Last weekend I headed up to the Portland Bike show with the crew from Marin Bikes to hang out and do some jump demos at the show. When we got to the Portland convention center to set up I realized that the ramps they had planned on using for the demo wouldn’t work very well for a jump demo. We needed to go bigger, so the guys at Marin gave us the go ahead to pick up some wood at the local lumber yard and build whatever we wanted to make the jump demo go off. After a quick trip to the lumber yard we had enough wood to build a good sized box jump. There was plenty of people around to help so we managed to build the whole set up in half a day. After we finished the construction we painted it bright colors to match my bike. Now we were set to do a proper demo.
Unfortunately that night my bike was stolen out of the van and I didn’t realize until thirty minutes before the first demo the next day. Luckily the stock Alcatraz they had on show in the booth was ready to shred! My friend Phil Sundbaum came down from Seattle to help out and ride the show so we went run for run for about an hour as the crowd watched and cheered us on. On Sunday the Northwest School Of Freeride put on a cool dual stunt race and Phil, I and some locals put on a demo right after.
Marin set up 1000 meter roller racing sprint races in there booth called gold sprints. I had never tried it before so before the show ended I jumped in on a race. Man those things are tiring! For the final race of the day the four of us we had to chug a beer before we started the 1000 meter sprint. I ended up getting the beer down quick but those xc/roadies had me on the sprint. Now my goal is to train hard with those beer chugs and come back next year for some revenge. Thanks to everyone who made the show happen! I’m looking forward to next years show!
-AT
The crew at Northwest School of Freeride put together a sweet video showing the new ramp system and jump demo. Look for these guys at upcoming events!
NW School of Freeride, “Stunt, Pump & Jump” from Kris Jamieson (Jaymo) on Vimeo.
Category: Andrew Taylor, Dirt Jump, Rider Stories, U.S. Events, U.S. News
