Australia’s newest Freestyle Motocross superstar, Josh Sheehan, won his first major international competition at his home-nation Red Bull X-Fighters final round, held on Cockatoo Island, Sydney, Australia on Saturday afternoon.

Sheehan defied the odds after almost crashing earlier in his semi-final, to quickly turn his mistake into a career defining moment when he executed a perfect Double Backflip in his Semi-Final round against eventual 2011 Tour winner, Dany Torres to set himself up with a Final round against New Zealand’s Levi Sherwood, where he would go on to win.

“Today’s win for me here in Sydney was overwhelming! My family were here to see it, and I’m glad to be part of three ‘firsts’. It is the first time I have won X-Fighters. The first time X-Fighters have come to Australia in 11 years and the first time I have done a Double Backflip in a freestyle competition” Sheehan said.

“I knew I had to pull the Double Backflip earlier than I wanted to, because I had to go head-to-head with Dany Torres in the semi-finals. I felt confident with it, and knew I just had to land it to be a chance to go through to the final” Sheehan said.

The deafening Australian crowd who packed out the Cockatoo Island venue reached fever pitch when Sheehan made it into the final, but it was his final run against Levi Sherwood that would seal Josh as one of world’s best Freestyle MX riders when he landed his second Double Flip for the day to take the win, and in doing so became 4^th overall for the 2011 series.

“I felt so much better in the final round. I was so nervous before I did my first Double flip, but after I landed it, I was much more confident in myself and went back to my original run. I knew what the strong winds were doing, and I was comfortable with the doing the Double Flip again.”

Sheehan displayed one of the most technically difficult freestyle runs in Freestyle MX history, when he performed not only the Double Backflip, but also a 360 Heelclicker and one of the biggest Ruler backflips in his two-minute run, while utilising the very intense dirt course and continually riding the highest on the tallest wall-ride ever seen in competition.

Photo Credits:
Double Backflip sequence – Jorg Mitter/Red Bull
Josh – Cliffhanger – Mark Watson/Red Bull
Cockatoo Island course – Oliver Schran/Red Bull
Podium – Jorg Mitter/Red Bull
Josh 360 – Jorg Mitter/Red Bull

With less than a week until Red Bull X-Fighters makes its long awaited debut in Australia at Cockatoo Island in the Sydney Harbour, Josh Sheehan is preparing to continue his stellar form in 2011 in a home-country competition.

Sheehan has had such a meteoric rise to 2011 with podiums in each competition he has ridden including a Bronze medal at X Games Best Trick when he landed the Double Backflip, and third places in Rome and Madrid X-Fighters rounds.

“I am really excited to think that this is only my fourth Red Bull X-Fighters competition, and the first X-Fighters in Australia in 10 years. I have placed as high as 3^rd so far in X-Fighters, and it would be a perfect time to get a win here in Australia with my friends and family watching” Sheehan said.

Unfortunately last month at X Games, after winning Bronze medal in Best Trick, Josh dislocated his shoulder while performing a Ruler Backflip, one of his signature moves at X Games Freestyle and has been under a fitness cloud since. But determined to comeback stronger, Sheehan has worked hard to make it to Sydney.

“I had nearly a month off and it took a bit of time to feel comfortable. I have had lots of physiotherapy, strengthening exercises and with two weeks before Sydney I am feeling really good on the bike again.”

In a show of camaraderie, 2010 X Games Best Trick Gold medallist, Cam Sinclair has invited Josh to train with him at his home in Melbourne the week prior to X-Fighters where both riders will work on perfecting the Double Flip.

“It was really cool of Cam to invite me to practice with him at his home compound. We had a good couple of days of training, but even more so there is a lot more motivation to ride with another rider who is landing Double Flips and to feed off that energy” Sheehan said.

“I am ready for Sydney X-Fighters and confident to do as well as I can!”

For more information on Sydney X-Fighters, 17^th September, visit www.redbull.com

A quick Double Backflip session into the foam pit for Sheeny and Sincs in the morning was the end of our time at Cam Sinclair’s place before we were to head west on the long drive to Perth as the final destination.  The next stop was to be Josh Burdon’s place in Millicent, 635 km’s away on the Great Ocean Road scenic drive.  It was just so nice that we didn’t even make it to Burdo’s place and camped out under the stars!

With Red Bull X-Fighters only days away, Sheeny and Sincs wanted to get a few more Double Flips dialled in the foam pit.  Schuie and I were content to have a FMX ride and I was going to hit the foam too, but once again the Melbourne weather turned sour and it was so windy that not a single trick was thrown.  Both Sheeny and Sincs threw 5 Double Flips perfectly into the foam pit and with that Schuie and I packed up and hit the road.

A huge thanks to Cam and Brooke for having us for the weekend!

We wanted to take the Great Ocean Road on our way from Melbourne to Millicent, South Australia – but the new GPS gave us a bum-steer and we headed inland a fair way first before we went through a town called Forrest.  When we came out at the ocean, we were looking at the coastal town of Apollo Bay.  It was certainly not a bad thing as the drive from the main highway towards Colac and then the turn off to Forrest was an unreal drive up the mountains!  When we came out of the thick rainforest and overlooking the pounding seas of the Bass Strait into Apollo Bay.

Having not looked at the map for a while, we assumed there would be a Service Station in the next town… surely our 1/3rd of a tank would get us into the next place.  Turns out there was no service station until we reached Port Campbell an hour and half away!  Luckily if we were going to be stuck without fuel we would have ran out right at the Twelve Apostles!

Stepping out onto the timber walkway overlooking the Twelve Apostles was one of those moments when you realise how good Australia is, and want to crank out a little ‘Land Down Under’ by Men at Work!  I was at least singing it in my head, and realising why would you need to travel the world when we have some of the best natural sights in our own backyard – despite how big our backyard is!

After Schuie fed his inner tourist, taking happy snaps of every single apostle, limestone stack and crack in the deep red clay walls that bound the coast we hit the road for Millicent, still another 4 hours away and the sun had just gone down.  We were expecting to get into Burdo’s place by about 11pm, but when we saw plenty of wallabies scattered on the side of the road and a sign in the small town of Peterborough saying ‘Drivers watch out for Golfers hitting balls over the road’ then we knew we had to pull up stumps and camp on the beach to play some golf in the morning.

A quick counter meal at the local pub, some of the best oysters and a chinwag with the local publican, we set up camp at about 9pm.  Since most of the grass, sticks and logs were wet, a fire needed a little help from the diesel drum but soon enough we had the Bike Trailer pumping out some Call of Duty on the Xbox and thanks to modern technology we were playing multiplayer online in the middle of nowhere.  Thanks to Lakes Networking again on that!  The new WiFi Mobile dongle with an antenna has come in bloody handy again!

Putting a full day of XBox behind us and turning Sheeny into a Call of Duty monster, we finally had a break in the bad weather and were able to hit up the South Side FMX compound with Cam Sinclair and Sheeny making an appearance to work on his Double Flips into the foam pit.

Although the rain disappeared for a change, the wind didn’t leave us, but the conditions were good enough that we could still ride.  Sincs was busy in the bobcat to clean up the mud at the base of the ramps while Sheeny was setting up his CRF 450 that he borrowed from the Carlton Dry race team for X-Fighters this weekend.

Schuie was busy hitting up the whooped out sand MX track which winds its way through the trees around the FMX compound and I caught up with Adam ‘Insane’ Kamanek from FMXAustralia.com who was on hand to get some awesome shots despite how cloudy it was.

I’ll let the pictures do the talking, but we had a really good ride with two X Games medallists and then witnessed them put their body on the line in the foam pit by dialling in the Double BackFlip.

Let me just say, the Super Kicker, at 50ft and then jacked up is one scary looking jump!  Cam and Josh were going so high off it that when they came down it was like a lead balloon dropping into foam and they would nearly hit the bottom.

We finished up the 6 hours of riding late into the afternoon and headed home to a big dinner served up by Cam’s lovely wife, Brooke who looked after us way too well!  I think Sheeny probably ate the last of the food in the house! But when Brooke cooked as good as she did, I can see why!

For many more photos from the session check out FMXAustralia.com!  http://fmxaustralia.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=46232

On Thursday we packed up early from a nice comfy sleep in Cam Sinclair’s new home, south of Melbourne and headed for a natural terrain freeride session with Sincs and Cheyne Boyd who are practically neighbours in their new estate.  A 15 minute drive to the small coastal town of Rye and nothing seemed to indicate a Freeride heaven.

We were told to park on the side of the road, and gear up. Where we were headed was a mystery and that’s how the boys would prefer it. The block of land they had hidden away is owned by a property developer who is unable to build for 20 years – and it just so happens to be perfectly shaped sand dunes with thick grass covering the seemingly endless possibilities of jumps.

The night before it was absolutely pouring with rain, something that generally means there is no chance of riding.  But in this case, the sand dunes soak it up and it is actually better to ride with plenty of moisture in it.  And with that, we were hitting 100 foot plus jumps in 3^rd and 4^th gear.

Boydy showed he was the big dog of the day, when he launched his CRF 450 over this monster 140ft gap, 4^th gear wedged!  The winds were at least 50km/hr side-wind and you could see him being carried 20 feet to the side of where he intended to land, but Cheyne made it look relatively easy.

There were plenty of other lines, jumps and even hills that hadn’t even been jumps before until we got there.  We found one section where the hill went up, but didn’t have an obvious kicker at the top, and then after 70 feet, went up even higher.  So the aim was to do a ‘Step Up’ and try jump what would be over 100 feet, off of something that didn’t even look like a jump.

It’s hard to explain until you see the video, but it was essentially impossible, but Cheyne once again stepped up and hit the jump 5^th gear pinned and had just enough air-time to make it to the top.  Any slower and he would have hit the back of the hill and cartwheeled for a 100 metres or more!

Not to be outdone, Schuie did the same thing on a jump going in the opposite direction and only just made his downramp too!

Unfortunately the wind was a downer and it meant we couldn’t enjoy as many of the jumps as we would have liked.  But there is definitely a lot of potential and I’m sure with a small bulldozer, the boys will have one of Australia’s best Natural Terrain riding spots!

The next day we were joined by Australia’s newest FMX sensation, Josh Sheehan, who was coming to train with Sincs in the foam pit and work on some double flips.  Melbourne’s signature weather patterns meant it was bucketing down rain like usual, so those plans were dashed, and instead we chilled out and went to Bilko’s place for a party to welcome him and Boka home.
Not much needs to be said about the night, it was a good party and everyone had fun!

The twelfth day was also written off – with a wet and windy day again, it was the Antarctic blast that the weather-man had predicted but we hoped wouldn’t come.  We were going stir-crazy and all we ended up doing was playing Call of Duty on the X-Box!  5 hours later, when Cam got back from a family lunch, we headed out to Sinc’

s compound, picked up batteries and headed back home.  So in total for the whole day – we probably got out of the couch 5 times.

Hopefully tomorrow is a much more productive day!

Up until the nineth day, we were only riding either in the morning or afternoon.  That all changed when we tried to fit in a ride on Jacko’s competition course, then the jumps in the forest and then pack up all of our gear and drive 4 hours to ‘Deadwood’ in Victoria to ride in the afternoon at one of Cam Sinclair’s new riding spots!  A big day, lots of driving and plenty of riding to be had.

To start the morning we had a nother ride on the Freestyle course while Jacko was busy building up his X-Fighters inspired competition jumps, and although we were all pretty sore from the day before, it was fun to get straight back into working on tricks and in particular for Sincs who is training for X-Fighters next weekend.

After a thirty minute warm-up, we headed to Jacko’s second compound in the Forest.  All on his property, Jacko has a section littered with tall forestry trees and riding through the long-grass tracked to get in, you wouldn’t expect to see 4 big red clay downramps, but that’s what we found!

Jacko wasn’t really up with his pruning as there were a few branches hanging out over the downramps that I almost hit on my first jump!  But we got used to it and had a lot of fun in there, until Sincs pointed out I had a flat tire – so that was the end of my Freestyle for the day.  I headed back to the house, put my bike away and j

umped on Schuie’s Track Bike and made my way back to join Schuie and Sincs on riding the motocross track in there, but because it wasn’t my bike I didn’t want to go crazy and cartwheel Schuie’s bike on him.  I couldn’t afford to replace all of his trick parts!

By 12:30pm we packed up and hit the road to Deadwood, Sinclair’s new riding spot near Broadford, Victoria.  So another 360 kilometre drive and we made it for a late afternoon ride on the cool setup which featured a double-double ramp section set in the hills of Broadford.  It was a sweet way to finish the day by trying out yet another compound on sunset.

Thanks to Ant Lyon from ADB Magazine for the good photos on this page!  Check out the next issue of Australasian Dirt Bike Magazine for some how-to’s on Hart Attacks, Double Cans, How to jump ramps, and fac

tory rides!

The 5th and 6th days were fizzers, I was absolutely stuffed from the Red Bull plane ride, and could barely keep my eyes open on Sunday, and Monday wasn’t much better.  All we managed to do was pick up the trailer from the KTM factory and head back to Schuie’s aunty and uncle’s at Moss Vale

After a slow day with Lance and Lachie Russell, we looked over Sydney from a lookout, waaayyyy off in the west, where Sydney looked like a speck in the distance.  A quick beer and a pie and I was heading back to their place for a snooze.  Turns out, doing those G forces actually does take it out of you.

I was warned that a journalist went up in the plane not long ago and he had to take a week off of work because he was so sick.. but that some people also get tired after it.  I went for the latter and have been pretty tired.

We’re just about to leave Moss Vale after another nice sleep in a comfy bed at Steve and Tammy’s place, and head for either Wagga Wagga to ride with Jacko, but as the reports are coming in that it’s wet, we might head down to Melbourne to ride with Sincs instead.  So I guess we’ll decide when we get on the road which direction we’ll go.  So check back tomorrow and see where we ended up!

Day 7-8 Jacko Strongs place – Best riding so far!

We left from Moss Vale for the 5 hour trip to Wagga Wagga and onwards to Jackson Strong’s place near Lockhart, but the weather forecast wasn’t on our side and Jacko was even telling us it might be better to go to Cam Sinclair’s in Melbourne.  But we kept on going to Wagga to try our luck.  Turned out to be the best decision!

It was wet when we made it to Jacko’s pad, but he was still able to keep working on the jumps with his new Komatsu posi-trak.  The orange clay on top was fairly slippery, but in contrast underneath was white powdery dirt that wasn’t taking up moisture at all.

We had a quick tour of Jacko’s two compounds, including one that has been built in the middle of a forest on his canola farm which looked awesome – big red clay jumps almost invisible through the trees.

About 11:30pm Ant Lyon from ADB Magazine made his way into Jacko’s place and then woke everyone up to his car alarm going off its nut. After getting a cool photo of Jacko’s compound at night with the moon above we were in bed to rest before a big day of filming the next day.

Big ride on Day 8!

Robbie Adelberg and Cam Sinclair made the trek to ride with Schuie and I on Jacko’s course.  Unfortunately Jacko has sprained his ankle after coming up short at Deegan’s place in Temecula, USA, so he was out of action but Ant Lyon was on point with his camera and he had a full day of different shots he wanted for the next issue of ADB.

First up, we were just warming up with a few tricks and then Schuie did a ‘How To guide’ for a Hart Attack, while I lined up to do a guide on pulling ramps back from 40ft to 55ft to 75ft in sequence.

After lunch Schuie got his helicopter going again with more foam on the rod for the GoPro and we tried getting more shots.  Some turned out sweet when he was following Robbie Adelberg, and the widescreen of the GoPro really made the shots of the compound look like it was a long way up!

I tried playing around with some attachments SportsCamera gave us, even with the helmet camera looking back on the rider – but with some technical difficulties (my visor flexing under the weight of the camera) I gave up and tried some different angles on the bike.

By 4:30pm Sincs turned up and was ready to ride and we had a good sunset session on the ramps with heaps of different camera angles.  Schuie peeled off early after dislocating his knee a couple of nights earlier when we played pool, so he was done and we all soon came in for a couple of beers to celebrate a good days ride!

It was the break-away day when Schuie had to go Balchy’s wedding  at Home Bush, and I was meeting up with Josh Sheehan and the Red Bull crew for the Red Bull X-Fighters Jam at the Mean Fiddler pub at Rouse Hill and what a surprise I had – Flying in the Red Bull Air Race style plane!

The morning was pretty sweet with a nice big breaky with Sheeny and Simon picked us up to take Josh on what was to be a surprise Promotional activity – to fly in the Red Bull aerobatic plane at Bankstown airport.

But as fate would have it, one of the Red Bull promo girls broke the secret early and Sheeny knew all about it. So when we turned up to the airport Josh had an idea on what was going on, and it wasn’t until we walked in that I got a shock of a life-time when Red Bull had organised for me to go up in the plane as well!!

I couldn’t believe it, I was keeping a secret from Josh, and they had one for me!

It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.  I don’t think I’d ever sign up to do it personally, but after doing it, it was an incredible ride.  With a GoPro mounted in front of me and Josh, they were ordered to try and make either of us to spew up.

Josh went up first and came back 45 minutes later with the biggest grin, no spew on his suit though, but he said he reached 8 G’s and he had tunnel vision and almost passed out.  I wasn’t really that nervous about doing it until he started telling me of what he experienced and that there is a move called the ‘knife-edge’ where he nearly passed out.

Then I was getting a little nervous – if Sheeny was feeling it, I’m sure I’d be just as bad with it.  In the flight we headed off west towards the ridgeline of mountains before we could start any acrobatics.  And eve to start with the loop-to-loop was pretty full on, and a couple of switch backs.

It wasn’t until we started pulling moves of Negative 2 G’s where it felt like my eyes would explode, and then into more full on moves like flying vertical – and the pilot then turned the motor off and we literally fell backwards out of the sky.  Hurtling towards the ground with no sound of a motor was the weirdest experience, and one I wouldn’t want to hear on a commercial flight!  But with a flick of the rudder into a tumble and hitting the motor again we pulled out of it with 6 G’s and it was reassuring that we were back flying horizontal.

As the pilot said ‘Well, there you go.  Let’s head back’  I was thinking, wow, that wasn’t so bad.  What was Josh on about?

Then the pilot said, ‘Oh, I forgot – here’s the knife edge’.  We went into a Red Bull Air Race manoeuvre where you fly side ways, and snap back from left to right, reaching positive 8 G’s. With blood rushing from my eyes and brain to my feet, I was feeling I was losing consciousness, and even my hands came off the bar in front and I could barely even see the altitude dial in front of me.

We finally came out of it and I was getting blood back to my head, when the pilot said – how about Negative 3G’s to get the blood back.  Unbelievable.

If you have ever thought of having a joy ride in a Red Baron plane or similar – I say do it!  It was one hell of an experience and I can’t thank Red Bull enough for letting me go up there!

As we were late to get to the Red Bull FMX demo, we missed the first demo with Joel Brown, Truman Carroll and Rhys Hillier riding.  Sheeny was the special guest, signing plenty of autographs and even judged a competition which would see the winner of Best Trick receiving tickets to the X-Fighters competition in Sydney on the 17^th.

With a beer in hand, and a big Steak Sandwich, it was a good night to see some FMX at the Mean Fiddler pub and plenty of rowdy fans getting into the FMX show that will be a precursor to the biggest competition Australia will ever see in 2 weeks time.

After catching up with Petra and Juha from SportsCamera.com.au and receiving a few more camera mounts for the road trip, I headed back to the Russell Brothers pad in western Sydney where Day 6 would be an absolute write off and a big sleep!  Thanks again to Lance and his family for letting me stay for a couple of nights, and Max the Cockatoo for warning us of a Red Belly black crawling around next to the house!

The sleep has been worth it and I’ll keep this updated tomorrow!

Steve

After months of planning, Steve Sommerfeld and Matt Schubring have finally hit the road to start their month-long road trip around Australia in search of Australia’s best Moto riding spots!  Heres what Sommy had to say..

Starting in Brisbane, we will make our way around the coast of QLD, NSW and Victoria while also zig-zagging our way through regional country areas and on to South Australia and ultimately Western Australia where will be finishing the trip in style with a Valyside ‘Under the Fender’ FMX Coaching course with support from Red Bull, and then cut back through Northern Territory on our way home to Brisbane!

We will be riding some of the best courses, with Australia’s best Freestyle MX exports including Jackson Strong, Cameron Sinclair and Josh Sheehan who all finished on the podium at the recent X Games 2011 Best Trick competition in first, second and third respectively!

The Freeride Road Trip will be filmed for the next Crusty Demons DVD out late 2011, and Unit will be filming sections of the trip at Wagga Wagga, Melbourne’s secret compounds for a 3-part web video series and an episode for FuelTV.

With great support from Hyundai, we are able to travel in comfort in a brand new Turbo Diesel iLoad, and towing Schuie’s bike transporter behind.  And with Hyundai’s support, Matt has set up a competition on his website, www.SchuieFMX.com for all residents of Australia to try guess how many litres of diesel we use each week.  Matt will choose the winner each week as to who comes closest to the litre.

DAY 1 – Driving to Coffs

Welcome to the first journal entry of the Freeride Road Trip, and as I type, we have just woken up from our first day of driving from Boonah to Coffs Harbour.  After a nice and scenic 365 kilometres of driving, we met up with Jake Bowen in Coffs and then ventured ‘up the hill’ to his new compound at Ulong where we would roll out the swags!

I was surprised to see how nice the scenery was just outside of Boonah on our road through Running Creek and Cougal – something I didn’t even know existed which is practically in my backyard at Brisbane!
But after driving on through to Coffs we had to make a stop at the bike shop to get the first repairs underway – needing to put on my new Motoz intermediate tyre for the trip but as usual, doing it by hand I pinched the tube and we had the bike shop do it with a machine.  So much easier!  Jake Bowen then met with us at the bike shop and asked us to follow him up to his new compound which, as he grossly under-exaggerated, was just ‘Up the Hill’.

Well, the hill went for about 45 minutes and basically going up a range out the back of Coffs Harbour on our way to Ulong.  The rain was getting heavier, the lightning was cracking and we knew it was going to be a very ordinary start to our camping trip.  Sleeping in the mud.

But luckily at the new compound, Jake’s uncle is building a new house, so we decided to go ‘Glamping’ and pitched our swags under the roof of the new house on the cement pad, set up the cooking and ended up watching movies on the Laptop!

It’s now 10am, the sun is out but the ground is still wet, and Bowen should be back up here shortly and we’ll try ride something.  Fingers crossed the mud dries up a little and we can hit some of his new natural terrain jumps!

DAY 2 – Riding at Bowen’s

Jake Bowen treated us to our first ride of the road trip at his new compound in the small township of Ulong, on top of the range above Coffs Harbour, and we were treated to some big jumps from 90 feet to 120 feet, all using the ridgeline running across the 100 acre property.

The morning started with Schuie and I working flat out in our mobile office, using plenty of my Lakes Networking gadgets to keep us updating the site and also organising sponsorships for the new Queensland Moto Park back home. We’re also planning the S & S FMX Coaching course for when we reach the Valyside compound in Perth which should hopefully be the last weekend of September.

With office work over, and Schuie was putting together his helicopter to try out the new GoPro and attachments from SportsCamera.com.au to do some filming, Bowen arrived and it was time to attack the rain-soaked course and see what was rideable. Before Matt and I even had our gear on, Jake had come back in with mud all over him after slipping in the corner – so we knew it was going to be slick. But the new Motoz tires were spot on and I was getting a fair bit of hook up… and so did Schuie when he decided to cover me in mud while I was trying to film him with the helmet cams!

The jumps were a little slick, but definitely jumpable. The 90 footer was the trick jump, although you had to skip over a gully and land almost in the face of the upramp while powering on in 3rd gear to make it to the smoothest part of the downramp. It was a bit technical to trick the jump, and Jake was showing he had the home town advantage with big Rulers and Double Grab indy’s, while Schuie and I were happy to just jump and whip off it.

I did make a novice school boy error – I forgot I had fitted the full race seat to my KTM and I was trying to do Seat Grab tricks. I did them, but they just didn’t feel right… after an hour and a half – Schuie decided to point out to me that I had the full seat on, which made sense as to why I could barely do it. So a quick change over to the cut-down seat and I was in action!

The other main jump was a 120 foot jump return back over the same ridgeline.  With a fairly short run up on to the ski jump, it was hard to make it to the downramp and make a smooth landing.  It was 3^rd gear absolutely wedged to get to the knuckle and not to the sweet spot, that’s for sure!  But regardless of a ski jump, it was actually quite a poppy jump.  Flying 120 feet with plenty of airtime was a good way to start the trip and we were all over it.

It was only after a while that another little jump over the creek would dry up enough that we could get more speed for the 120footer and it was then on to be tricked and you could land in the sweet spot down the bottom.  Possibly an extra 20 feet or so.

After finishing the ride, it was only a short walk through Bowen’s property to the pub across the creek and a couple of beers to celebrate a good start to the trip, and a sweet ride to start with!

Thanks to Jake Bowen and his family for having us at their new compound and hopefully we can make it back there again one day!

DAY 3 – Off to Sydney

The scenic escape of Bowen’s property near Coffs Harbour was ending prematurely when we were told the small town of Ulong has riding conditions that allow Jake to only ride Wednesday and Saturday. So with that, it was time to leave and make our way to Sydney a day early. But not without some dramas to start the day! The riding at Jake’s was freakin’ sweet, and it would have been great to get a second day on the course after the rain kept it slippery.  But we had to get moving.  Although there was one improvement needed.. after two awesome hours of riding, it left our backs feeling compressed, legs aching, knees tweaked and whiplash in the neck as you have to brace for every landing. But damn, it was worth every hard hit, the jumps felt great, and plenty of air-time!!  So thanks to Jake Bowen for letting us come and ride his home compound!

So, Day 3 was simply to be a driving day to the next destination and go to bed.  We started packing up all of our camping gear into the van and trailer when it struck us… how the hell were we going to get up this slippery rain-sodden hill with a 2 wheel drive van towing a fully loaded 2-tonne trailer?

Luckily, Jake’s uncle had left the keys in the tractor so we could tow ourselves out of the bog and make our very slow but eventual exit and on our way back down the range and on our way to Sydney.

After starting the drive at 10am from Ulong, we reached Schuie’s aunty Tammy and uncle Steve’s home in Moss Vale at 7pm, and to our surprise, were greeted with an authentic Thai sticky pork dinner and a nice warming Scotch to ease into the cold weather Moss Vale put on for us.

A big sleep in a comfy bed and the next day will be a trip to KTM’s Factory Race Team to wash bikes!

Until tomorrow, have a good day!

DAY 4 – Back to KTM

The fourth day was pencilled in to be a work day – Cleaning all of our mud caked bikes, gear, van and trailer at the JDR KTM Racing Factory. And while Schuie did warn me it would be a full day, I didn’t believe him until we arrived and started pulling everything out of the trailer to clean! … Yeah.. everything! The KTM crew did set us up with a nice wash bay in front of the massive JDR Factory Transporter, so at least we had all the right equipment including a pressure cleaner that could strip the orange colour out of the plastics! Three bikes later, some air filters cleaned and the trailer mopped out and Matt re-laced a new rim to replace his old one that was so beaten up that it would feel like a set of stutters jumping through the air.

We packed up and headed in to the centre of Sydney – the first time I have seen Sydney City (other than the airport, and driving on ring-roads to get around the place!) And very quickly we both realised why we hate Sydney so much – the Traffic is the worst I’ve ever seen. I’d rather drive in Los Angeles! Coupled together with a Garmin GPS that took us on the worst possible route from Penrith to the City that it took 2 hours for 40 kilometres, far enough we could have driven from Brisbane to the Gold Coast and back to Brisbane.

So with that, we are in Sydney for the weekend. Schuie is going to Balchy’s wedding, and I’m going to the Red Bull X-Fighters Jam with Josh Sheehan at the Mean Fiddler pub.

Australian Freestyle Motocross sensation Josh Sheehan is the newest rider to perform the double backflip in Freestyle Motocross, and in doing so, has won the Bronze medal inside the Staples Centre at X Games 17 Best Trick in Los Angeles, CA.

With only 24 hours’ notice before competition that he would be an alternate for fellow injured Australian Freestyle rider, Robbie Maddison, Sheehan landed his first double backflip in Best Trick competition perfectly.

“Best Trick was something I didn’t really prepare for, as I had another trick I wanted to land. But I had the Double Flip on lock and thought I’d show everyone I had it before Freestyle. I was over the moon to get a 3^rd place, I only expected 5^th or maybe a 4^th. But unexpected things do happen in FMX, and I was just happy to be at X Games and land my first Double Flip” Sheehan said.

Sheehan had spent the past 2 weeks training and working on the Double Flip with Travis Pastrana in Maryland. But it was after Sheehan’s Double Backflip that Travis would attempt the corked 720 but crashed out. “I could see the disappointment on Travis from the other side of the course. Trav has tried them so much into the foam pit, and he had them dialled” Sheehan continued.

Josh was a favourite to do well in Freestyle the following night, however during his first 60-second run, Josh suffered a dislocated shoulder during a Ruler-Flip and he was unable to get back on the bike in time and crashed.

“Freestyle was disappointing for me, as that is what I had prepared for. I did the Ruler Flip fairly late and my shoulder dislocated while in the air so I couldn’t pull back on straight and I slid out. There’s no damage, but after two crashes (one in practice) I’m happy I have no serious injuries and I’ll be back for more next year!”

Despite sliding out of Freestyle, Sheehan left his mark on X Games 17 with his Bronze Medal and already has a new trick for 2012 X Games. Josh is now focused on healing his injured shoulder, fingers and ankle to be able to compete in Red Bull X-Fighters in Poland this weekend coming, August 6.

Photo Credits:

Double Backflip Sequence – RedBull.com Media House
Best Trick – RedBull.com Media House
Ruler Flip – MotoUSA.com