Marin Bikes Blog

Marin/Adidas rider Andrew Taylor has had a busy summer. After nailing 2nd place at the Ranchstyle Slopestyle event in Colorado Andrew and his friends hit the road for some riding before the next round of contests with the Teva Mountain Games and Claymore Challenge. His blog:

This year Greg Watts and I decided to drive to the Teva Mountain Games. On our way we stopped in Minden to meet up with Cam Zink and Paul Basagoitia to ride Paul’s new spot. After we rode at Paul’s for most of the day we got back on the road to Vail. As soon as we got to Vail we went checked out the course Kyle Ebbett was building for the slopestyle. Each year Kyle makes the course bigger and better than the previous year and this year was no exception. The course had a good variety of obstacles, with doubles drops and hips. We had a couple days to get the course dialed so by the time qualifying and finals came around everybody was throwing down.

My first qualifying run went really well so they put me and four other riders into the finals without taking our second qualifying runs. On my first run in finals I stomped it exactly how I wanted so I was stoked for my second run. I wanted to try some tricks Ive been working on but unfortunately my run ended short when I crashed on the top section of the course. The format was best of two runs so they took my first run score and I ended up taking 4th.

1st went to Paul Bas 2nd Cam McCaul 3rd Greg Watts 4th me[AT] 5th Aaron Chase. I just recently moved into Santa Cruz with Greg Watts for a real good reason. There are so many good riders in the area and I think if you look at the podium its obvious, 3 out of the 5 are living in Santa Cruz.

The last month has been super good. Greg Watts and I started it out by taking a trip up to Seattle to meet up with Phil to film for the Summer Of Shred “How To” DVD. Phil and his brothers Andy and Sam made a really cool drop to jump set up that we did all the tricks we knew how to on. After the tricks were thrown down we went through each of them step by step to teach people how to do them for the DVD. Look out for it later this summer. Checkout the link to the preview

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After we finished up in Seattle Greg and I made our way up to Whistler to ride and check out the course for this years crankworx slope style competition. While we were there I got to ride my new DH bike on the mountain. I haven’t had a full on DH bike in awhile so it was a blast.

Marin, Camelbak and The Hive were in full force at the Downieville Classic this year so after I got back from Whistler I cruised up to enter the world championship water jump contest that was sponsored by Marin. For the past three years a local kid has won the contest but unfortunately this year he got beat out in the round of four. It came down to a guy they call OG and Me. OG dropped in on his final run and pulled a perfect frontflip. I was last to go so I decided to put on the Camelbak cape and drop in with a flipwhip. The judges couldn’t decide which was better so they let the crowd choose and they ended up giving me the win. The event was really fun with good vibes.

After the Downieville Classic I got ready for the Claymore Challenge. It was the first big Slopestyle contest of the year. The rider list was stacked for this event with over 30 top guys from all over North America. I flew over with Ryan Howard and Tyler McCaul a few days early to ride the mountain and get the course dialed for the comp. The contest almost got called off from rain but on the day of finals the sun came out and the course was perfect by the time qualifying started. After qualifying I was sitting in 9th. They took ten into the finals so I just made it in. My runs weren’t exactly what I wanted but I was still stoked and got on the podium with a fifth place finish. Top five were Brandon Semenuk, Greg Watts, Paul Bass, Kelly Mcgerry and me. If you’re ever in New Hampshire and have the chance checkout the Highland Mountain bike park its definitely the best bike park in the US. All the people at the mountain are awesome!