn't thrilled with the results but felt better with how I was riding. Now its back to training for... 2 days and then leave for the UCI Supercross Round # 3 in Salt Lake City this weekend. Should be fun. Later - JB
--9/15/07: Left for Ridge Meadows UCI Round
Flew into Vancouver last night for the third UCI Olympic Round in North America. I am staying at the Nyhaugs house because it is really close and they have a FULL house. I think there's about eight of us plus the four Nyhaugs. There's a lot of room though so its fine, you don't even notice all the people here.
Practice was today and I felt pretty good. I am pumped to ride everyday now after being off my bike for a month so it gives me a little more motivation and adds more fun to it. All the top Americans are here so it will be a good race. The tracks going to be really shady though, loooose turns, rocks everywhere, and Canadian Cycling officials.
Last time we were in Canada for a UCI round last year the officials were HORRIBLE. They knew nothing of BMX because they were a bunch of roadies and all they did was follow you around with a TWO YEAR OLD UCI rule book and read everything off to you. Just walking up to the gate for my first lap of practice the dude stopped me and told me everything that was wrong. He told me I couldn't practice with my ipod because someone might be transmitting messages to me. Yea dude, I want to win practice that bad?haha... gotta cut that 5 year old going into the last turn to be the practice champ! The rest of the weekend was stuff like that, the worst part was they had an old rule book so the stuff they were telling us wasn't right. They must of had study time with their rule book flash cards because they knew every rule right off the top of their head! Afro Bob and I were fans and couldn't put up with them. They literally followed you around flipping through the rule book reading it all off to you. BMX isn't a "follow the rules" kind of sport though, they are more or less guidelines for most stuff. We can go to a UCI World Cup or even the UCI World Championships and they don't care if you ride with an ipod or any of the stuff they were goin on about. Khalen Young was so over it he left Sunday and went whale watching haha. I got DQed all three rounds because people complained it was too windy to jump the pro section so they closed it, and I didn't want to practice the AM section because we weren't going to be racing on it at worlds so I kept bunny hopping over the cones to jump the pro jumps haha. The Sunday race was just a Canadian national or something so it didn't matter to us, we were just there to get time in on the track.
Lets see how they are this weekend, I will update throughout the weekend and try to get some video of the rule book guys. Just today during practice they were a pain about the plates, made some people spray paint their background yellow saying elites have to run yellow plates when they don't We run white plates now, yellow was two years ago haha, great, here we go again!
Later - JB
--9/9/07: Joey Bradford at Day 2 of the ASR Convention
We got home pretty late last night so I wasn't looking forward to the early wake up call. Luckily, Alise Post was with us and she had to shower and get ready, which takes quite some time, so Yvan and I got to sleep in for an extra hour and a half waiting for her.
The first few hours of the show were relaxing, not a whole lot going on just everyone hanging out and walking around everyonce in a while. Brian, who is the president of Double B Enterprises (Big Black company from MTV's Rob and Big) gave me most of the sample shoes they had there. I felt pretty lucky getting those though because I am the only other person besides Big Black and his buddy Bam Bam with the BB Shoes. Bam congradulated me on being the first person under 400 pounds to wear shoes so I was stoked haha. All of their friends were there which was laughs, guys are hilarious. After hanging out in the GO211 room for a while we all went down to this creative skateboards booth where Big got to make his own custom skateboard. They were definitly puttin him to work though, having to saw out the wood, sand it, paint it, which all took a long time.
The Big Black party started at 4:30 and everybody and their grandma came to check it out. Go211.com was the other half of the party and had a dunk tank for a few people to go in. Alise was the first one to get up on it. I was the first person in line and got her in right away! I didn't want to keep doing it so I stood up on a chair and yelled to everyone I would sponsor the first 10 people in line by paying for them to give it a go. Everyone rushed over and went for it. The target was messed up though, sometimes they would hit it perfect and it wouldn't do anything, and other times no one would even be throwing anything and she would be falling in. The party was cool and we met a few more people. When everything came to an end we went to dinner at one of the best restaurants I have ever been to. I forget the name of it but it had the name Chris in it and was a steakhouse. We had a pretty good group with us, it was Will, Alise, Yvan, Chris from www.GO211.COM, Brian from Double B Enterprises, and Yusef from en fuego industries. Here are some pics from the weekend! Later - JB
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--9/7/07: Day 1 of the ASR Convention
Today was the first day of the ASR Convention and it was a blast. It is the same thing as Inter-Bike but for companies like Volcom, Quicksilver, Etnies, etc. Yvan, Will, and I had to be there early to help with some stuff so we were up early to get there in time. After the first thirty minutes of us being there things slowed down so Yvan and I went to check out the scene downstairs. Wow, this place makes Inter-Bike look horrible! There were so many hot chicks here, definitely made the long day not seem so bad!
We met a lot of cool people today like the guy who organized the first few x-games and got snow boardercross into the olympics. We talked to him for a while and it was cool to hear the stuff he went through for that and what else he does. Big Black is coming in tomorrow but the owner of his company and partner was here with all of their product. He was a cool guy and it looks like I am going to be Big Black's first ever and only sponsored athlete. They have some nice shoes coming out and they felt really comfortable. A lot of shoe company these days make shoes that are way to big and really wide which I'm not a fan of, but the BB shoes are perfect.
After the convention was over Yvan, Alise, Will, Chris from GO211.com and I walked over to the Standard Films Snowboard movie premier and following that up was the Bra Boys surf movie premier. Both of those were really good but it was hard to stay awake through the last one because I was so tired for some reason. We met a few more people there like Crisitan Hosoi, talked with him for a bit. I didn't really know who he was but I hear he and Tony Hawk were the ones who mate skate boarding what it is today. Will said he is a legend we are just too young to know about them. Tomorrow is when Big Black will be rolling in for the party and Alise will be sittin on the seat above the dunk tank. Yvan and I will be in line for that one a few times! Check back for another update tomorrow. Later - JB
--9/6/07: Flew into SD today to check out the ASR Convention Set Up
Today I flew into San Diego with my buddy Yvan Lapraz from Switzerland for the ASR convention. We came in a day early to check everything out before people started showing up and it was cool to see the booths these guys have. I wouldn't mind living in some of these things! haha. All the major companies are here to launch their next years product line so it will be cool getting a little sneak peak. GO211.com is doing the lounge for everyone to come and chill out and Big Black from MTV's Rob and Big will be here the whole weekend with us along with guys like Bucky Lasek, Andy McDonald, Ryan Sheckler, Damien and Cj Hobgood, Shaun Palmer, Ross Powers, Tony Hawk and a few others so it will be cool hangin out with those guys. Mike Rogers and Chris Conway from Grind For Life were there and they both seemed like cool guys. They have a really great fund going and have raised a ton of money already. Cool stuff. After we left the convention we hit up the local Chipotle and I was pretty pumped on that. Have only had it twice since I have been home from China which is a bummer. The rest of the night we just hung out at Will's house. I had to do uphill sprints today so did them up a driveway near his house in the dark. It was a bit scary sprinting up a black road at night time with trees all along the side and you can't see where you are going. Just have to hope you're going straight! I will update after tomorrow party so check back for that. Later - JB
--9/5/07: ASR Show in San Diego
I am heading out to San Diego tomorrow afternoon to hit up the ASR show. GO211.com is co-sponsoring one of the parties with Big from MTB's Rob and Big and it all benefits grindforlife.org - career research charity started by skaters. Alise and I will be there for that Friday/Saturday and then Yvan and I fly home Sunday morning. Thursday and Friday I will be working on finishing up my new website. It wont be my personal website but something else I have been working on for about six months now so be on the look out for it! I will let everyone know when its up and hopefully it goes well. I will have updates from the weekend. - JB
--9/4/07: News from BMXSA.co.za
"Title: Its official ... Joey Bradford will race at the Grands - BMXSA Commission
With rumores flying www.bmxsa.co.za has the scoop, it has now been confirmed the air tickets booked, Joey is on his way to South Africa. We also have it on very good authority that he will be joined by another top American rider, keep an eye on the news to see when this has been confirmed."
For the full report, check out www.BMXSA.co.za . Cant wait! - JB
-- 9/2/07: NBL Grands
The NBL Grands were this weekend and it was another rough weekend for me. I went for x-rays the day before I left and the doctor said I should be able to ride with out any pain. The break is about 90% healed up, the calcium is surrounding and filling up the crack now so it only has a very small fracture. I was able to ride without any pain at all so I was glad to be back on my bike after a month off it. During practice I felt decent, my first straight felt really weak but I thought it was just because I hadn't don't anything for a while and would loosen up a bit. My timing over all the jumps felt really off, it felt like I was always picking up to early or to late, pushing down to early or too late and was missing pedals everywhere. Race time came around and I was really frustrated with the way I was riding. I had gate six first round and Stumpy was in seven. He got his cut off on down the first straight which is something you just have to get used to if you don't get into your spin good sometimes. I worked my way up to fourth so it wasn't too bad. Second round I came unclipped and couldn't really pass anyone, I made a good move in the second turn high-lowing Tyler Brown and then coming out near Castro. I got balled up over the last jump of the pro set and it shot me kind of high going into the last turn. Tyler passed me in the turn but then I got back by him down the last straight. There has to be something wrong with the transponders they are always using now. In Beijing I was watching all of the qualifying times and one that was really noticeable was Martin's time. She was going over the step up on the last straight when her timer went off giving her a 2.5 second faster time. The crowd was doing their usual cheer for everyone and even they all noticed because it went dead silent. In my second round in the UCI race at grands I swear I had a wheel on Tyler at the line but the transponder said he had 4. Oh well, didn't really matter because I had a bad lap third round and wouldn't have qualified out anyways. The next day was the NBL Grands. Practice started off with me feeling even worse then the day before and motos went horrible. In my first round I went into the first turn in first ahead of Fausto Endara and Logan Collins and three quarters of the way through my bike went flying. It must have caught an edge and my back wheel went way sideways, everyone said my front wheel and handle bars were at 90 degrees, both feet came out, my hand came off, not sure how I saved that one. I dropped back to last and somehow managed to jump the rest of that straight and the pro set. Write me down for a last place that round. Second round I'm not sure what I was doing but finished last again. I went into the third round with the highest amount of points and came out second. Ended up tieing the person to qualify out but I had the lower finish third round so made it out. I had been a mental wreck all weekend long up until the main. I think it just had a lot to do with me not being able to ride or train like I usually am so it was hard to be confident and I kept second guessing myself and just didn't want to be there. I went off by myself to warm up for a while with my ipod before main time trying to get my head on straight. In the main I had a good gate and went into the first turn a few bikes ahead. I messed up on the table out of the first corner flat landing it and then Logan Colling overmanualed the step into the second turn causing him to shoot straight up the turn. We hit and then my foot got stuck in his front wheel and we went down. Kris Fox said he blasted my back at full speed, which caused me to roll forward, then he said he hit me like three more times before he fell over. Fausto said he hit me too and then another kid told me he ran me over but kept riding. I was pumped to be wearing elbow and knee pads for the first time that day though. As soon as I got up I smiled and held up my arms looking at my ripped jersey with torn up plastic elbow pads and scratched all down my shin pads. Asphalt corners still hurt though, my back was covered from shoulder all the way down on my right side. No one was hurt too bad so it was ok. I still came away with the National # 1 Junior Men's US Title so it wasn't a waste of a trip, just not a very good one. I had a good time watching the amateur racing on Sunday though. Little Anthony DeRosa killed it, rode two perfect laps in cruiser and class doubling up for the fourth year in a row. My little buddy Ricky Castro who has been riding on my team for a while turned expert and took home the 6 Expert National # 1 title, good job Ricky! Little Chloe Merced, the newest member on the JoeyBradford.com/GT Bicycles Team and Robbie's sister stared racing this year and has been killing it as well. She is going to be a good racer, has a lot of heart and determination. She was racing the 5 and under boys class and came from 10 bikes behind to pass the guy down the last straight.
Gavin Lube tore himself up in the UCI race on Friday. Logan went under him in the first turn then slid out causing Gavin to flip over him. Gavins handle bar with no bar end sliced his goodies and had to go into surgery that night and can't ride for at least a month. He can't even walk right now so that's a bummer. Anyways, here are a few pics from the weekend. Yvan Lapraz crashed with a few other people in the UCI race Friday and it was one of the worst I have ever seen. People fell in front of him and he clipped the bike just at the top of the lip causing him to flip the bars at the top of the lip. He went flying over the whole thing still clipped in with his bike straight up and back, body flat, hands straight out waving like he was trying to fly. He landed on the soft dirt so it didn't hurt him too bad. He got up and ran to his bike right away and still finished fourth, crazy stuff. - JB
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-- 8/25/07: Finally Home from Asia
I left Tokyo at 4:55 PM today on a Friday and flew into Monterey are stopping in LAX at 2:30 PM. Last year I left Japan on October 10, which is my birthday, and got home on October 9, so I got to celebrate my 17 B-Day twice lol. I am glad to be home but it is always fun going to the different races around the world. Yvan Lapras has been at my house for a few days hangin out with my parents. I guess I forgot to tell him I was going to Japan after China so he flew straight from China to my house. I go to the doctors in a few days to take x-rays for the third time to see if my hand/wrist is healed yet. Hopefully it is at least getting close and I will be able to ride at the Grands next week. It's hard not touching your bike or doing any training for a month. Here are a few pics from my last day in Japan. I would like to say THANKS!! to the Sampei family for taking such good care of us. - JB
-- 8/20/07: JB in China going to Japan again
Masa and I woke up at 5 AM this morning to take the bus to the airport to fly back to Japan. I was just there ten days ago and was looking forward to adding a few more stamps to my passport. When you fly into Japan they put this sticker that takes up a quarter of the page that has a ton of Jap writing on it which looks pretty cool. This was my fourth time going there so its starting to fill up. The flight went alright and we didn't get charged a thousand dollars for our bags this time which is never a bad thing. Everyone thought it was really hot in China but I didn't think it was that bad after being in Japan. In China it was around 33-36 degrees Celsius with a lot of humidity which yes, is hot, but in Japan it has was 40+ degrees celsius with 100 percent humidity which is over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. You walk off the plane into the bridge that takes you to the terminal and a wave of heat blast you and you just instantly start sweating. The next few days will be pretty relaxing. Wont be much going on here, just hangin out and will probably grab a few last minute gifts for people from Japan. - JB
-- 8/18/07: JB in China Days 7-9 (Practice, Qualifying, Racing)
The race schedule for this event was very different from how they normally run it. Practice is usually ran Friday followed by racing Saturday and Sunday but for the Beijing Supercross they ran practice Sunday, qualifying Monday, and raced on Tuesday. I skipped the race in Japan the week before trying to let my hand heal in time for Beijing but it still wasn't ready yet. I rode the track coaching the Chinese Team Tuesday/Wednesday the week before and it felt alright, I know I could have raced without a whole lot of pain. With so many races coming up in the next few months I had to look at it like this though, I could either race that race and miss the next five, or miss that race and race the next five. I thought it would be best to just let it heal that way the injury doesn't linger on with the possibility of having to have surgery.
USA qualified one, two, three. Mike Day (GT Bicycles) had the top slot followed by Bennet and Cisar. In racing you could tell the Dutch were used to the random start gate coming out almost or even more than a bike ahead of everyone a few times. Everyone said they thought it would be easy to adjust to it at the race but at the end of the weekend they still didn't have it down. None of the top three qualifiers made the main and the loan American took the win. Donny was the only American to make this main this weekend and came away with the big trophy. Congrats Donald! - JB
-- 8/16/07: JB in China Day 6 (Sports Illustrated China)
Stephanie had set up a meeting for me with SI China and today we did a photo shoot and interview with them. They came to our hotel to pick my dad and I up and then drove us to a park to shoot some photos. We had some fun with that and the two people were really cool. After we had enough photos they took us to a restaurant for lunch and it was by far the spiciest food I have ever had. It tasted great but Masa and I were sweatin' buckets. My dad tried using chop sticks for a couple minutes and managed to pick up a few noodles haha. He was over it so he went to find a fork and knife and was able to eat once he got those. The food was really good but you just had to watch what you were eating because of how many peppers they use. Masa and I together downed three 1 liter jugs of orange juice and a ton of water. You couldn't stop eating because if you did your mouth would go hot. So the quicker you ate the less you felt it lol. After we were done eating my dad went back to the hotel with the bikes and bags and we met with Stephanie, her roommate, and another friend who took us to one of those six story bargaining shops. I had never been to a place like that and all I can say is WOW. Crazy stuff, I definitely loaded up on everything though haha. Here are a few pics from today - JB
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-- 8/15/07: JB in China Day 5 (Office, Forbidden City)
Today was the first day of no riding so I got to sleep in until 7:45 to wake up on time for breakfast. We hung out around the hotel for a while then my driver came to take me to my agents office in downtown Beijing. They have offices all around the world and I was looking forward to meeting the people who work in Beijing's. The drive there was pretty easy but once we got within the two block area it got really complicated. The driver brought her son because he supposedly spoke a bit of english but all he could say was say hello and I don't know. He kept pointing us in the wrong direction and finally after ten minutes of walking in circles, getting in and out of the car three times, we finally made it to the right building. The building was huge! We walked into the elevator and went to hit our floor but they had three different elevator sections for the different floors. We found the right building and made it to the office. They brought me into the meeting room so I could talk to a few people and explain what BMX was to the ones who didn't know. I thought it was going to be just a few people but the whole office dropped what they were doing and came walking in. I felt a little nervous at first speaking to so many people unexpectedly but everyone was really cool and it went well. Afterwards Stephanie took us to lunch and I was so happy to finally have a normal American like chinese meal. We learned a few things about the Chinese and their culture which was pretty cool to hear. I have always heard they eat dog here but thought it was just a joke and didn't realize they still do in parts of China. They even eat donkey, I think I am going to pass on that one. We went back to the office after lunch and hung out for a while. They had wireless internet so I could finally upload a few of my updates onto the ftp. Masa and I wanted to check out the bargaining shops so our driver took us to the Forbidden City. It closes at 4 PM and we got there at 3:55 so we didn't even bother buying a ticket to get in because we would have had no time. We got to see some more famous buildings in the area and then headed back for the hotel. Most of the people have flown in now and are getting ready for the race. The French, Prokop and his country mates, a few other euros and most of the South Americans are staying at our hotel. We went back to the Holiday Inn that night and the cab driver was definitely trying to make a few extra yuans. It is easy to get from our hotel to the other and normally only takes ten minutes but he took over thirty. Instead of turning onto the main road and going straight down that he turned the opposite way going up the hill and took us on a tour of the woods and stopped to ask every person he saw for directions. We had a laugh about it because the yuan to American dollar exchange is so cheap anyway's. Here are a few pics from the day - JB
-- 8/14/07: JB in China Day 4 (The Great Wall of China)
We woke up at seven this morning to eat breakfast before practice started at 8. I never wake up very early at home but after waking up so early the last few days to go to the airport, and ride at six in the morning, it felt so good to sleep in until seven. Practice today was a rough one. I didn't try to ride at all but the Chinese couldn't keep themselves off the ground. There was a piece of tarp laying on the top of the second turn, and I don't know how, or why, they kept forgetting it was there and would run straight into it. You are going a lot faster than you would on a normal track right there and their bikes would come to a complete stop with them still going 35 mph. It was hard to not laugh but at the same time you were stunned and couldn't laugh. Anyway's., it made for some good video and they were all laughing about it afterwards so it was ok. There are four Chinese men on the team and today practice came to a stop after an hour because only one rider was still standing. Three of them crashed really hard and couldn't ride anymore. One thought he broke he wrist, and it looked like he did because it had swelled up so bad and it looked like he had a marble in his wrist. Another got hurt when he flipped over the tarp in the second turn, and the third broke his crank for the second time trying to jump the pro section. This left one guy standing and both him, and the Chinese coaches were scared he was going to crash so they cut practice short that day. One hour after practice and seven crashes later we were going back to the hotel.
Our driver took us to the Great Wall of China today which has been one of the coolest things I have ever seen. It was an hour away from our hotel and during the last ten minutes of the drive we got into a little car accident. We were sitting in traffic going up a really steep hill when the car in front of us decided it wanted to roll backwards. He ran into the front of our car and our driver flipped out. She got out of the car and yelled at the guys for such a long time. We sat in the car laughing and finally twenty minutes later the other driver started throwing money onto her hood to pay for the damage. We made it to the top of the mountain and when we got out to check the car ourselves, there wasn't one single scratch or dent. We looked at the driver and we all started laughing, good job driver! We walked up the wall for maybe an hour and a half and it was STEEP in some parts. We got to the top of the steepest section we could see and then headed back down to the bottom to head home. On our way back there were a couple people carving pictures out of these marble squares. Masa and I both bought one of those and he carved our name into the bottom of it which was cool. After we got off the Great Wall there were a lot of shops and every person grabs you trying to pull you over to their shop. We bargained for a bit and came away with a few things for really cheap. I bought a box set of Tarracotta warriors for 20 yuan when he wanted 280, and these other statues for 1 yuan when he wanted 80 haha.
Later that night after we got back to our hotel the Sessings, Masa, and I took a taxi over to the Holiday Inn where we were told had wireless internet. They had it but you had to have your room number and name to type in as a username and password and we didn't know of anybody who was staying at that hotel. I thought Martijn and a few others were there so I kept trying to say I was Martijn and needed to get ahold of Bas de Bever and needed his room number but they said none of them were staying there. Masa went over and asked for a few people and that didn't work either. Finally Hans went over and made up a story to get them to give us the lobby's internet info.
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-- 8/13/07: JB in China Day 3 (5 AM, again)
The day started off with us waking up at 5 AM again, wasn't a fan at first but in a way its nice because it makes the day a lot longer which gives us more time to do what ever we want. I tried to roll around for a bit again but it hurt a little worse then yesterday and felt numb so I stopped riding again. I skipped the race in Japan last weekend to help my hand and wrist heal for Beijing so I didn't want to hurt it more riding right now. Masa couldn't practice today, a square wheel with two spokes won't really get the job done. The Chinese didn't crash that much today, I think less than three times total for the two hours. After practice the rest of the day was real slow. No one has flown in yet so there isn't a whole lot to do yet. The internet cafe in our hotel is only open from 7-9 PM but the internet is down right now so we can't even use it then. Joyce Sessing and her dad flew in today so it was nice to see someone who finally spoke english. The four of us walked to an internet bar a few blocks away and after 20 minutes of us trying to tell the owners we wanted to use the internet we got on. I can only update my web site from my computer so I was having to wait until we found a place with wireless. I took a lot of video from the last two days and tried shortening it up as much as I could but I could only get it down to five minutes. I am splitting it up into a part 1 and part 2 video. Part 1 is Masa's crash with a few words with him directly after he crashed and part 2 is mostly of the Chinese. The pics today are from the track and then I had the Chinese riders do my plyometrics session with me - JB
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CLICK HERE for the video
-- 8/12/07: JB in China Day 2 (5 AM wake up call)
Because of the heat and humidity in China we had to wake up at 5 AM to ride the track from six to eight. I had not touched my bike since worlds so I was really wanting to ride and was even more pumped to be on the "olympic" track my first time back. We showed up and the tracked looks great. The starting hill wasn't finished yet and the first straight was covered because of the rain so we couldn't ride any of that, but everything else was open. I rode for a while but my hand started hurting a little so I stopped and started filming. We worked with the riders on the two girls sections for an hour or so and then moved onto the men's/pro section. Masa was the first one to hit the second straight and finally the Chinese guys started trying it out. Everyone of them apart from one crashed but they didn't care, just kept charging. I don't know how they were doing it, they would completely wreck themselves soooo hard, get up and say they are ok and then go for it again. They had two chest protectors and kept switching them off between the four of them. The first Chinese rider to jump it was hilarious. He kept following Masa up to it to see how fast he needed to go but kept slamming on the breaks right before he hit the lip. He sat on the last jump on the first straight and the last time he went to follow Masa he got so worked up he charged around the outside of Masa throwing bows, kept going and jumped it. The rest of them knew it wasn't going to change and they had to jump it so they kept going for it. Masa finally went for the second one, but, yea. Here is a video of how that turned out haha
Our hotel serves us food three times a day and it is definitely chinese style. It is a buffet style meal with probably 20-30 things to choose from each time, but you can on average, normally get yourself to eat maybe three things loll. Lunch has been the only meal the last few days that was any good so we make sure we eat as much as possible then so we don't starve later on. I always like eating the different types of foods but I have been pushing it lately. I am starting to find out you shouldn't ask what you are eating before or after you eat it. If you don't like it, just throw it away and forget about it. If you do like it, just keep eating it and don't ask what it is because if someone tells you, most of the time you aren't going to want to eat it anymore lol. Here are a couple pics from today, a few from the track, and another of this dog I saw when I was riding to the track. Not sure what it is. It looked like a German Shepard but had no legs at all, maybe a German Shepard/Weiner dog mix? - JB
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-- 8/12/07:JB in China Day 1 (Flight to China, what a mess!)
The four of us woke up early this morning to leave for the Tokyo International airport. Liam was flying home to England, Anders back to Norway, and Masa and I were flying to Beijing, China. We dropped Liam and Anders off at their terminal and then headed for ours to check in. We waited in the lines and when we finally got to the check in they told us we were going to have to pay for our bags. I wasn't too worried, thinking it would be the normal $80-$100 and Masa ensured me he would be able to get us out of that. Twenty minutes later the lady tells us we are to pay 97,700 yen, which roughly works out to be around $1,000 US dollars. She wouldn't budge and wasn't being too friendly about it. I told her I might as well buy my bag a ticket and throw it in the seat next to me, at least then I will know it gets their safe. Each person is aloud up to 20 kilos, which is 45 pounds. Masa and I each had a suit case full of clothes and a bike bag. Our total weight came out to 96 kilos with them charging us 20 yen for every kilo above 40. We had to pay it, what a joke. We at least got her to change our seats to emergency aisle, she should have put us in first class or given us our own private jet for the amount of money we paid for our bags.
The Chinese Olympic BMX team is sponsored by Mongoose which is owned by Pacific. Pacific also owns other companies such as GT, Shinny along with a few others. The Chinese Olympic people and Pacific had my dad come out almost two weeks early and we are both coaching their team for the next week. They were there to pick Masa and I up and it was kind of cool to walk out and see two people holding up signs reading "Joey Bradford" in bright orange "Good Luck Beijing" polo shirts. The hotel/track is about an hour away from the Beijing airport so it was a long drive with someone who spoke no english apart from hello. We drove passed a few spots on the way, a few of the olympic event sites, the Summer Palace, and something else that looked cool but I forgot the name of. The rest of the day was real slow. No one else will be coming in for another five days so we are here with only the Chinese Team. Its crazy how much they are already putting into the olympics. There are thousands and thousands of signs, billboards, buildings, and people wearing olympic clothing everywhere. Really cool to see though. Here are a few pics from the day - JB
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-- 8/10-11/07: JB in Japan Days 8 and 9 (Pan Pacific Championships)
It was a hard weekend sitting around watching some good racing but everything went well. Anders, Masa, Liam, and I did two autograph sessions each day and gave away so much product. I brought a bunch of JoeyBradford.com shirts and probably gave away 20-30 of them. We played some games with the kids and GT Japan gave us some more stuff to give away. I took 5 of the cards I made for the four of us to autograph, put a JB sticker on the back of two of them and a GT sticker on the back of the other three. If they picked one of the two with a JB logo they got a t-shirt, and if they picked one with a GT logo they got a huge good quality GT sticker that was probably 4 feet long. They were all really pumped the whole time and Liam and Anders had also brought a lot of stuff to give away. Racing was good to watch. I filmed for Transit both days so I at least had something to do during the races. On day 1 Densely Stein was out front in Junior Men but bobbled on the last straight really bad and got passed by Samantha Willoughby. Elite Men went 1) Kamakazi 2) Willers 3) Cisar 4) Madil (GT). Sundays racing Kamakazi lived up to his name and about killed himself in the first turn sliding out and tearing off half his arm. Luke Madil was in second and went down with him messing up his ankle pretty bad. Kama went to the hospital and they said it was to wide and deep to stick so they had to staple it. The main wasn't as strong as it was the day before but was still good to watch. Marc Willers checked out and pulled everyone after the cut off on the first straight and no one could catch up to him around the track, He was smart all day choosing the inside land and then moving out to a good line through the first corner. After racing we gave away everything else we had left and then ate dinner at our hotel. We left around 8 and got home really late. We were all flying out the next morning so we had to pack our bikes and suit cases at 2 AM. Liam and I were being eaten by mosquito's so we ripped threw our suit cases and I put on some long sweat pants, long sleeve shirt, and couldn't find my sweatshirt so I took another shirt and stuck it over my head and just had my eyes poking out. We felt and looked like idiots but was never bitten after that so I wasn't bothered. The rest of the night we just hung out, I brought Denzel Stein with us to Japan and he drove back to Masa's house for the night and then when we left for the airport he left to stay with Tattoo for a week because they couldn't get him a flight until the following Saturday, having fun in Japan with no one who speaks english Denzel? Later - JB
-- 8/9/07: JB in Japan Day 8 (Masa is a liar, and Liam and I were both not happy)
We were told by Masa to be ready at 3 AM to leave for the race in Joetsu Friday morning. In order to be ready at 3, Liam and I were both going to wake up at 2, but we didn't get back from the bowling alley until 12:30 so decided to just stay up instead of going to sleep for an hour, waking up, taking a shower and then getting into the car. We made a few phone calls on Liams Skype and waited until 2 to start getting ready. 2 AM rolls around and we go to wake Masa up to figure out how to turn the hot water on because his shower is a computer with 25 buttons, we counted. Masa wouldn't get up so we thought he wanted a bit more sleep. 3 AM rolls around and we go to wake him up saying its time to leave. He says no we are leaving at 3:30. Ok we wait until 3:30 now. 3:45 rolls around and everyone in the house is still passed out. Masa finally rolls out of bed at 4 AM, walks down stairs and tells us his parents already left and Liam was going to have to drive us 5 hours at 4 in the morning with no sleep. We both just looked at him and then his parents walk into the house from the store around the corner. We finally leave at 5 AM thrilled about our no sleep, Thanks Masa! lol
The track had its Friday race practice and everyone road for a while, Liam kept his crashing streak going by unclipping on his second gate, his foot flying forward going into his front wheel ripping out 10 spokes and flipping over the bars. This year alone he has had some bad luck already breaking his shoulder blade, and collar bone. Each time he had broken those he thought he was ok and nothing was broken. People talked him into going to the doctor with him finding out each time he had broken something. This time, he actually thought he had broken his wrist. That night was the races opening ceremony party so after that Masa and I took Liam to the hospital to get x-rays. The first one we went to had no doctors because it was a weekend they said so they gave us directions to another hospital down the freeway a ways. We got into this one and waited for a few hours because it was so packed. I was scared to wait in the waiting room because there were some people who looked really really sick, a few hooked up to a bunch of stuff and one guy supposedly had a 36 degrees Celsius fever, which works out to what I couldn't believe roughly 108 degrees forethought. The dude was shivering with a sweatshirt and the hood over his head pulled so tight you could hardly see his face. I waited outside in a nearby room until all of those people left. He finally got in for x-rays with the result being no broken bones. That was good news because if he had broken it, we both would have been on the sidelines for the weekends racing. - JB
-- 8/8/07: JB in Japan Day 7 (Driving range and then Bowling Round 2)
This week has been pretty interesting and a lot of fun. Today started off with me waking up and then going back to bed. Nobody else was awake so I couldn't`t think of anything else to do but go back to was I was originally doing. A few hours later I was woken up by Kamakazi, Luke Madil, Sammantha Willoughby, and tattoo walking into our room tripping over everything. Tattoo escorted the aussie boys from Yokohama all the way across Japan to Kawasaki just so they could get Masahiro Sampei's autograph. Today was my seventh day getting Masa's autograph so I am looking forward to traveling back to America to sell them on ebay.
This is my third year coming to Japan and normally I am well up for trying the different types of food but this time has been a different story. The first day here I ordered chicken chow mein thinking it would be a safe and good meal but was wrong. Instead, I received a plate of grayish-green slime with black jelly fish and noodles. I couldn't`t get myself to eat it so Masa let me try some of his beef while I waited for my rice to come. I really liked it and then found out it was liver. I still wasn`t bothered because it tasted great but for some reason it hit me and I grew sicker by the minute. The few following days every time I went to eat something, regardless of what it was, I would get a sick feeling and couldn't`t eat as much. I am starting to feel better now and felt a lot better after chowin down shubba shubba trying to break Afro Bobs record of 35 plates.
The day started off with us searching the city for a restaurant with edible food. We found a place that had a bunch of american writing along the side of the building so we decided to check it out and it was a good choice. After that we went to the driving range but I couldn't`t play because of my handwrist. It was funny watchin Sammantha, Masahiro, and Tattoo try to hit the ball but weren`t really getting the job done lol. Kama was killing it, even blasting aquarius bottles to the 50 meter mark. We left there pretty quick and then left for the Pan Pacific Shotpoot Championships at the Tokyo Bowling Hall. I was the shotpoot champion from the previous night so I was definitely going into today's tournament with some confidence.
We showed up and we all saw some people in a small room doing karaoke. I found a door and walked in and they went nuts doing their song and started break dancing. Everyone else walked over but we had to leave after one song to make sure we didn`t loose focus of what we were there to do. As we were walking across the room Luke and I found these big pull over costumes. I was a big black bowling pen Luke was a small white bowling pen. From then on it was intense. After the first bowl no one was going at the right time and at times 4 balls and two bodies were flying down the lane. The bowling police came over to try and take my costume away from me but I wasn`t finished yet so I ran down the lanes while the guy chased me around the whole building. I finally got to hot from running around in it so I gave it to him. 2 minutes later I wanted my suit back so I went back and grabbed them both. Anders and I started dancing around the guy like in jackass the movie and the guy didn`t know what to do. It was laughs. After that all they did was try and get us to stop but were laughing at the same time because of what everyone was doing. Masa said his name was Johnny Woodman from China but could only speak english so they couldn't`t tell any of us to stop. I don`t think anyone ever actually bowled normal, everyone was hucking it down the lane as far as they could. I was happy with the results as I ended up winning again throwing the ball 34 of the way down the lane and knocking all but two pins down at the same time. That was the only time I threw it straight though, the other times it would just bounce across three lanes and then get balled up somewhere.
Anyways, the best bowling session finally came to an end and we have some good stories now. We definitely wont be back there anytime soon!! We leave at 3am tomorrow morning for Juestu where the biggest race on earth will take place. A true champion is going to be crowned this weekend and the winner will be walking away with £25,000!!! Its ridiculous how much money is up for grabs here and I think the British yowth Liam Phillips is going to take it all. Will be interesting to see who can handle the pressure from the thousands of Japanese fans. I will not be racing this weekend seeing as I cant ride yet so will be cheering on from the stands. Maybe I can get a media pass and then make a deal with one of the riders to throw sticks in everyone else's spokes so they win and then split the money with me. - JB
-- 8/8/07: JB in Japan Day 6 (Kamakazi comes over, bowling tournament)
We didn't get home very early last night so we slept in pretty late this morning. We woke up minutes before Kamakazi came over with the person he is staying with, Tatsumi, but I call him Tattoo. We walked over to a little chinese place for some lunch and just told Masa to order us some food he thought we would like. When we were done eating the people who owned the place told us they were to busy to collect our money and to just come back later and pay. I guess people in Japan have more trust in their customers over here because if someone told you to come back and pay later in the US, they definitely wouldn't be seeing them again. After lunch everyone left for "Bridge to Tokyo" sprints and I just stayed home to do rollers because my hand hurt last time doing sprints. It was really hot outside so I drug my bike up three floors of the steepest and narrowest stairs I have ever seen to Masa's room where there was AC, two fans, and a bunch of drinks. Later that night we were bored and decided to check out Masa's local bowling alley which turned into the Pan Pacific bowling, sliding, and shot poot championships. After the first few throws everyone was over the whole points system and started having fun. Liam won the sliding championships and I won the shot poot title. Liam and I were both pumped on our victories and couldn't wait to repeat at the next alley. Later - JB
-- 8/7/07: JB in Japan Day 5 (Old Tokyo/New Tokyo)
Today was a good day. The four of us hoped in the car to show Liam and Anders old and new Tokyo. Our first stop was old Tokyo. There isn't much but thousands of shops and a temple but this time they had people who would run you around the city in a chariot type thing. I don't know how they did it in this heat. They would run almost full sprint pulling us in a big carriage and never passed out. We talked them down to 10 yen each and went with two separate people. We couldn't stop laughing the whole time and the guys were way cool. It was pretty much the same thing as the horses in Victoria but instead of a horse pulling the people it was a Japanese dude running full sprint around the city. Afterwards we were going to head home because Masa said it would take hours to get to new Tokyo because of the traffic but it only ended up taking 15 minutes. New Tokyo is is really similar to New York City in the US. We drove around for a bit trying to find Shibuya which is apparently the place to be from what Masa said. We asked some people for directions on a corner and Masa talked to them for a couple minutes trying to figure it out. They ended up giving us a big stick that all of them had. At first I was kind of confused why they gave us a six foot long stick but later Masa told us they they had just climbed Mt. Fuji, the largest mountain in Japan measuring in at 3,776 meters high and when you make it to the top they give you a big stick with Japanese letters. That was pretty cool of them but the lady said she had no way of taking it home with her on the airplane so she had to get rid of it. We finally found it after driving in circles for a while and then walked around for a while. We got to visit the busiest Starbucks in the world and a few other spots in the city. We were all pretty beat from the heat and travel so we could only walk around for an hour. Here are a few pics from the day - JB
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-- 8/6/07: JB in Japan Day 4 (Liam Phillips and Anders Gronsund fly in)
Masa, his mom, and I drove to the Tokyo International airport early morning to pick up Liam Phillips (England) and Anders Gronsund (Norway). I invited them to come on the trip with me this year and was looking forward to hanging out with some good friends I don't get to see very often for a week. We left straight from the airport to check out the largest temple in Japan. It was still just as hot which made us decided to only look at half the sites cutting the tour an hour shorter. We still got to see most of the major buildings and had a few good pictures so it turned out well. Later that night we ate at my favorite restaurant after picking up our tickets to China from Masa's travel agency. Shabu Shabu is a place where they bring out plates with very thing slices of meat that you dip into boiling water for five seconds and its cooked.You can eat as much as you want so I tried going for Afro Bob's record of plates but couldn't quite get it. After that we walked around in the mall for a bit and we all ended up buying two packs of those Japanese fans where you can make the design on the computer, print it onto a sticker, and then place it on the fan. We bought two packs of twenty so we will each get ten. They will for sure be something cool to bring home if we end up making them. Here are some pics from the temple and Shabu Shabu. Later - JB
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-- 8/5/07: JB in Japan Day 3 (Masa races a local race)
I am still not able to ride because of my hand/wrist so I just hung out around the track while Masa practiced a bit. Local races in Japan are big because they can only ride the track twice a month. They had 60 motos and even had award ceremony's and podium at the end. After the award ceremony GT had me do an autograph session at their team pits. They were the only bicycle company there so it was cool to see them getting the job done. Today was a pretty chill day, not much going on after we left the track. I was exhausted from sitting on the sun all day and Masa was dead from racing in it so we just hung out around the house the rest of the night. Here are a few pics from the day - JB
-- 8/4/07: JB in Japan Day 2 (Clinic,and sprints to Tokyo)
Masa and I woke up early this morning to leave for a clinic being held at his local track Midoriyama, which means Green Mountain in Japanese. I was exited to check out this famous Green Mountain the Sampei's had talked about so much and really looking forward to doing a clinic with 60 Japanese kids who spoke not one word of english haha. We almost died on the way to the track when we almost flew into the back of a car and then a big semi truck behind us had to slam on the breaks and having to skid around us. We pulled up to the track and it was thrashed. Japa had been hit by a few typhoons the previous week and the track looked like a flat downhill MTB course. The clinic ended up being two separate