Hill Climb - a lesson in time from visualhybrid on Vimeo.

She's A Runner!

Pikes Peak tugs at emotions in many ways. One of the many mental stresses for the last three years for me has been depending on other people. Before it was only me. When somebody says that they are building a super machine that they want me to ride, I feel completely honored and thankful for such opportunity. Though I hope for the best I expect the worst. Because I know how hard it is to build a race bike from scratch I know that it may never come together in time with such exotic and high tech machinery such as Ronin and Bottpower. Though I got to do some early testing on a stock Ronin the Race bike was a whole different beast and it was not ready to ride until practice on the mountain. When I prepared a Multistrada for Paul last year I was the one being depended on to get things sorted in time and even with a mostly stock bike it was a stress on my part.  Add to it the race organizers selection of the limited field of racers and my uncertain standings with the organization. It was a huge relief to have my entry accepted this year. This year I am in store to race a special bike built to conquer the mountain from the ground up by world class Moto2 engineer. To say I have been a bit eager is like to say my dog likes to fetch a ball. With less than a month to go until first practice on the mountain I have been informed by David with Bottpower that the bike completed it's first test without issue. A former world superbike racer did the shaking down. I soak this all in as I type this. I am to fly over to Spain next week to test the bike myself. I am totally and completely tickled pink to purple. Insert goofy, grinning, shitting pants emoji here.

The Wolf will shred again.

I met Carl at the 2013 Pikes Peak race to the clouds. We hit it off. He was getting into dirtbikes and looking to me for help. I was getting into tarmac racing and looking to him for help. In 2014 he bought a ZX10 and raced it up the hill finishing in the same amount of minutes and seconds as me. I don't remember the time but I do remember having a real good time that year. He was always a lot of fun to be around. He inspired me to buy an old SV650 to turn into a track bike and he was my instructor for my MRA licensing school. In my first race I was doing nose wheelies into turn 1 and Carl, his wife Lacy, and his brother Chris all told me that they would hate to see what I could do on a real race bike. I have done my best to transform the little SV into a proper bike but it will always be a sub hundred pony power pusher. But it does make some mother fuckers angry in the corners. Any how, I am tired of hearing people tell me that "I'd hate to see what you could do on a real bike." So I am buying the late great Hot Carl's ZX10 from Lacy. I want to put together a program next year to travel to new tracks and be a superbiker and I am going to give it everything I got.

Thank you Carl.

How Instagram has instantly instilled insecurity in in-sequentially inumerable inadauquite enormouse amount of shitty camera photos:

6 mile chocolate cake road race track on knobblies.

I have been riding as much as I can.

Gary built me a sexy exhaust. Gary is cool.

I bought a Goldwing 1500. Oh yes I did.

My work bench is my canvas.

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

I am building myself a new chopper. Because I am not sensible, smart, or able to come to grips with the standards of a society that sells smart cycle brain washing machines. Mikey builds me springer parts. Mikey is cool.

Gary builds himself a motorcycle. Gary is cool. Upside down stickers and all.

My happy place. Little Goose. Chris Gosselaar's 2003 (He finished 5th in the outdoors that year) Factory Connection CR125.
On the pipe.

Training like:

This weekend is the Colorado Hill Climb Association's round one at CORE off road park out in eastern Colorado where the only hills to climb are figurative. I am not sure what to expect but I hope to just get some high speed handlebar time in in preparation for the BOTT.

Wallace and I go to the tarmac

He takes pictures and I learn how much I can trust old take off race slicks without tire warmers. It was a lot of fun. Just like motorbikes usually are.

Classic Races - Ep05 : Pikes Peak - the race to the clouds (documentary) HD

Jeremy McGrath Showtime part 1

Words

Pieces of a dream...

Exciting things happing at the BOTT shop. Read the story here.

Tales from a more than fortunate DIRTBIKE bum

As I lay on a cold and dirty concrete floor going in and out of sleep, my stomach cramping from a nasty bought of Portuguese airport pub food revenge, I was not at all the least bit bummed out. I had just had the most un-real experience of going as fast as I dared on a 2016 KTM 500 for five straight days through Dakar rally stages, great big Saharan sand dunes, and some amazing Moroccan countryside. I believe that the moto gods created Morocco as a utopian dirtbike paradise. I knew my trip was going to be good when we arrived at the Moto Aventures home base and upon the briefing of our ten rider group, Johnny, our African Clint Eastwood like leader informed me that due to his injury from his last Sideburn tour was not going to be able to guide us and instead I was to be the guide. Fucking shit I thought, we are all going to die. Luckily Johnny has been running Moto Aventure tours for over 20 years and like a Mcgyver /Crocidile Dundee, he always knows exactly what to do. He had given every bike a nice GPS device and was going to follow us in a Range Rover to pick up the broken bodies and bent mangled motorcycles. So I was given the freedumb to ride as fast and far as I wanted to the next fuel stop or hotel. Wherever the GPS took me Sweet! So we all fueled up on Sans Plomb ((Unleaded) Green handle)) and made sure everybody’s GoPro was dialed in and took off out into the desert. The first vehicle I saw was an army tank. After identifying it as such I stopped riding directly at it. For the first few days I struggled with my role of guide/ group ambassador. My desert racing background has left me as scared of dust as a cat is of a full bathtub. I tried to ride a subdued pace but some of my fellow Colorado buddies seemed to want to ride hard to keep up with me. One of them severely dislocated his thumb but managed to ride the whole trip with a mangled and swollen hamburger paw. I finally decided that my dust would not be anybody else’s problem and just opened it up and hammered down pretending I was actually riding a Dakar rally. We would meet up at scenic spots were I could peel away from my inner desert racer and take in the amazing scenery. We met up for provided lunch (Usually stewed and roasted meats with vegitables served in ceramic ant hill looking baking pots called Tanduri). We laughed and some teased me about my stupid speeds. We enjoyed stories of each other’s moments of greatness. It was a fun social trip but on a whole it was very personal and something I enjoyed mostly solo. Day three and four were spent mostly riding sand dunes. Some dunes were over 300 meters high. The wind was blowing and conditions were not ideal but it was like nothing I have ever done on a dirtbike. Johnny our guide had to saddle up and show us how to ride dunes as one could get very hurt or lost in the massive out of this world landscape. Johnny, the former Dakar racer, mounted with only work boots and no helmet thoroughly impressed me with his skills. It was very apparent that he had a lot of experience riding. After the dunes we spent a night in a bivouac. The wind howled through the camel hair tents and filled everything we owned with sand. This was probably my favorite part of the whole trip. The clean hotels with their fancy pools and Jacuzzi tubs were nice but the organic conditions of the bivouac made me feel less of a tourist and more at home. The riding was challenging and most of it very fast with plenty of danger. By the 5th day our group had two broken wrists, one dislocated thumb, and one badly blown up knee. I fared well with my desert racing experience but the universe keeps it’s balance so on my flight home I had a 20 hr layover in Lisbon which I mostly spent violently excreting my guts out and curled up on concrete floors. The yin and the yang. I had more fun in Morocco than I think one dirtbike bum should ever expect to have in a lifetime but I sure hope to make it back to the moto off road Mecca again!

Captain's log - clean pinch one wiper

Where does happiness come from and where does it go when it dies.
Is America really the most sad place in the world.
I bought a Goldwing today. I got home and shaved off my beard. Sahara pictures by Teagan. Ali Baba lives.

Keeping my head above the water

I took a little trip down memory lane on this blog looking for an old picture. I found it. I also found that I have changed a lot over the last ... fuck! - A lot of years have gone by. Of course I changed and damned if I have not shown signs of growing up. Damn. I don't want to grow up and get square but I am starting to find myself carrying out the most mundane of lame tasks from time to time. If i don't fertilize the lawn who will and that damn rabbit needs to get the hell out of my lawn. I have been filling holes, patching fences, and even spending good money on decoy owls and fake wind chime eye balls and shit. What the hell is getting into me. Ten years ago I would be drinking beer with that bunny. maybe even sharing some mushrooms with it and learning about the universe. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining one bit about my role in this system; I think I am living the dream. most of the time anyhow. I am one lucky bastard to hitch up with my best friend who happens to knock my dirty socks clean off. I have not had a boss for five years now and I think I would rather die than go back into that kind of incarseration. What I am getting at here is something deep inside. Some kind of struggle to fight the power that is mini vans, nightly news show watchers, and conformist shit eating sheep telling me how to live my life. Thank fuck for my motorcycles and my tools that allow me to enjoy them. When ever I feel beat down by the pigs that are all around, salvation is never far. I get in the fucking van. Or I build the engine. turn a few wrenches and make a few bucks. Buy some tires or a plane ticket or what ever it is that us free people can buy with this stupid form of currency that harnesses us like a mule. I look at how many great things have come about in my life because of motorcycles and I just want to rub it in the face of all the preaching teachers who told me to accept metiocraty as not only acceptable but honorable. I know from here I can only get older and slower but I will put my own head in a vise and crank it until my skull goes pop if I don't continue to follow my childhood dreams and learn something new everyday that can help me achieve moto-nirvana. Peace.  

Hero, Fitness role model, All around good guy

Support

Kriega has made a limited run of  BOTTPOWER Pikes Peak edition quality bags. All profits go to fund our effort on the hill this year. KICK ASS!!! Go to http://kriega.com today!

Old News

When you wish upon a star

2013 was the first year I did not make the podium at pikes peak since 2008, my rookie year. I had won it the previous year so I was a bit disappointed in my self/bike preperation. Sideburn #13 came out later that year and when I saw the BOTT XR1 in it's pages I was glued to them like a 12 year old and a dirty magazine. If only I could hold her in my hands, I thought, I could destroy the competition on the hill. With her I could be king of the mountain. I emailed Sideburn Gary and told him my fantasies. I think He even offered to get me in touch with BOTTPOWER but I was too shy. Fast forward a couple years and Gary planted my seed of intention with the Ronin crew. Being planetary aligned and all around good crew we found our selfs battling for the overall motorcycle victory, nearly beating HRC backed American Honda. It was a day right up their with getting married to my high school crush. I feel like a man can see many days and very rare are the days that he can feel true greatness. Don't get me wrong, I think every day is a treasure worth devouring but there are only a few times that I have felt absolutely alive in a moment of greatness. The race on the Ronin made me think a lot about how selfish my quest to be great in life is. Carl's passing had left me asking a lot of questions about what was important. I made a decision to walk away. I even accepted the fact that I was never going to get that high again. I was lucky enough to help Paul last year and still be part of the show. I swallowed hard when I watched him leave the start line, still trying to figure out what it all means to race at such a level. A lot of people asked me about returning and I started to realize I was flat out lying to people. Maybe it was the honor I had about keeping my word to the ones I love. Maybe it was my pride for not wanting to deal with the race committee. Or maybe it was just me becoming another fellow giving up on his dreams and becoming another grown up adult that is forced to forget about childish dreams. Whatever it was I knew I was lying when I told people I would never compete again even if I was allowed to. ...Life is what we make it... I am lucky in many ways. I also am very picky about who I surround myself with. I believe very much in this and I try to be somebody that can lift up the people who choose to be around me. This has opened many doors for me and taken me places I never dreamed possible. It started with Alta wanting to race the electric. Gary got us in touch. I wrote a letter to the race committee apologizing for my words to the press regarding organization of the event. I got a reply a few hours latter. I thought it was a sure decline but to my surprise they were happy to remove me from my suspension. I checked the next email in my inbox and it was from Alta. They decided not to race because they would have to compete in the unrestricted exhibition class against bikes with four times the horse power. Oh well. but wait, what is this in my inbox- BOTTPOWER... I have been very tight lipped about this as the race committee only selects a few bikes per class now. One week ago I received the official green light from the people of the hill. DOG WILL HUNT!!!

I give a huge thanks to Sideburn and everybody else who has supported me along my road of racing to my dreams.

Zeb Pike Lied

Zeb Pike Lied
Its is a wild and ever chaniging world we live.
Every day passing seemingly faster than the one before. I don’t know what is on up ahead on my path. I cant say.
I do know that I hear a calling. Like a magnet pulling at me.
It is the Wild I feel inside my helmet.
The mountain is there. So I shall climb it.
It is a destiny. My dream from small child. The racer’s honor. My duty to fulfill potential.
Live the dream. Not fear a head wound shitting myself to death on the shower tub.
Capre dium.
TN 2016

High times

1 Minute in the Himalaya from Paul Leeson on Vimeo.

From my trip to India last September. Read about it in the stories section on the new Sideburn site. Google it, my link won't link. braaap!