Friday, January 18, 2008

California Dreamin' 96 - 97

With frigid temp's approaching all I can do is reflect back upon warmer times. My first trip out to Cali was a quick weekend. I was living in MI back in 96, racing for the Devo Team, and flew in to Ontario, CA to do the Big Bear Norba. No camera, no pictures, results maybe around 22nd.
















My first real stay in Cali was in 97 at the Cabin in Nevada City. It was pretty awesome. Derek Prechtl, Skyler and I loaded up the Caravan and hit the scene. From VT to Cali we did it all. Including this Norba in Mammoth where I again finished 22nd but this time in the Sr. Expert cat.























The stories from the cabin are endless but the best is the morning of the Deathstar at North Star training race in Tahoe. We went for a little cruise on the bikes to loosed up the legs in the morning. When we got back it was time to clean up. The Yuba River runs through the back yard of the cabin and it was daily ritual to go down for a swim after each ride.
















The water was raging that day, but for some reason Derek Prechtl wanted extra lube on the rock slide to the pool at the bottom. As he is standing on the top of the slide with his bar of Irish Spring (it floats) in hand, lubing up the top of the slide he goes down. His feet got a little too slippery, he fell back and cracked his head on the rock. As he was sliding down the flume of water I watched his eyes roll back into his head with a look of blank death as he disappeared under the water. It was the first time, and hopefully last, I will ever have to hold another grown man naked, but when Skyler and I pulled him out from under the water and I inserted my finger an inch and a half into the back of Derek's head it was the last thing in my mind.















After he came back to life we walked him up to the cabin and did some old school doctoring....nothing a shower cap and a pack of ice couldn't fix up right?

It seemed to do the trick as Derek was lined up 4 hours later for the local training race in Tahoe.




He did complain of some wooziness after the race....something about the elevation...can anyone besides Skyler name the ultra fast pro in the black w/ yello jersey?
Stay tuned for the California Chronicles......

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

you doing the ski race this weekend? i think I am
Brian

Anonymous said...

not sure yet? i might go up to lambeau

cjsbike said...

JHK is the backdoor pro.

-Chad

Anonymous said...

Not JHK

Anonymous said...

Miles Rockwell? He held his own in the XC events also....

Anonymous said...

Nope but good guess.....

Anonymous said...

Kirk Molday? He was fast. One year at least......

bubba said...

Brian..
I had some pics developed from the 08 WORS season. A few of you are pretty cool. I'll get them to you.

My guess on the fast guy would be Simonson, but I really have no clue.

bubba said...

I meant 07

Anonymous said...

you guys are way off.... jhk couldnt dream of having biceps like that dude... looks like he was chopping some wood or something (clue) (well, obscure clue).... and i TOTALLY forgot about how we could put our finger inside dereks skull that one time... im surprised none of us ended up in the hospital that summer... remember the poison oak!!

Anonymous said...

Danielson?

Anonymous said...

big clue - from one of our wors & wca cross racing friends....

http://cstrout.blogspot.com/2006/10/new-standard.html

it's hard to find the old results - but trust me this dude was fast

Anonymous said...

Danielson!!?? hell no... i said he was chopping wood and building log cabins last we heard i think... man he as FAST... i think he broke a few of those frames, what was the company that built frames for devo back then???

Biwan said...

Walker Ferguson

Anonymous said...

looks to me like good ol matt kelly.

Anonymous said...

apparantly no one here raced junior expert in 1995

Anonymous said...

check out the link to see the answer

http://bp0.blogger.com/_mvWLWyOwLpg/RYGQso-neHI/AAAAAAAAADk/kGUbaMBRQ6U/s1600-h/TraverseCity0016.jpg

ps he went on to crush it in the norba pros world cup and even world championships he was headed for a great result before an untimely double flat

Anonymous said...

jhk was in second on that results page beforehe pulled a big dnf

Anonymous said...

Matt Gerkin it is then......

He's alive building homes in NV.

cjsbike said...

What ever happened to Todd Shoberg? The last time I saw him was in the parking lot of Retro Ranch in 1994.

-Chad

Anonymous said...

shoberg won the MI road state championships in 06 or 07 i think he is somewhere around mi

TheBrothersChase said...

http://velonews.com/view_full.php?image=/images/dom/13902.21767.f.jpg

i was informed thats shoberg in the back in the west coast jersey

the MICHIGANSCENE said...

awesome pic!!