hey gang, got to a computer for a few minutes so hers whats been going
on....

Vigo world cup, well arriving at the airport in vigo was a new experience
for me, turns out we were on teh same flight as the barcelona football club
who were playing in vigo that weekend, there was about 10,000 people that
came to see them at the airport, and the local police had set up a walkway
for the team to come through, through the fans and out to their bus out
front. So the other people on the flight (me included) had to go through teh
same walkway, as it turns out i was the first person to get all my bags from
baggage claim, so i started the walk through thousands of mad soccer fans,
only since i was first out they thought i was part of the team and people
were swamping me....coming and shaking my hand...wanting pictures and
autographs....they thought i was with the team!!!! it was so crazy!!! i got
some video on my phone..its nuts!

anywya, the dh course was pretty cool, pretty gnarly and super hard to have
a clean run on, oh so easy to make mistakes on, i went for a pretty cruisy
qualifyer, as you do, and came in 13th, less than a second outside the top
10, so all was good there, for finals i didnt feel nervous at all, im not
sure weather that was a bad thing or good thing, but anyways, my run was way
too scrappy, just trying to ride too fast, made quite a few small mistakes,
and ended up 15th, so it was ok i guess, but im really really wanting to be
in the top 10 for dh.

4x went ok as well, i qualified 3rd, all the times were real tight, the
course was cool, 2 massive drifty turns that bmxers sucked ass on, and
planty of big jumps and the first 2 straights were all rythums, problem
being my gate at home drops a touch slower than this gate, and id been doing
so many gates at home that when i got on this gate i kept going too late,
itd been drilled so firmly into my head at home when to go, i couldnt get my
head around it, by the time racing came around my gates were going better,
but still not fantastic, but i easily made it through to the semi finals,
where i blew my gate real good, there was no real pasing to be done, and the
guy that id just smoked the last 2 races before went on to win the semi and
through to the final...not happy, i had the small final then for 5th-8th, it
was more like a main final, i had Cedric, Chris Powell, and Lucas Tamme
(super fast bmx bandit) and as luck would have it i got my shit together and
got a near perfect gate and won the small final for 5th.

Lisbon downtown was yesterday, and i dont really want to talk about it, the
streets of lisbon are a polished cobble stone that i similar to riding on
mud without the mud, its so so soooo slippery. imagine riding on a polished
wooden floor, thats what its like, i slid into a wall in qualifying and
stopped dead and just squeezed into the top 25 final with 19th, but i knew i
would be going a heap faster in my final. atthis race all you get is a
maximum of 4 practice runs then race, and after 4 runs i still hadnt got teh
hang of teh cobles, i was trying wayy too hard and was sliding around every
turn, usually a front wheel slide, which is not very fun, i had a very
frustrating final and never once found any sort of rhythum, atleast i didnt
crash, but 14th was all i could manage, and thats all im going to say about
it, it was a pretty crazy race though, the amount of people that watch is
phenominal, and its shown live on portugese tv, after a shitty qualifyer i
sat in the hot seat for quite a while and that was cool

from now were going to stay in Switzerland at claudio caluori`s house and
we`ll be doing plenty of dh and xc in the next week getting ready for ft
william that is the weekend after next, so i cant wait to get back on the
dirt again and pin it!!!