living the dream, or so they say

The good old punk bike enduro, an annual north east favorite that brings out every freak that likes to ride gnarly terrain on 2 wheels. This year was probably the most fun I have had in my 5 years of doing the event. Western PA received about 2 inches of snow on the already soaking wet ground a few days before, the weather for the event was about 47 degrees at 11:00 am when the bell rang. You do the math there and that makes for some soggy nasty terrain. Every year you plan for serious mud but this year I put some extra time into preparation, digging out old spike dh tires from ’98, extreme conditions chain lube, some mud off substance I found in the back room at the shop from 1989, and even a trendy dh mud flap made out of an old tube.

my heckler acting as a can coozie for a hip PBR

The first DH is one of my favorite, if you don’t get out to the front fast on the first stage you get jammed up behind all the xc guys that ‘think’ it’s a good idea to ride a rigid bike bike. It’s a blast watching the end of the pack pile up in the crank high slop that covers the steep chute into the creek known as ‘endless valley’. Maybe it was the massive amounts of sun and little creatures ale I took in down in Australia or my chronic asthma that was killing me but whatever the case I was hurting on this ride. The 6 PBR’s I tossed in my camelback didn’t help either. Each stop pretty much had a quarter barrel of beer waiting for us thanks to Troeggs brewing, who really does a bang up job sponsoring MTB events.

Brunger, oh Dave Brunger…long time buddy of mine calls me up a few days before saying ‘wait until you see my bike and costume’…I ask ‘well does it have gears?’ he responds ‘I think’ what the hell kind of answer is that. Well he didn’t let anyone down, controversially he had the best costume there a giant pink care bear, riding around on a 1990 pink and teal cruiser that he welded disk tabs on, rolling on sticky rubber maxxis minion dh tires. We got a bit ahead of the pack and ended up on our own riding the last 2 stages of the race out, the absolute funniest part of punk bike was Spurk and I watching Dave walk his rainbow cruiser up a major route (9-10) in a stuffed care bear outfit covered in mud with no one around him. I can’t imagine what all the church goers and overly tanned teenage girls were thinking driving by.




I managed to sort of end my day about half way through, there is a second huge downhill that puts you out in a church parking lot. Hanging back a bit in the pack on one stage to talk with some buds out riding moto I came into the last dh riding alone and fast. With about 150 screaming people watching it’s sorta hard not to let it all hang out, and lets face it I jaw a lot about riding dh…Anyways, something went sideways in my run which put me into an oak tree at full speed, Oak Tree 1 – Me 0. My blingy wtb seat didn’t survive, my bars bent, I think I destroyed the internals on my fox 36 TALAS, and I got my bell rung pretty hard.

This is yours truly seconds before the tree in the foreground got even


One really cool note was WTB and Santa Cruz legend Mark Weir showed up for the event, I should have noticed the giant fumanchu facial hair and $6,000 nomad but I didn’t until post ride. Guy’s an animal.

Here are some pictures that I thieved from the inter-web mainly from dirtrag so check out www.dirtragmag.com, I didn’t bother with a camera I had to make room for beer.