Shred Session
So I get this call from one of my pro freestyle buddies Derek Guetter who said he was doing a show two hours south of me… Since he was headed back north I made sure he came thru for a few days to ride a session or two, we both had a week off and was a great opportunity to get some practice in. Incase you dont know, Derek and his brothers Dan, (who is an amazing photo / film / graphics guy) and Jon (who was the first ever to backflip a quad) own Akraix freestyle and put on gnarly shows all over the country, and have a film series called the Fallout that are killer flicks. These guys are the REAL DEAL. Check this out. Derek got in town and I showed him the ropes of Kentucky and plans to ride the next day were made. When we talked about riding, I was planning on hitting a few of the local stomping grounds, pounding out some moto laps where I was most comfortable… Derek had other plans, He brought a full on 75 ft pro ramp to shred. Killer, all we needed now was a small mountain to land on… I called a friend who runs a concrete business and put the order in to build us a large landing ramp. Fortunately the fuel truck didnt deliver diesel for his equipment that day, was a great relief since the dirt was riddled with concrete slabs, rebar, and shards of glass. I have had limited ramp riding time and hitting a 9 ft metal wall at 3rd gear had me a little more than nervous. So I honestly wasnt sweating the fact that we couldnt set up at that location. The rest of that particular day was spent looking for a landing, that was first of all big enough, and secondly legal to ride on. I happened to remember a local guy by the name of Glenn, who had a full on supercross track in his back yard no more than 10 minutes out of town and decided to check it out. Once we made it to Glenn’s house we found him in his back yard working on a mini freestyle compound of his own! Really?? I mean this couldnt have been a better set up… LARGE mounds of dirt and equipment to whatever we want. His back yard is ultimate, you can see from the pics below he has a shredders playground, and what was even more cool Glenn was pumped to have us bring the ramp out and said he would build us whatever we needed to get rowdy on! Such a cool dude, he ended up spending about 2 hours moving dirt for us in his own back yard to get the ramp dialed in just right. Once we got the ramp in place we started I started to get my gear on and Derek was already practicing run ins for the hit. I didnt think it looked too bad.. I had it under control… that is until he went for it! I had one of my local buddies with us, Mad Mike… once we saw Derek 30 ft in the air our mouths dropped…. OHHHH S*%T!!!!! I couldnt believe the pop that ramp had in it…. and I was going to be hitting it??? Crap. I was already there, in riding gear, and when Akraix shows up at your door step… you either have two options. Step up, or be afraid of them. I wasnt going to be a chump, besides I already had my gear on and Its gone this far… Might as well have fun and get some street cred along the way. By this time Derek was already tossing himself off the bike while I was getting the speed and rhythm of the run in… Alright… no sense in wasting time being afraid. 3rd gear, in the meat, Braaaap! It felt like I just just got abducted by a space ship and was being sucked up by their tractor beam… people on the ground were tiny!! WHAT AM I DOING!?? I tried to swallow my stomach and then about 15 minutes later, I came back to earth… ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?? 75 ft gaps feel like 20 ft at that height! Not so bad… After sacking up and hitting it 3 or 4 times, I had it dialed in. The ramp was so consistent, all you had to do was worry about your speed and get ready for the hit, soooo sick. By this time it was getting dark and Glenn told us just to leave everything how it is and come back and shred the next day… While we were getting our gear on the next day we realized news thru town about a couple quads flying in the lithosphere had spread fast. There was somewhere between 40 or 50 people were hanging out in Glenn’s backyard waiting for the hit! Cameras came out when we busted out again, people were freaking! I got really comfortable and was even throwing clickers and no footed cans off the ramp… I could really see pushing yourself further and further while having so much available hangtime… was an epic day… Just another random event that I had to take advantage of and have a blast… Sometimes you really just need to step up and try what you know your capable of… never know how much fun you may have!! Thanks Derek! Got great satisfaction knowing I can shred with some of the most gnarly guys around…. Check the pics, and videos 1 & 2
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