Rather than ride off into the sunset, we figured it might be best to start this one pretending like we were riding toward you, OUT OF the sunset. Not to be confused with out of the sunset district, in San Francisco, where the sun never actually sets so much as dies quietly somewhere above the fog bank...

Things got awful silent around this here blog over the last week or so. We (the wonder twins Abby and Ariel, Engineer Joe, and myself) took a trip south, to break in the new demo trailer (the van is still getting all purtied up) and show off some soon to be released bikes to the magazine folks in SoCal. Figuring that the riding would suck and guessing wrongly that there’d be tons of hotel room thumb twiddling, we had high hopes of plenty of time to post up pictures of taco stands and sign wavers. As it was, we were pinned.

First stop was at my old Alma Mater, BIKE magazine, where we brainwashed the troops and their brand new editor, then snuck out for a late ride on San Juan trail, where the above sunset photo was snapped. Nothing like taking the brand new editor, slapping him on a brand new bike nobody has ever ridden, making him climb a trail he’s never ridden until it began to get dark, then come blasting back down into growing blackness on a set of Small Block 8 tires. So, what’d ya think of that bike, huh, Joe? Hopefully we didn’t taint things too much. The trailer, meanwhile, rested itself in the parking lot looking kinda smug.

It was a damn sight darker than this by the time we got back down the hill...

From there, we booked north to the environs of Tragic Mountain, home to the plush, well lit offices of Mountain Bike Action magazine. Richard Cunningham and Ryan Cleek then took us on a genuine kneecapper of a ride near Simi Valley. While we didn’t get to see anyone filming porn outdoors, we did nab some of the most awesome weather and conditions that anyone could ever hope for riding in the belly of the beast:

Ariel is riding so fast that his bike is actually turning invisible beneath him... that's how good the traction was.

It was such a nice day, even the hills next to the freeway were smiling...

Naturally, any good uphill suffering/downhill reward session has to be followed with a bout of eating until physical discomfort sets in. For this, The Hat cannot be outdone. After eating a pastrami dip choked with about a solid pound of pastrami, following that with a heap of gravy smothered fries, and washing it down with a shake, balance was restored. I felt like some sort of hose to rinse the grease off afterward would have been a nice touch, however:

Following our Mister Creosote moment at The Hat, we bid farewell to RC and RC, and headed over to Ventura, where we met up with Mark Jordan from Decline. He took us on up to Ojai and served us a hillclimb to go meet God. Just the ticket for sneak previewing some long travel trail bikes to the media. At least we got to rip back down the hill once Skippy Jordan had finished breaking our legs off:

Then it was time to load up the trailer, jank ourselves full of caffeine and hit the road. Joe loaded some Doctor Demento into the music box and somewhere north of King City I had the epiphany that “Pencil Neck Geek” might just be the best really wrong song ever.

Safe to say nobody who ripped our legs off last week, nor any of my traveling companions, could ever be considered Pencil Neck Geeks. I’m still recovering.

Meanwhile, the van may not be done yet, but the demo tour is good to go. They even have a calendar up, checkitout! First demo will be in a couple weeks, back in the Belly of The Beast, Santa Monica, in conjunction with Helen’s Cycles. Keep an eye on the calendar, since it is being constantly built and updated. They’re mapped out through the end of May now, and will be on the road all the way until Interbike. And, if you caught the sidemouse reference earlier in this post, they will have some mighty interesting new stuff to show off this summer in addition to all the regularly scheduled goodness.

We have been in the trenches with Willie and crew from Downieville for about as long as we have been a company. We’ve watched as the Downieville Classic has gone from being a sly little family affair in a quiet mountain town into the “must-do” event of the West coast race season. The race has evolved into a genre defying test of rider and equipment, and has been instrumental in heralding a return to big races in big country – those kind of hard grit affairs that for the most part died off nationwide a long time ago. It is an EVENT – a weekend long bacchanal involving dust, river water, seared meat, scar tissue, gallons of beer, and perverted song lyrics – that keeps us coming back year after year, and makes us remember why we bother to build bikes in the first place. And the nepotistic mosaic of folk at Yuba, the Classic, and the Stewardship, well, they are family to us.

So it sucks to see that family getting raked over the coals by a gaggle of keyboard warriors when the registration process for this heavily anticipated race doesn’t go exactly as planned. Be warned, that linked trainwreck is a long and slow one…

Remember that old line your grandparents used to spout about how it is best to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt? Well, it works for typed words just as well as spoken ones. (On a slightly related note, a friend just sent this link to a grandparent age fount of wisdom, who maybe deserves to keep his mouth open as much as he wants. Apparently the dude even has a tv deal now. F’real…)

For our part, we’re gonna wait, and be ready when the signal flare shoots. In spite of the fact that there are about three times as many employees here who want to race than there are company comp entries (Yes, we get comp entries. That’s because we are title sponsor of the event. You want comp entries? Pay Wayno a whole lot of money next year…), we are ready. Strange rumblings are coming from the build area about a qualifier. Chapin is already talking his smack. And El Gato Negro is already devising ways to turn said qualifier into a devious farce that will reward animal cunning just as favorably as it will brute strength or mad skillz. Hell, even the china-shop-bull who owns this place is talking about coming back for redemption this year. Provided he survives the qualifier. As if any of us know what that will entail anyway…

But, thoughts of qualifiers got us to thinking – maybe this is how they should do it in Downieville. Screw this internet circle jerk and all the pissing and moaning by the self righteous flameouts from the Instant Gratification Disorder Club. Have everyone who wants to race the All-Mountain race show up in town a day early and enter a pie eating contest. Or hot dogs. OR make everyone who wants to race the All-Mountain have to qualify via competing in both pixie-cross and river jump events. Or a gladiator arena, where racers have to face-off against Clampers and mountain lions. Yeah! I’d pay to see that.