<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"\"&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=\\\"Verdana, Helvetica, Arial\\\"&gt;&lt;span&gt;This will be a good story for those who don\\u2019t think being a Professional Cyclist is full-time job.\\u00a0 Not to be confused with a full-time job that isn\\u2019t sweet, of course\\u2026\\u00a0 In my old age I\\u2019m trying to broaden my value in my chosen field while also keeping myself entertained by doing new things and meeting new people.\\u00a0 This balance of racing and new stuff was achieved perfectly over the last week in California.\\u00a0 First up was some good old-fashioned bike racing, albeit with a face-lift, at the first stop of the new US Pro Cross Country Tour in Fontana.\\u00a0 From there Carl and I headed up the coast to the Santa Ynez Valley for Fox Racing Shox\\u2019 \\u2018o10 Product Launch at the Zaca Station MX Track.\\u00a0 Kick ass.&lt;\\/span&gt;&lt;\\/font&gt;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=\\\"http:\\/\\/www.bikemag.com\\/files\\/2009\\/04\\/monkey_ball.jpg\\\" title=\\\"monkey_ball.jpg\\\"&gt;&lt;img src=\\\"http:\\/\\/www.bikemag.com\\/files\\/2009\\/04\\/monkey_ball.jpg\\\" alt=\\\"monkey_ball.jpg\\\" height=\\\"396\\\" width=\\\"527\\\" \\/&gt;&lt;\\/a&gt;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=\\\"Verdana, Helvetica, Arial\\\"&gt;&lt;span&gt;Monkey dropped by to slide us some Troy Lee\\/Honda Supermoto Team practice tires and show off his sweet new trailer ball\\u2026&lt;\\/span&gt;&lt;\\/font&gt;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=\\\"Verdana, Helvetica, Arial\\\"&gt;&lt;span&gt;Racing was fun last weekend.\\u00a0 I was a bit concerned over my indifference to it in Chile but things came together.\\u00a0 Maybe it was the familiar faces (like Northwesterners Spencer Paxson and Eric Tonkin) and location (Southridge Urban Park) or just the fact that the cobwebs were out and the mind was reset, either way, good times were had.\\u00a0 Even if they involved Carl smoking me in the Super D finish sprint just like Barry did last year\\u2026\\u00a0 Fortunately, Kelli didn\\u2019t have to sprint anyone so Giant was victorious in both Super D events, which you can gauge the level of D involved by their winning bike choice- the XTC Advanced Hardtail\\u2026\\u00a0 Maybe we should go to Europe and race some proper Enduro DH sometime, where you would actually DIE if you rode a HT, as opposed to winning\\u2026 It was still a good way to pass an otherwise quiet Saturday afternoon though, and there\\u2019s something about a person, any person, saying \\u201cGO!\\u201d that makes you get some pretty good exercise until you cross a finish line of some type.\\u00a0 I might have to get my roommates to start saying GO when I leave on a snowy training ride and scratch out some kind of finish line in my rocky front yard to end at, I\\u2019d totally be in shape in no time\\u2026&lt;\\/span&gt;&lt;\\/font&gt;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=\\\"http:\\/\\/www.bikemag.com\\/files\\/2009\\/04\\/funtana_rattler.jpg\\\" title=\\\"funtana_rattler.jpg\\\"&gt;&lt;img src=\\\"http:\\/\\/www.bikemag.com\\/files\\/2009\\/04\\/funtana_rattler.jpg\\\" alt=\\\"funtana_rattler.jpg\\\" height=\\\"351\\\" width=\\\"467\\\" \\/&gt;&lt;\\/a&gt;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=\\\"Verdana, Helvetica, Arial\\\"&gt;&lt;span&gt;Right, on to proper X&lt;\\/span&gt;&lt;\\/font&gt;&lt;font face=\\\"Verdana, Helvetica, Arial\\\"&gt;&lt;span&gt;C racing.\\u00a0 Holy crap, there were 120 Pro Men on the start line in Fontana.\\u00a0 Combined with a generally large crowd of amateur racers and curious passers-by it was looking to be a solid afternoon of racing.\\u00a0 It\\u2019s a good thing that some of the backside trails we\\u2019ve always used and hacked into even more oblivion were shut down over the winter and the resulting revamped course was super friendly to the casual onlooker.\\u00a0 Straight up a bit of a gut-busting climb, down a cool techy descent which included a \\u201cPro Section\\u201d at the bottom for us to strut our, um, stuff?\\u00a0 Then up to the water tower and back around the block via the Super D course, we were lapping in twenty-odd minutes and having a generally good time along the way.\\u00a0 Team Sho-Air manager Ty Kady was following us on a Kawasaki Dirt Bike with a Helmet cam and doing a seemingly good job of capturing the action first-hand.\\u00a0 I was actually able to see some action first hand for most of the race as somehow an extra week of training had me racing in the mix.\\u00a0 I rode around in the top five after the first lap, having a genuinely good time roosting the Anthem X on the descents and trying to ride smooth and fast on the techy climbs.\\u00a0 It was almost like being on a fun MTB ride that happened to be a race.\\u00a0 Perfect.\\u00a0 Highlights included hitting some sweet jumps while Ty followed on the moto without crashing in the kind of karmic slap you could expect while showboating and getting solidly punked by the Subaru\\/Fisher duo of JHK and Sam Schultz on the penultimate climb battle for third place.\\u00a0 5th for me, some Canadian guy won\\u2026\\u00a0 Carl was 12th I think, he must have been too in shape from all the \\u201ctraining\\u201d he\\u2019s been doing in San Diego to pull off his usual accidental 6th at the first one of the year\\u2026&lt;\\/span&gt;&lt;\\/font&gt;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=\\\"Verdana, Helvetica, Arial\\\"&gt;We stopped at the Giant Intergalactic HQ in Thousand Oaks on our way to Fox Camp to catch up with all the folks we didn\\u2019t see at Woodward.\\u00a0 Which was the entire product department.\\u00a0 They\\u2019d been in Taiwan for a coup&lt;\\/font&gt;&lt;font face=\\\"Verdana, Helvetica, Arial\\\"&gt;&lt;span&gt;le weeks putting the finishing touches on the 2010 Giant line.\\u00a0 I\\u2019m not really at liberty to say, but we\\u2019re going to have some cool stuff, from subtle refinements to complete overhauls and a few things that have been a long time coming.\\u00a0 Keep your eyes peeled this summer\\u2026&lt;\\/span&gt;&lt;\\/font&gt;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=\\\"http:\\/\\/www.bikemag.com\\/files\\/2009\\/04\\/team_tactics.jpg\\\" title=\\\"team_tactics.jpg\\\"&gt;&lt;img src=\\\"http:\\/\\/www.bikemag.com\\/files\\/2009\\/04\\/team_tactics.jpg\\\" alt=\\\"team_tactics.jpg\\\" height=\\\"394\\\" width=\\\"525\\\" \\/&gt;&lt;\\/a&gt;&lt;font face=\\\"Verdana, Helvetica, Arial\\\"&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;\\/span&gt;&lt;\\/font&gt;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=\\\"Verdana, Helvetica, Arial\\\"&gt;&lt;span&gt;Fox Racing Shocks makes cool stuff.\\u00a0 For lots of fun activities involving wheels.\\u00a0 From Desert Racing Trucks to Quads and Dirt bikes, even Snowmobiles and Jet-Skis, Fox has you covered.\\u00a0 For the first time ever, they held the 2010 product launch for all of their lines (except snowmobiles) in one spot.\\u00a0 This gave the media an opportunity to\\u00a0 see the kind of cross-pollination that makes their designs so unique and effective by actually experiencing each of the segments back-to-back.\\u00a0 Translation-\\u00a0 I got to shred on a bunch of rad motorized stuff in between going for some entertaining bike rides in the hills.\\u00a0 The first night we all had dinner with some informal presentation of products and Fox\\u2019s approach which culminated in founder Bob Fox taking us through the early history of the company he founded with Poker money to produce Motorcycle Air Shox in 1975.\\u00a0 Some good anecdotes about racing (and winning) the Indy 500 and entering the Snowmobile market gave us some entertaining insight to where the current company got it\\u2019s start.\\u00a0 Nice guy, that Bob Fox.\\u00a0 The next day everyone had an opportunity to learn about the suspension product in their area of expertise and then play with whatever other toys they needed to glean product parallels from\\u2026\\u00a0 In our Bike world we sent editors out on 2009 product for a spin around a fun loop including an old DH race course and some flowy meadow singletrack for session #1, &lt;\\/span&gt;&lt;\\/font&gt;&lt;font face=\\\"Verdana, Helvetica, Arial\\\"&gt;&lt;span&gt;then switched to the \\u2018o10 product during lunch for the same ride in the afternoon.\\u00a0 This let them feel the difference first hand between the current product and new Boost Valve rear shock and FIT damper fork technology, which I\\u2019ve been riding very happily since last fall.\\u00a0 It\\u2019s good stuff, making flipping lockout knobs and switches even less necessary is a huge step in the right direction.&lt;\\/span&gt;&lt;\\/font&gt;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=\\\"Verdana, Helvetica, Arial\\\"&gt;But really, who wants to talk about bike suspension when there are a multitude of options for motorized fun.\\u00a0 Lunch time was long enough for quick spins in the Ford Raptor pickup or Side-by-Side ATVs, and after the second ride session it was a free-for-all with Motos and Quads ripping around piloted by your average bike rider.\\u00a0 Perfect.\\u00a0 And nobody died.&lt;\\/font&gt;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=\\\"http:\\/\\/www.bikemag.com\\/files\\/2009\\/04\\/foxmoto.jpg\\\" title=\\\"foxmoto.jpg\\\"&gt;&lt;img src=\\\"http:\\/\\/www.bikemag.com\\/files\\/2009\\/04\\/foxmoto.jpg\\\" alt=\\\"foxmoto.jpg\\\" height=\\\"387\\\" width=\\\"254\\\" \\/&gt;&lt;\\/a&gt;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=\\\"Verdana, Helvetica, Arial\\\"&gt;Wednesday was the highlight day for us Fox Team members as there were n&lt;\\/font&gt;&lt;font face=\\\"Verdana, Helvetica, Arial\\\"&gt;o media folks to muddle our motorized experience.\\u00a0 Fitzy and I did community service first thing in the morning on quads, mud bogging our way around the heavily watered Motocross track to work the moisture into the dirt.\\u00a0 Once it was passable, Neezer set me up on a brand new Kawasaki KX450 MX bike to reap the fruits of our quad labor, and, er, learn about the parallels between Moto and Bike rear suspension\\u2026\\u00a0 I spent the next couple hours riding the beautiful hillside track, remembering all those childhood MX techniques with a dozen others who were kind enough not to land on my head.\\u00a0 I got the hang of it eventually, at which point it seemed prudent to stop before I started trying to figure out just how close to the top of fourth gear you needed to be to jump the 90\\u2019 step-up on the hilltop\\u2026\\u00a0 Holy Crap riding motocross is fun.\\u00a0 And HARD.\\u00a0 Carl and I left the track with adrenaline in the red and did a sweet road ride up Figuroa Mountain to cap off the day.\\u00a0 That was yesterday.\\u00a0 Today I\\u2019m the sorest I\\u2019ve ever been in my entire life.\\u00a0 I guess I should start riding MX all the time, who needs to go to the gym when you can just fluidly control a\\u00a0 240 pound, 60 horsepower bike for a couple hours and get the same thing, plus have one of the best times ever.\\u00a0 &lt;\\/font&gt;&lt;font face=\\\"Verdana, Helvetica, Arial\\\"&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;\\/span&gt;&lt;\\/font&gt;&lt;br \\/&gt;\\n&lt;font face=\\\"Verdana, Helvetica, Arial\\\"&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nAnyway, looks like preparation for World Cup #1 is almost complete, I head to South Africa on Monday to find out how alternative winter stacks up in the grand scheme of things.&lt;\\/span&gt;&lt;\\/font&gt;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=\\\"Verdana, Helvetica, Arial\\\"&gt;AC&lt;br \\/&gt;\\n&lt;\\/font&gt;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.bikemag.com/blog/adam-craig-redneckin%e2%80%99-in-socal/>