It's winter now and most riders are doing the off season thing now...except the Aussie's, they never stop.



  I'm getting ready for the Fontana Winter Series...it's only a regional deal but it gets a good turn out and is a lot of fun.



  I had a lot of fun this year racing the Mega Avalanche stuff and doing the Downieville Classic, from now on my primary focus will be on Endurance Downhill events and Bike festivals that are more fun oriented.





  E.C.

EC defends his title with hard-fought racing - Congrats!

Sonoma, Cali., July 16, 2006 -- Courtesy of Fred Dreier
VeloNews associate editor

Eric Carter (Mongoose) nailed the start and withstood a hard-charging Brian Lopes to defend his national mountain-cross championship at the 2006 USA Cycling National Mountain Bike Championships. The 36-year-old Carter, who hails from Temecula, California, was more than one second slower than Lopes in qualifying, but perfectly timed the dropping of the start gate to grab an advantage on the reigning world champion in the finals. Surprisingly, Lopes chose the outside lane in the finals, giving Carter the inside.

"Luckily I was able to shut him down because we all know that when Brian gets out front he gets going like a freight train," Carter said. "I know Brian likes to ride from the front, and generally the inside lane is the controlling lane, so if I took the inside lane and he didn`t get a good start he had no chance to control the race. I took the risk and rolled the dice but I figured the shortest distance was what I was going to need to win and it paid off. Luckily I was able to swerve enough around the course, sometimes intentional and sometimes not, to hold him off. Five more feet and he would have taken it."

Indeed, the current world champ nearly pipped Carter at the line. The finish was close enough for Lopes to call for a photo finish, but the judges declared Carter the victor.

"I think Eric anticipated the gate. He got an awesome gate. He was going for broke," said Lopes. "They said he got me. I would like to see some video just to be sure. It was actually a fun track. It had a challenging rhythm section at the end. It was the first course I`ve ridden in a long time that has a section that you actually have to think about. Nine times out of 10 you look at the stuff and say, ‘Eh, there you go.`"

Both Carter and Lopes are coming back from injuries. Lopes separated his shoulder at the June 4 World Cup in Willingen, Germany. Carter broke his collarbone on May 7 at the World Cup opener in Vigo, Spain.

"My doctor told me when I dusted my collarbone that I was looking at eight weeks with surgery and 16 weeks without. I got back on the week at five," Carter said. "I did lots of rehab. Some cold laser treatment. I did everything I could to get me back on my bike so I could defend this jersey. So, here we are, racing bikes. I`m stoked."

Went to the big race out at fontana last weekend, it was awsome! The vibe was typical fontana backyard race style with a little bit of hype with all of the companies out in force.
The course was awsome as well as the weather which made for a fun weekend for all, I ended up winning just ahead of cody warren and rich houseman, hopefully cody will come out to all the race`s this year, It will be good to have him out there with us.
Big surprise for me was how well the grassroots team "THE MONGOOSE TRIBE" that i`m starting was recieved, I couldn`t believe how excited a lot of the riders were/are about the program.
THE TRIBE is a team program to create a fun atmosphere at and away from the races, if your interested check back here in about 2 weeks as i will have more info and a live web site to announce...It`s going to be run through sponsorhouse.com so all the riders who have account`s your already in the system and half way there already!

Rider Diary: Installment #2 June 13, 2005 -- Hello everyone...sorry it took so long for the update. I`ve been busy with a few things. Mainly, I crashed my first day back doing downhill runs and broke my wrist. I had surgery to install a screw and already have the cast off! I`ll be back on the bike in 3 weeks, so that`s not too bad. I`m just super eager to get on the new Mongoose bikes! While I`ve had some down time, I have been getting my website for my race clinics dialed in. We also got a 16ft trailer to go behind my motorhome, so we can have a base camp for the clinics. I`ll have a way to keep my bikes with me while on the road this summer. This is kind of a family summer bike tour, so check it out here: www.raceclinic.com. These things are going to be a lot of fun and I`ll be able to ride my bike a little more at the nationals. Thursday is a slow day for us at the nationals, so this will fill some boring time for sure. I also got an e-mail from our key product developement guy, Darren Salsbury, with the new colors of the bikes. I think they look super awesome. I`ll have mine built up and ready to go really soon. I think these bikes built up are going to be an eye catcher for sure. Well, not much else going on here other than a little physical therapy and dreamin` of getttin back on the bike. Stay tuned, E.C. << Back to List         Back to Top         Close

this year was rough as i was hurt for most of it.....i finally got healed up enough to race just in time for worlds...i ended up getting 5th...not bad but i wasn`t able to make th final to try to defend my title.
i did however gain some confidance going into mammoth...i ended up winning the mountain cross national championships...i was stoked for sure....at 35 i`m still able to compete at the highest level, not bad for an old dawg.

later,
e.c.