Team Blog

May 23rd, Dennis Yuroshek's Qualifying run at the US Open 2009

Qualified 1st in AM and would have been 20th in Pro.

Just got word from the US Open that all but 2 riders qualified to race in their mains for DH. Jason got a front flat and din't make it in. We had hoped to see a Top 10 from him. Chuck had a bad crash and also didn't make it in the finals.

Mass. was a good weekend for Team Giant/2wheelfreaks.com! By: Chuck Pitts

"We" (the southern end of the team) rolled out of Roanoke early Friday morning for a couple hour drive to Massenutten.

Checked in, Unloaded, got dressed and headed up the lift for some practice. Overcast skies and perfect riding temps but, with rain in the forecast for the whole weekend. Practice Friday was perfect conditions with the trail in excellent shape. There was a section on the lower portion of the hill that had a water line break or something and was flooding a couple short sections of the trail. Throughout the day the crew there did what they could to make the situation better. It wasn't too bad just added another element to the course. The course had a rock garden near the top with some big rocks a few roots and a natural rock little gap double that was fun then followed by some nasty sharp edged rocks that you kinda nailed square on with the wheels. This section claimed a boat load of flats! Took out more than a hand full of rims and called for some careful dancing to stay fast and avoid flatting.

Followed by a flat road that took some fitness to keep good times on a run. Lots of cool single track pure DH trails to follow! Finished up with a nice grade through a small to med. sized - imbedded rock garden that was fun! Dumped out on the slopes and sprinted to finish!

The team put in 7-9 runs on Friday and hung out in the pits between runs sharing conversation between the North and South Squads getting to know one another and just talking about our awesome bikes and riding the trail. People stopped by to check out our pit area and bikes throughout as their was usually at least one of us there most of the day changing a flats!

Friday Night the team went out for some pre-race Italian grub! It rained pretty good while we were chowing down but, stopped soon after. Saturday met up for breakfast and then headed out for race day practice. partly cloudy and no rain all day! I think most of the guys took 2-3 practice runs that morning and chilled in the pits some.

Race time was rolling around and everyone was getting into their only little zones preparing for the race.

Women of all classes were first to go off then Pro then Cat 1, 2 on so on. Ethan was first of us to go as the 7th Pro starter............. then Ken, Jason, Chuck. I saw Ken going through the upper rock garden very fast and super smooth. Gave him a rebel cheer and later heard he flatted on the road right after. Bummer! Went on up the hill to make my start and saw Jason go off the line right as I approached the starting area. Jason shot off course in the top rock garden crashed and recovered to a fast run even with the mishap which landed him in the number 4 spot!

That meant I was the next rider and just pushed a 100 yard climb to barely make my start time! which I found out later they were several minutes ahead of projected - Jumped up in the gate and had 7 sec. til' start-so I just hit it! had an Ok run with a few errors but, had a fun run otherwise. Headed back down to the pits to chill and have a cold one! Rolled up and Ethan was like "dang you already ran???? I thought we were running last?" He had missed his run! He was able to turn on the boyish charm and convinced the promoters to let him get his run later to which he pulled a 5th place Podium finish! Looks like we need to get a little more Pro and both go up a little earlier!

The Cat1 speedsters got off the line next with Dennis Yuroshek coming up with 2nd place with a crash on his run! PJ said his crap just didn't want to come together for him race run so left wanting to kick some ass come next race to get his revenge!

The Open class featured some of the guys we race in the Southeast a lot and our Boy Greg Nelson ripped off the winning time that spanked 2nd by like 15 +seconds and a time that set him in 7th best time in Pro Class!

So yeah for a first race we made a decent showing for sure! I think it was a good weekend for fun shredding and getting to know one another. But, with only a rider of two having a run near their best capabilities! That means a couple things in my mind. We can get a little better at making the best of the only run that counts for one. But, when we do I think we can stack the podium at some of the biggest events!

Team Giant/2wheelfreaks.com will be hitting it again soon at the U.S. Open in 2weeks! This will be a big race and a scale our top riders to measure themselves against some of the best in the World! Hope we can represent well there for sure!

Jason Memmelaar at Sea Otter 2009 talking about the 2009 Manitou Durado

2009 Clemson DH Race

On Saturday April 4th myself, Greg, and Ethen attended the 2009 Clemson DH race. It was a great day for racing as it was 72 degrees out and sunny. The boys from the Clemson Freeride Team did a great job on the course. First you have to understand they don’t have much of a Mountain to work with, most will say it’s a Hill. About 400 ft of evaluation at the most, but they worked every bit of it and created a great race course. The race course consist of about 5 good size jumps, lots of large dirt berms, and one very large Wall Ride. The two biggest jumps was a 35 ft Table Top with a face over 5ft high and a small Road Gap about 15ft. Race runs were in the 1:30+ min rage with the fastest time of the day from Chris Herndon out of 31 Pro/Ex racers. For us it went Etahn 4th, Cecil 5th, and Greg 9th. There were 104 racers total turned out for the race. Lots of people stoped by our pits to check out the our Gloy Race Bikes and all our Sponsors products. The Dorados got a lot of Test rides as everyone wanted to know more about then. It was a great event here in the South to kick off our racing year.

The Pits

Ethan Q. doing a Bar Hump

Cecil throwing Wip for the crowd

Greg N.

Ethan Quehl Rips it up at the Pan Am Continental Mountain Bike Championships – Santiago, Chile 3/18-22. It was his first International Race representing the USA and congrats for a job well done.

From USA Cycling:

Ethan Quehl – 18, of Georgia – ’08 Jr. Ex National Champion DH, repping Hayes Bicycle Group. Quehl did a great job in his first international elite race, getting 13th. Lars Tribus has dubbed Quehl the Toby McGuire/Spiderman of DH. As for Quehl, he is hooked on DH and says “I’m done with XC!” Watch out for him to do some serious damage this year.

Southridge Winter Series CA- Race 5 Video

By: Alan Villa, Sergio Vargas, and Shane Finneran

2009 Southridge Winter Series - Race 5 from ChannelMTB on Vimeo.

The Team and our DH Bike build make it up on SickLines.com

http://www.sicklines.com/2009/03/19/2wheel-freaks-team/#more-3957

SouthRidge Race #5 in Southern CA

Big Congrats goes out to Jason Memmelaar for getting 2nd in the Pro Class out at the last Southridge Winter Series Race #5 in Southern CA. Jason just got edged out by legend Eric Carter.

Photos By Dale Hernandez

Write up by Dennis Yuroshek on SouthRidge Race #4 in CA

February 21st and 22nd marked the 4th Fontana Winter Series race. The weather for once was great! Saturday the temperature was Mid 70's with plenty of California sunshine. Ok, enough of the weather report, let’s get down to the racing! Saturday I signed up for DH and Super D, after hearing the super D course was really good. I headed up to the top of the course on my trance x in order to pre ride the course. Got to ride with a guy named Bob from 661 and showed him some lines he never saw before, it was really great to help enlighten his line choices. The super D course was a lot of fun and was straight up DH style, some sections were steeper then the DH course itself! I did really well on the first part of the course since it was more DH style but lost it in the XC part. I placed 6th place and was 3 seconds out of 3rd. After super D I got something to eat and grabbed the Glory for my first practice run on the hill. The course was pretty mellow but fast, flowy and fun! Since there are no lifts you have to hike sections at a time so it makes practice a little harder on your body compared to doing full runs like back east. Practice went really well and got my lines dialed. My teammate Jason Memmelaar was killing it in practice and even had EC, Eric Carter shaking in his boots. People were saying Jay "won" practice on Saturday, that's all well and good but it’s how you ride on Sunday that really counts. After practice a few of us went out to eat at TGI Fridays, and our friend Willem Cooper of VonCooper Productions was kind enough to let us crash at his sister place for the night.

Sunday 6:00am: The alarm is going off and telling us it’s time to get up and go to Fontana. On the way to the race course we stopped at a Farmer Bros to pick up some breakfast burritos. Jason and I got geared up and started hiking the course to the top of the mountain. The course was in great condition with the help of a few rain drops the night before. I was hitting all my lines in practice and was ready to pin it in my race run. Jason felt "blown up" from killing it in practice the day before. Jason's race run went well but said he didn’t have any high octane left in the tank, and took a solid 6th place. Now it was my turn to have my run down the hill; "rider you got 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...." off I went. I was having a real good run and hitting the "ninja" lines until about half way down when I hit a huge G out in the course and blew both feet off the bike. Somehow I managed to stay between the tape and kept it rolling! Despite that mishap I maintained composure and continued to shred thru the lower rock garden with people scream and cheering! I pedaled the whole wall and crossed the line for a 5th place.