Introduction

Hi, my name is Bradley and I've been meaning to start a blog for some time now.  I wanted a way to keep friends and potential sponsors up to date on my progress during my race season.  Some quick background into my experience.  I have been riding Downhill for about 4 years now.  I have been riding bikes for 12 years.  I started out racing junior X cross country,  I trained and rode hard but never felt like it was my calling. I stopped when I went to college and dabbled in street riding and skate parks but never pushed my self with it.  When I moved to SLC I got the bug to try the whole downhill thing.  I remember I couldn't even hit the first jump at I-street (dirt jumping was new thing too) all I knew was I really liked it!  I made some friends and my first DH shuttle was down the Bountiful race course.  I probably crashed 20 times that day, I learned a bunch and realized DH is about the most fun one can have on a bike.  Since then I haven't slowed down (if anything sped up)

  I started racing 3 years ago, I did a sport class race and won by so much they told me I wasn't allowed to race sport. I bought a license and raced the go-ride series and my first year I took 2nd overall in cat one, I podiumed every race I attended.  the next year I decided to go the next step so I made my way out to a couple national level races.  the competition was stiff,  I managed a couple 10th place finishes that got me qualified for the national champs at Sol vista.  During my race run I felt great but over shot one of the final gaps and went down hard.  Got up to finish my race but found that my wrist was in a new spot (dislocated).  After that I had a long road to recovery and decided to take a year to freeride and dirt jump(mistake).  I should have continued racing so I wouldn't have to play catch up like I'm doing now.

That pretty much brings us up to speed to where I'm at now.  I started this year off with goals set and a plan to achieve them.  I started training in the gym 4-5 days a week with weights and a spin bike.  I try and ride or do something active on the weekends to keep me motivated. So far this year I have already managed to lose 17pounds and gain back my fitness I lost over the last season. I still have a ways to go before i think I'm at the level I intend to ride at but its a great start so far.  

As a re-cap on my season to date, I have been competing in the Fontana california winter series to get my self back into race shape.  The first race was a bitch!  I basically just winged it completely out of shape on a new bike, needles to say I got my ass handed to me.  It was great thing in an odd way though.  I've never done so poorly in a DH race.  it opened my eyes and helped me understand that I need to be training and can't use just natural talent to get to the top.

So far here are my results this year in cat 1:

fontana 1--------------------20th (crash)
fontana 2--------------------10th
fontana 3--------------------18th (crash)
bootleg national------------9th
fontana 5---------------------7th

The Fontana series ended on a good note, heres a link to the results page if you would like more information about it.  http://southridgeusa.com/

This brings us to my first post.  I hope I didn't butcher it too much.  Expect in the near future post's on training, ride/race reports, bike checks, backyard updates, and videos of my adventures of Going Pro.

Thanks,