Aaron Chase/Cannondale Press Tour

Day #11 11/16/03

Aaron
Yeah! One hell of a day today. Took care of business at the first annual “Day in the Dirt” presented by Cannondale, Mike Shaw, Bike Addiction, and Red Bull. Some of Australia’s best showed up for the day like, Dave “Wacka” McLaughlin, Shawn McCarrol, James Hall and a hand full of others. Oh ya and those three names that I just mentioned all learned backflips today, good job guys! After watching me do a few Wacka really wanted to try one and just like that, after one crash, he was pulling them off gracefully and consistently. After he had a taste of it that was all that he wanted to do for the rest of the day. So here are some of the tricks that went down: Wacka, signature crazy nofoot cans, one hand bar spins, 360’s, etc. McCarrol with his lazy nac nacs, supermans, 360’s and the highest backflips of the day. As for me, AC, I did a few no foot cans, it wouldn’t be right of me if I didn’t do some 360’s, even threw in a stailfish 360 for good measure, some nice flips and no flops, and I tried a few times but couldn’t get it was a 180 over the last jump. A nice lady made us all carrot cake (my favorite) and got me a burger that comes stock with bun, cheese, tomato, pineapple, fried egg, hamburger, slice of ham, lettuce, and onions, and barbeque sauce. That’s a good burger!! And now DH and I are going out for our last night in Australia for my birthday, I will be 25, yeah now I can finally rent a car!

Don
Today was the jump jam that we have been planning and setting up for the past couple of days. The jumps were dialed, the crowd was big and the DJ was pumping the tunes. The session went off. The backflip was the trick of the day. AC started flipping during his first couple of runs and then flipping was infectious. Wacka learned to do them first, McCarrol learned them next and then local rider, James Hall rounded out the first time backflip trio. There were a lot of good tricks being pull, but the wind kept the jam from getting out of hand. Cannondale’s tent got blown across the park. Overall this was an awesome session. Mike Shaw and Cannondale should be proud. The event had a really cool vibe and everybody had fun. From what we were told, this type of non-race event is very rare for the Australian mountain bike scene. Mike wants to promote more events like it and maybe even a MTB dirt jump comp series. We wish him luck.

Jump Jam photos are coming soon. Attached are shots from day #10