Ryan has had a busy few months and sent in an update for everyone…
So far 2012 has been an awesome year. The end of last year I realized Greenville is not the place for me anymore. So I made the decision to move back to California where I lived 6 years ago. Making this decision has really motivated me because I think repetitively doing the same stuff everyday in Greenville was putting me in a funk. Me and my girlfriend decided to take a flight out to Southern California to look for a new home. Luckily, we found one a block away from the famous sheep hills trails in Costa Mesa. I’ve grown up watching the Schwinn video American muscle with these trails in it for most of my life.
Before I left Greenville, I shot a lot of videos and photos of stuff I wanted to do before I moved which should be coming out soon. Another cool thing im excited about, its small but I painted my down tube on my bike black and restickered my bike and for some reason its just made me really happy haha.
The next big event was the Fise contest in Costa Rica. I’d been looking forward to this event since I heard about it back in January. I flew to Miami with Rob Darden but because his passport got washed in the washing machine he got departed back to Greenville not a happy pappy. Costa Rica is a really cool country, I couldn’t believe how friendly the locals were. And they were excited to meet us all in person. Because its hard they’re kind of secluded and don’t have access to amazing skate parks like we do. They kept telling us in Spanish how excited they were to have Fise come there. When I got to the event I was blown away about how big the dirt jumps were. The first jump had the be 38 feet but no one had ridden them because of the wind. The second day I was there was park qualifying and I qualified for the top 18 finals for that night. In qualifying the biggest stand out was Drew Bezanson he just came back from a serious head injury but he’s riding stronger than ever and that was just amazing to see. They ran the finals that night at 8:30 because they wanted live TV, I was not happy about this decision because the course was painted black and of course the sky was black. I felt this didn’t suit my riding because I focus on a lot of spinning tricks eg. 1080s, double flips. So I told myself ill keep it safe and put a lot of focus on dirt tomorrow. I still did runs I was excited about including flip whips and 720 turn down. The park event was one of the most amazing comps I’ve ever witnessed. Because at the end of our runs we were given a best trick and they didn’t care how long it took us to pull it. This brought out a lot of new tricks- double decade, 720 double tail whip, and a 360 flip tail whip. Crazy night.
Woke up excited for dirt ripped open the hotel curtains and sure enough hurricane like winds and black stormy skies. I still went to the event with fingers crossed but sat around all day waiting for the rain to die and the wind to go away. One cool thing that came out of this is the super rich guy who helped put on the event let us check out his Lamborghini and Ferrari’s, and even big daddy talked his way in to driving the Ferrari around the race track. Costa Rica was an amazing trip. Once I got back into America the mission was to drive from Greenville, NC to Costa Mesa, CA.
Let me point out that ive never driven over 5 hours and the biggest trailer ive ever pulled is the one that pulls my lawn mower just a few blocks down the street. We pulled a 27 foot car carrying trailer packed to the ceiling. We did 9 hours the first day, but then I kicked into driving mode and did 19 hours the following day, and 20 the last day into California. Crazy we made the trip in 3 days when we were expecting to do it in 5 or 6. Driving that many hours in one day is unreal. We saw so much different landscape and weather it was unbelievable. We would start out in the morning driving in snow, then it would turn into flat deserts by the afternoon we would be going up the steepest mountains. One scary event on the roadtrip was being almost overtaken by a semi truck until its tire exploded causing him to lose control and almost taking us off the road with him. I just pinned it and didn’t look back. My heart was racing. But we got to California safe and sound. This morning I unpacked the trailer, went down to the beach to get lunch, and tonight we’re going to the supercross race to cheer on our boy Chad Reed. Tomorrow morning ill put my bike together and let the good times begin.
