This last weekend and the days proceeding it I was invited to participate in the Ray's Odd Couple Contest. It was awesome and I cannot wait to do something like this again. More after the jump!
The whole weekend started out on Wednesday at noon by meeting up at Ray's MTB. I was scheduled to be partnered up with Jeff Lenosky but the day before the Contest he called and reported that he would be riding with Chris Aceto. I was bummed about that, but I was repaired with "Toledo" Joe Prisel. The only problem I had with that was the whole premise of the contest is one MTB and one BMX rider put a video part together, and Joe wouldn't have his MTB until Friday(the last day to film).
Regardless, Joe and I rounded up a filmer(Jason White) and started filming. By the end of the day I had gotten about eight and a half clips and Joe was as two. All of these clips were on his BMX. After getting done riding I was informed that Adam Hauck's partner, Jeff Kocsis, had broken his ankle and now need a new partner. The rumor was that Bobby D, who is the manager of Ray's, was going to be his partner. I go home and drink some beers and get to sleep because I have to keep filming the next day.
Thursday morning! I get a text from Logan, who also works at the park, saying that i am in fact going to be Adam Hauck's new partner. After a few minuets of figuring everything out i eat breakfast and head over tot eh park by around one o'clock. I meet Adam and our filmer George Ryan. Adam had just taken a pretty good fall when his bars snapped off upon landing over the sever foot Red Bull Box! After a little warm up lap through the park we started filming.
The next 30 hours went great! We actually got so many clips that we could have done two videos. When it came time to film bangers on Friday i was a little nervous. I got one out of the way that i wanted and then got ready to shoot the next one. On my very first try i got the right side of my handlebars stuck in the left side hold in my jean's knee. WHAM! straight to the back and knocked myself out for just a few seconds. This is at 2:56 in the video. When i am sitting up at 2:58, I am not awake. This was the last trick that i tried for the video.
The next night were the presentations and awards all presented in the Troy Lee Designs room at Ray's I had seen our video already and knew it was pretty good. It wasn't until all 11 videos had played through that i realized that our video was pretty damn good! After a while, and a few more free PBRs, they announced top five. We were in the top five and they reviewed them and recorded the audience's reaction to them. We ending up with second, but it was a well-deserved second!
I have to say that I had one hell of a time Over the four days that the contest was held! I am actually pretty excited that Jeff Lenosy didn't want me as a partner because it opened me up to be partnered with Adam and George! A lot of BMX riders have problems with mountain bike riders. I am not one of them. The only difference between Adam Hauck and a BMX rider is the size of his wheels and I would be glad to team up with him again!
Thanks to Ray and Ray's and all of the Ray's employees for putting this event on. I can only hope i get put back on the list of riders for the next one and get team-mates as awesome as Adam and George were!
For more of the Ray's Odd Couple Contest videos got to:
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