[intro]
Harley Henington: I met Harley a couple years ago at Crankworx but never actually hung out with him until this year at Interbike in Vegas. He rides for
Scott bikes and lives in Portland.
[intro]
Corey: Big red beard, good at photography and only shaves 2 times a year.
We had breakfast across the road at the dinner and then started the long drive up and over the mountains to Chico where we are going to ride Zack Hensley’s jumps. It pretty much sucks for us with the trailer because we have a posted maximum speed limit of 55mph when everyone else has 65mph so we were lagging far behind. When you are in a convoy there are always some great toys to have: Music is key, as are air soft guns to shoot from car to car on the highway, along with PSP, laptops, and dvd’s. The other fun toy to bring along is a set of walkie-talkie’s. They are uber cool and make you feel like you’re in the movie Smokey and the Bandit! We haven’t assigned call names yet but keep altering through; Smokey, Bandit, Blue Bird, Rubber Ducky, Goose, and Mother Jane.
Stop #5:
Chico: Had to get off the highway and take this 2 lane country road through all these apple farms or something and about 50 miles in we hit the city of Chico.
[intro]
Zack Hensley: Riding for
Transition bikes, he kills the dirt scene and is even more amazing with a shovel.
We met Zack at the Shell station and he took us on a trek up to his trails. We didn’t know what to expect, because we were driving for about 30 minutes up and up and up! We could hardly get enough power towing our trailer to get up the mountain, but finally got to the spot where we parked the cars. Then we all got out, grabbed the gear and went to a hike up some steep terrain. We were walking up this trail that had some major gaps on it ranging from 20-40 feet and tight single track leading into them. After about a 15 minute hike we go to the jump… OH-MY-GOD. The most perfect set of 4 jumps lay ahead of us, and when I say “perfect” I mean that I have never been to a set of jumps that were bigger and nicer then these.
I have been to hundreds of riding spots and these were the most immaculate, smooth, and zesty jumps I had seen. Now was the time to ride them! We all rushed at getting geared up because it was already 3pm and it would be dark in 2 hours so the smack needed to be laid down. Hitting jumps for the first time is always scary no matter who you are, but watching Zack hit them with no effort at all except steezin his bike out made us a little less uneasy about the first hit. As you sat up at the top there was about a 3 foot tall mound of dirt build up by a little pine tree to drop in on. You would pedal lightly for 20 feet then pump over 2 little rollers that lead into a left hand burm, then a right hand burm, then another left hand and a straight away for 15 feet into another roller that dropped into a 3 foot bomb pit(underground roller that sets up into a jump) into a 5 foot tall lip and 15 foot gap that popped you about 12 feet in the air. You would land perfect into the first landing and then hit a 6 foot tall lip with a 15-17 foot gap and a nice steep landing that gradually dug deeper into the ground to set up to the 3rd jump. The lip was about 6.5 feet tall with a 20 foot gap and a long swooping landing that had a 10 foot flat bottom after it and then dipped down another 2 feet to set up into the 4th and final jump with about a 23 foot gap. Everyone was killing it and the photos were money shots. Dumped 3’s, flips, whips, mid set, start of the set end of the set, it didn’t matter… Zack’s jumps officially got slayed! Harley got the KO'd unfortunately so hopefully he will be feeling better tomorrow when we arrive in Reno.
Off for some more driving, catch y’all later!
