California: Photo-Essay No.1

When Mother-Nature starts threatening with snow, cold, or ice storms, the best thing to do is not to indulge her, encourage her or egg her on. The best thing to do is to treat her like a small child screaming from a high chair. Yeah, treat her like a crazy date that won’t buy your popcorn. Treat her like that weird pink coloured ginger shit that comes with your sushi…that’s right, you abandon her ass. So in mid January, myself, Darren Von Claw and Geoff Gulevich set out to do just that; flip that wretched bitch the finger and head for warmer pastures.

The plan was simple; grab some bikes, pack up some cameras, prime up the Katy Perry playlist and head south. The plan was never to stop at every riding spot and shred, it wasn’t to take the trip as serious as possible and get a good burn on the old lungs, it wasn’t to get touchy feely and talk about ‘the ride’ the whole way. Mountain biking does plenty of that as is. The plan was to find sun, see some homies, drink some beers, eat some burritos, get some tattoos and tie in some warm-winter riding. So when Plan-A turns into snow and ice, Plan B kicks in…head to California.





Even though we left Vancouver mid afternoon we didn't arrive in Seattle 'til a bit later that evening. Seems that the sniffer dog at the border hit on our bags. After a thorough questioning and some near latex-glove treatments, we made it safe and sound and met up with Lacy Kemp and the great crew from Contour. But the chill was short lived, a quick burrito, then we grabbed coffees and got back on the road!







Okay, Okay, so right off the hop Mother-Nature gets out to an early lead. Disrespectful old hag. 1-0 Hose Beast.


Despite rolling in to Rice Hill, Oregon pretty late, we couldn't help but unwind a bit after a stressful drive with a few Tecates. Gully knows what's up!


Von Claw is a dedicated dude. Instead of telling jokes, or setting new speed drinking records like myself and Gully were, he got right at designing one of this year's slopestyle courses. Here he somehow stops us from bouncing off the walls for long enough to get some feedback.





Ahh... Obviously our partying and straight up disrespecting of Mother-Nature did not bode well with her. We woke up to a nice little blanket of this fluffy stuff. 2-0 Nature's crazy cat lady.



Clouds comin' down. Bri's Owl is always down. The man keepin' trying to keep us down. Gully's pants down. The Claw havin' a lay down. Gully's bank balance goes down.





Top - When you have a few pros living under one roof your garage is bound to have a couple bikes in it. Below - Despite both him and his wife Bonee having just had shoulder surgery, Cam McCaul was out hangin out at Post Office and chillin' with the boys. Here is a rare moment when he doesn't have everyone in stitches.


The Claw feels the same way about trails as he does about beer. Big or small he loves them all. Nice little rhyme. Note: This rule does not apply to his women. He likes them like he likes his coffee; huge and in a cup. Weirdo.


The Aptos crew have it figured out. They're as concerned about style as they are about being able to snap out big tricks and as far as style goes, R-Dawg is king. If you need to find him, try texting your mom, because he is a man - man sized whip, mid-set.


The sick thing about shooting with Gully is that he is at home on any terrain. Table on the post hip.


I believe the story goes that Dan Atherton coined this beauty the hippo, on account of the fact that during almost every Aptos session it is cranking out the local classic rock station. Luckily for me and everyone else who only gets to Aptos a few times per year, you can stream the hippo live via their website.


Cob is another Aptos loc' with style for days. As the sun goes down he whips his new Deity Cryptkeeper like a rented mule.





After a good day of riding it was off to dinner and Aptos/Santa Cruz is loaded with good little spots. And of course after dinner we managed to find a few beers to wash it all down...and a few shots of Jack Daniels. No rest for the wicked.