Road Bike Weekend

Due to questionable weather and limited gasoline availability, I decided to spend this weekend on the road bike. It has been a long time since I've spent any significant time on a road bike.

Although I am fortunate to have some of the upstate's best cycling routes just out my front door, I have concluded that it is still not as fun as mountain biking. I am hoping to go do some laps at the BMX track this week, and hopefully I'll get some more DH riding in next weekend!

Paris Mountain DH

Hated missing this one, this was the one chance I've had to race a hometown event but due to a commitment I had, I couldn't make it. My sources tell me it was one for the history books though. This was one of the best marketed races I've seen in a long time. It was professionally advertised and expertly promoted. From what I hear, the atmosphere had the same intensity as a big race like the open or an old school National series race. Spectators turned out en masse and the roster was stacked! This stretch of trail is one that we do on a weekly basis, so I knew the SEI crowd was going to be fired up. Sure enough, Mike, Jeremy, and Dave put it up in the top 10 while Steven pulled in a respectable 14th. Wish I could have joined my boys on my mountain, but maybe next year. From the response this race got, I have a feeling this won't be the last time Paris Mountain has a race!

A trip back in time

The longer I ride, the more I sit back and reflect on how long I've been riding. I've been wanting to do a post like this for a while now and since I just got a new camera, I thought this would be a great opportunity to dig through all my old jerseys and post them all in a blog entry.

When our team started in 2001, our title sponsor was a small shop in Easley, SC called Trails End Bicycles. It's no longer in business (hopefully no thanks to us!) and when it went under, we had to look for a new sponsor and a new name. That's when we changed our name to SEI Racing (South East Independent) and hooked up with Sycamore Cycles in Brevard. Since the beginning we've seen a lot of changes both within our team and within the sport of downhill mountain biking in general.

I've joked around that our team reminds me of one of those bands like Van Halen or the Ramones. They've been around forever but some of the faces have changed. Right now, Jeremy Raney and I are the only original members of the band, and hopefully they'll let me stick around for a little while longer.

Our team has seen the sport change a lot over the years. The courses have become more challenging, the technology has become more advanced, and just when you think the limits of what can be done on a bicycle have been pushed to their limits, somebody takes it a little bit further. Through my time with SEI racing, I know I've pushed way beyond the limits of what I thought I could do when I first started.

We've also had a lot of great sponsors over the years. Some have come and gone and some have been with us since the beginning. If it weren't for all of our sponsors over the years, it would have made it extremely difficult for us to do what we've been doing all these years. Our goal is to always make it worthwhile for our sponsors to continue their support and we look forward to continuing for many years to come.

Well, enough of the flapping. Here's were it all started. This was the only jersey we ever had specifically made for our team. That was thanks to Interim Health Care in Greenville SC who gave us a generous sponsorship for 2001 and 2002. Our original team members were Myself, Jeremy Raney, Cecil Linder and Tyler Williams. In 2002, we added Butch Green David Thacker. For both years, we rode Turner Suspension Frames. Michelin tires hooked us up with an unbelievable sponsorship and continues to be a main sponsor today.

In 2003, after Trails End shut its doors, we were in a bind. With no title sponsor, we knew it was going to be difficult to get new equipment sponsors. Our longtime bud and former teamate Tyler Williams and I hatched the South East Independent title one night. Chris Herndon, then owner of Sycamore Cycles, offered us a sponsorship package through his shop. During this season our team expanded to include Ryan Bloch. We continued riding Turner bikes for '03.

I'm fully aware that this shot is sideways and that's OK. This was our 2004 Jersey. This was the year that we decided to "go moto" with the NoFear kits. We looked like candy canes that year but at least we were flashy! Tyler Williams went on to bigger and better things (Dental school in Charleston) and had to leave the team after a debilitating shoulder separation. Cecil Linder also left the team to start a family. Turner Bikes remained our frame sponsor.

In a backlash against the candycane motif of the previous year, 2005 saw us back in black with our names and an arbitrary number printed on the back. We got back with Sycamore Cycles after a brief hiatus during the 2004 season. David Thacker and Ryan Bloch both moved on after this season. Turner bikes hooked up the frames again.

The great white kits of 2006 and 2007 were again provided by NoFear. In 2006 we begain riding Specialized frames. Butch Greene left the team in 2007 and long time Florida Freeride super-star, DemoDave Perez moved up to the Greenville area and expressed an interest in getting into racing. He joined the team, along with Moto-Mike Thomas, a young shredder from North Carolina.

This year, 2008, our Royal jerseys were purchased and printed by FreerideSouth, a Florida-based mtb forum site. We picked up Steven Trottier, another young NC pinner. This season, Jeremy, Steven, and Mike decided to try out Morewood Frames, a company out of South Africa with their US headquarters located in Asheville NC. Because of our relationship with Sycamore Cyles, we are able to ride Specialized and SantaCruz and Morewood because all three frames are carried in their shop.

With this season drawing to a close, we are already looking forward to next season and the changes we'll see then! We've had a great time and we really want to express our appreciation to our sponsors. Without sounding to much like a cliched supercross interview, we especially want to thank the crew at Sycamore for being so cool with us. We also want to thank Michelin, Cane Creek Components, Thomson Components, E-13 and Crank Bros for helping us out so much over the course of several season. For some of our newer sponsors, like SRAM, and FreeRide South, we have appreciated everything you've done for us and we look forward to working with you for seasons to come!

Thanks for reading,

Matt Griffin.

26 West Bike Park

Over the course of the last 2 weekends, I've been taking the short scenic drive down Interstate 26 to the 26 West Bike Park. I went on opening weekend back in June and I can't say I was disappointed because I new that the new park was somewhat underfunded and I had a feeling that opening weekend would not be without it's glitches. After not having gone back over the last couple months, I decided to go last weekend. Since they will be hosting the State DH championships in a few weeks, I wanted to dial in some lines and scope things out. I must say that last saturday was one of those days that makes you feel glad to be alive. I woke up late, watched the World Cup Downhill finals in Schladming Austria live on freecaster.tv, and then drove up to 26 West to spend the afternoon pealing of DH runs, one after another. The park had improved considerably since I first went, the lift operation worked flawlessly, and the trails had really bedded in nicely.

I went up this weekend and was able to really get my lines down pat and I'm really looking forward to the race. There's a really fun new rock jump line that they've built for the expert course and they'll be adding on a whole bottom section that from the looks of it will be pretty much scary fast and steep! I nailed a couple of lines that I hadn't been able to hit last weekend which is always a good feeling. The only bummer for today was that the lift was not running due to an inspection complication and we had to ride up in the back of this crazy dude's mom's work van. There was only seat room for three, so if you didn't get in early, you were sitting on the floor of the van. It's never fun being packed into a vehicle like that with 15 stinky dudes but you gotta do what you have to sometimes. It didn't make matters worse that the driver was chain smoking cigs while bragging to us about how many DWI's he'd gotten, how fast he could make it to the top of the hill, and doing his best to prove it to us. Yikes!! Anyway, it was a great day of riding and I'll be back to 26 West soon

Snowshoe Race III, by Mike

Mike Thomas, fresh off a season wrecking finger injury, stayed super focused through a retarded ordeal of a recovery process and finished on the Podium at the final Snoeshoe race of the season. Not only that, he was rocking his brand new Morewood Izumi DH bike! Mike, I hope you don't mind but I lifted this of your blog!

"I left home for Snowshoe Thursday afternoon in the rain and it didn't stop the whole way to Snowshoe. Late Thursday afternoon the trail crew at Snowshoe decided that they needed to change the track so it would hold up to the wet weather that was expected. Luckily the rain held off pretty well and didn't come back until a short shower Saturday afternoon. Practice went well with the occational crash every now and then. Come Sunday it was time to race, and I wasn't really sure how I would do. This would be my first race of the year and I had no expectations coming into it, I just wanted a nice clean run. Since I had no points from previous races, I was the first Elite guy down the track. Soon as they said GO, everything came together and I felt as if I had been racing all summer long. It was awesome, I just tore out of the gate with what seemed like endless energy on a track lined with people scattered all over watching. My run came together pretty well with just a small bobble, brushing against a tree with my left shoulder. When I got to the bottom everyone was yelling and I couldn't have been happier to be back in the game again, it felt awesome seeing everyone. I ended up the day with a 5th place, my best placing so far at Snowshoe. I had fun all weekend just cruising run after run with friends. Collegiate season starts this weekend, more updates to come..."

Congrats on everything Moto! Visit Mike's blog at motomike138.blogspot.com.