Life from the Road: Busy Busy Month

It was cooold at the 14,100 foot summit of Pikes Peak in Colorado

Ok, I've been slacking a bit on the blog the past month. I know it's supposed to be the "Off Season" in moto but I've been busier than I was in the summer, which is awesome. I've been on the road for the past two weeks and finally get to stay home for a little bit and let all these experiences soak in.

First, I flew to Denver, Colorado for the Red Bull Motocross of Nations. The premiere event in the moto world, countries from around the world send their three best riders to determine who the top nation in motocross is. I was able to attend 3 years ago when the race came to Budds Creek, Maryland and I couldn't wait to take in another one. When the 2010 edition was announced to be taking place at Lakewood, Colorado's Thunder Valley Raceway I knew I had to make the trip south.

I flew in on Thursday but the rest of my co-workers weren't coming in till the following day so I had the day to kill. Luckily for me, in a strange twist of fate, my mom and two brothers were actually in Colorado on a three week camping trip through Wyoming, Colorado and Utah so they changed up their plans to come and pick me up from the airport. My brother, Jeff, is a big rally fan so we decided to head up to Pikes Peak outside of Colorado Springs. The Pikes Peak road, which hosts the famous Pikes Peak Hill Climb rally, is a crazy winding road that works it's way all the way up to the 14,100 ft summit of the peak. This turned out to be one of the craziest roads I've ever driven up, if you're ever in the area this should definitely be on your "to do" list. The view from the top is pretty unbelievable as well, with a sweeping 360 degree panorama of the surrounding Colorado countryside. The altitude sure is hard on the body after flying in from the sea level elevation of Vancouver, I got pretty dizzy after only a few minutes up on the top.

My family up at the summit of Pikes Peak

A section of the Pikes Peak road from 12,000ft. You can see how winding it is.

On Friday, I met up with the rest of my crew - Dawn McClintock, "Big Wave" Billy Rainford, Steve Matthes and Rick Bradshaw of Schraeder's Yamaha/Honda/Suzuki in Yorkton, Saskatchewan who was our host for the weekend. I can't thank Rick enough for his hospitality and the entire weekend was one of the highlights of my career. Now, I have to get working on a plan to get to next years edition of the race which is taking place in France.

Billy boarding the bus at the Des Nations. We rode it for about a hundred feet.

Red Bull pulled out all the stops for the race. Here's one of two, two story hospitality areas they had set up. They had a killer party here on Sunday night.

The Thunder Valley track in Lakewood, Colorado

The current fastest man on the planet, Ryan Dungey.

Team Iceland. We're supposed to be going riding with these guys in the spring. I can't wait

Kaven Benoit got the honors of representing Canada in Colorado

Just after this shot I filmed a funny video segment with Steve Matthes(r), Trey Canard(center) and Transworld Motocross's Donn Maeda(l). You can check it out on Steve's website, www.pulpmx.com

After flying back from Denver on Monday my week wasn't over, though. I had a couple days to get my photos sent out to everyone and then I had to hop on an early morning flight to Montreal on Thursday morning for the annual Montreal Supercross at Olympic Stadium. Always a highlight on the Canadian calendar, it didn't disappoint as usual. Montreal is one of those cities where you can't help but have fun, especially since it's the last race of the year and everyone is pretty relaxed. Now, I'm finally home for a bit but there's no shortage of stuff to shoot. Stay tuned for more as I follow up on a couple of projects I've had in the works that I hope to get working on here soon.

James