Collegiate Nationals

The Collegiate Nationals were held today at Sugar Mountain Resort in Banner Elk NC. I've already heard unconfirmed reports that SEI's two collegiate riders, MotoMike Thomas and Steven Trottier pulled the first two spots on the Division II podium for App State! Congrats dudes!! More on that story as the details come in!

Matt's 2008 Specialized Demo8 II for sale- $1700.00

I'm selling my '08 Demo for $1700.00. You can email me at mattgriff78@hotmail.com or you can call me at 864-630-1504 if you are interested.

Thanks,

Matt.

North Carolina State Championships

This was a big one for me. Since I haven't been able to make several of the races this season, I really wanted to get a good result here. I've spent countless hours at 26 West bike park over the course of the past several weeks dialing in the course, I've ridden tons of cross-country and BMX, and every pedal stroke I took was one more stroke towards a good result at this event. I loaded up on Friday afternoon (thanks to the teacher next door who volunteered to take my last class period for me!) and headed to 26 West Park. When I got there, it was cold and rainy. I look over and see all my buds sitting in the tent with their street clothes on, looking particularly unexcited about the prospect of riding in it. Qualifying was supposed to be from 4:00 to 6:00 that night so I new I was going to have to go put on my gear, find my happy face and go ride, regardless of what everyone else was doing. I guess my determined positivity got everybody else motivated enough to do the same and after a couple damp practice runs, we all agreed that we were happy about our chose to ride! Anyway, Qualifying finally got started at 6:00 and only four people attempted to qualify. Ethan Quell won by 15 seconds. I got a nice second place behind him and Doug Ferguson was third, just a couple seconds off my time.

Friday night, Kenan, Dave, My sister, Nate, and a bunch of their friends had a great time in Asheville, eating hippie food, but it was actually really good!

On saturday during practice, Jeremy started out the morning with some bad luck when he somehow crammed his rear derailler into his I-9 wheels while he pedalled around the parking lot! He roached about 6-7 spokes out of his back wheel. Jeff from I-9 got him going just before his race run and he rode what he called one of the sketchiest rides of his life to pull in with a pretty respectable time, considering what he'd been through. It's so nice to have local sponsors who know our stuff and can hook us up in a jam! Dave had a good ride as well, keeping the wheels on the ground on a track that was easy to blow up on. I was feeling like I owned the place all day and knew I had a good result in store if I kept on pace. When I crossed the line after my race run, I wasn't confident that it was good enough for anything spectacular. I'd made a few mistakes that I thought would be pretty costly. Turns out, Ethan won by 10 seconds, Doug F. got second, and I was one second off his pace for third. To date, that's my best pro finish, and my first time on the podium, so I'm pretty happy about the way the weekend panned out for me!

Big thanks to Ryan Taylor for putting everything together, Thanks to Kenan and Kat "Hip-Hopkins" for letting me and Dave Crash at their house and hanging out with me after the race!

26 West practice session

Next weekend, 26 West bike part will be hosting the "NC State Championships" for DH. The SEI crew has spent a considerable amount of time at the park this summer and fall and we spent this past weekend up there brushing up our lines and taking a sneak peak at the new section that's just been cut in for the pro course. This course is going to demand riders to bring a whole skillset in order to be fast. Its got lots of jumps, several of which are pretty technical, its got tight fast wood sections, funny turns, a technical rock jump, one short fitness section (aka a parking lot) a super fast part with more jumps, and a really tight, steep section to finish on. Jeremy, Dave, and I feel pretty confident with everything and I'm looking forward to a really fun race this weekend.