talega

The Talegalympics was a series of events set up very loosely and there was not enough time in the day to complete everything. Races, team relays, slide

Hey it’s me coming around the corner! Photo By: Justin Reed

contests, longest slide and unused ramps stood on the side of the road. It was many kids first times to the road and lots of kids left skin and blood at the hill. If you start to take Talega lightly it will bite you. I’ve been there. It’s a hill that is pretty gnarly. You have to know what your doing there.

For those of you unfamiliar with the road at a place we call Talega here’s the rundown. It’s a service road that leads up to a water tower. The whole road is very narrow. (About the size of a lane on a freeway.) From the very top of the road it is pretty much just a straight bomb down a narrow pathway where you accelerate to maybe around 40 mph. Then it hits a slight uphill section to around a 500 ft flat section. This is where the technical part of the road comes. The road then winds left and then shoots down a steep section into a hairpin right which requires a small pre-drift into it although I have seen riders grip it before. It then shoots down another steep section into an off camber left hairpin turn that causes most riders to crash. “Crash corner” i have nicknamed it. EVERYONE CRASHES HERE! The turn is slanted so as your sliding into it it is throwing you off the road. It is a very tough turn to navigate. After all of that you are shooting down the last steep section (each section just as steep as the last) into a hairpin right turn. This is another turn you have to drift and it shoots you across the finish line. The only easy part of this road is the straight beginning, after that it’s all tech.

Cameron Zweifel gets steezy with his stand up slide. Photo By: Justin Reed

Alex Wu, 20, of Yorba Linda, Ca shows off his road rash. Photo By: Justin Reed

Anyways with all the events it turned out to be a long day on the hill, not that it wasn’t fun. Just looong and the event took forever to get started but once it did everything got going kinda smoothly besides the fact it took us all to walk back up the whole hill again and again. After the racing was done the slide jams and other contests started.
The team relay was the first event and an interesting one because it hadn’t been done before. One rider would bomb from the top to the flat section where he would tag his awaiting team mate who would have to go through the hairpins. Me and my team mate Tim Bogart actually won this event. Go Tim!!!

Everything else was pretty standard, time trials, slide jams, longest slide. Fun stuff.

“I think it went awesome,” said Kye Pirrie, 18, Redondo Beach. “It was definitely worth it.” Kye was the event organizer and he was going just as hard into it as anyone else. During the time trials I watched him high side into the final right which was toe side for him. It was a brutal crash that left him in the bushes. He trooped it out and finished the race only to later on find out his finger was completely broken all the way through on his thumb.

Kye wasn’t the only one to leave skin at the hill. Just about everyone actually left some skin there. Everyone who skated for the most part anyways. “I kinda underestimate it, hit a patch of gravel and that was it,” said Alex Wu, 20, Yorba Linda. Alex left a lot of skin actually as you can see from this picture!

You can find all the pics on our facebook page here! Make sure to become a fan!

Talegalympics winners! Photo By: Grant Kiessling

Talega, a popular skate spot with every local company and their moms throwing slide jams and races there so walking up the hill was a familiar scene. Skaters sliding their way jamming down the hill and spectators hanging out at the hairpin left where most of the crashing takes place.

With a small ramp set up and a group of skaters and many familiar faces a good time was to be had. Pizza was delivered to the hill ordered and consumed by the Laguna kids and there were people from L.A all the way to San Diego that drove out to attend the event.

For those of you unfamiliar with Talega it is a pretty gnarly hill not to ridden unless you know how to slide or a ready to learn. The bottom half of the road consists of 3 big hairpins and a fun lefty at the beginning. Skaters usually start just above these hairpins. The straightaways to them is steep forcing you to have to drift each one and the pavement is super buttery making it a great hill for free riding.

A good group of shredders showed up to the event and lots of skin was left at the hill.

Filmed by: Max Capps

Edit by: Lee Eisler

So we didn’t make it out to this one but we hooked Max Capps up with our camera and tripod to see what he would get. After reviewing all the footage we absolutely loved the commentary from Max and Roger Jones. HIlarious stuff! Instead of making this some short video edited to music we decided to pull out a little different flavor, plus we have been digging raw footy lately. We took 45 minutes of footage and turned into 13 minutes taking you through the event.

Roger Jones came back from the grave for this contest. He’s just skin and bones.

Ben Hryn throwing down a super steezy squating stand up slide.

The event seemed really cool. It was a very laid back contest with the crowd choosing the winner through cheering. It was more of a bro down skate session with all the homies. Anyways Daniel Luna won the open section.

http://vimeo.com/29419432

Edit by: Lee Eisler

The SDDRL (San Diego Downhill Race League) crew met back up September 11 at Talega for a fun day of racing.

Mason McGhee leads Roger Jones through the hairpin left, 1 turn above the finish line

Races held at Talega always end up extremely exciting and this day was no different. The course is very technical and you are bound to see many riders wipe out into the dirt on a few turns. You also have to be able to do heelside and toeside predrifts to be able to compete here. The race was being started at the very top of the road. The first portion of the course was a chute which offered a good drag race until they got into the hairpin portion of the race course. There were four turns that riders had to navigate through. First riders went through a 90 degree right hand turn which then dropped into the big hairpin left where most riders slid off the course. After the left it dropped down into a hairpin right with the finish line just around the corner.

Nathan Marton washing out into the dirt on the big hairpin left

The race was held in two divisions. A grom division and an open division. Riders in both divisions pushed their limits.

Mason McGhee (right) in 1st place. Wyatt Gibbs (left) in 2nd place

Congratulations to Mason Mcghee winning the Grom division.

Aj Haiby (middle) in 1st, Jeff Budro (left) in 2nd and Brian “Barney” Ward (right) in 3rd

Congratulations to AJ Haiby winning the Open division.

Firetruck taking a hairpin left with steeze and eaze.

Roger Jones did have a bad crash and the paramedics were called as a precaution. He was later released from the hospital with no more than a headache.

Thanks to everyone who came out and made this such a rad event!- Leecifer

For all the pictures CLICK HERE.

The So Cal Represent Ride was an absolute blast. The Dethbox came down from San Francisco full of shredders and freebords. We met at Talega August 20th for a rad day of shredding.

The turnout was pretty good. There were many So Cal Freeborders who were new to the scene and the whole Edge Boardshop team came out as well as a number of other downhill skaters.

Austin “Gooner” Lin’s all business talking on his iPhone while shredding some gnar.

We all had a great time with some pretty epic crashes. Bently Anderson tried to predrift a turn on a downhill skateboard several times and gave up after he was tired of crashing. It was funny to watch the downhill skateboarders trying to freebord for their first times. Andrew Schumaker, Joe Marshall, Danny Connor, Mason McGhee and whoever else tried it. Everyone gave up after many failed attempts.

Everyone’s so happy to be at the So Cal Represent Ride

All in all it was a great day with great people. Everyone was stoked, shredding, lurking and having fun. Thanks to everyone who came out. -Leecifer

Shane Morines shredding into the big hairpin left

When you have a growing and innovative sport like freebording, gather up all the best riders in the sport and take them on a trip, epic times are to be had.

Arnaud de Bluze (green shirt) leads with Bently Anderson (blue shirt) Tom Macfarlane (black shirt) Tyler Murgo (grey shirt) Nicolas Gaillard (blue sweatshirt)

Traveling south through L.A and finding a great hill with fresh wet slurry on it was fustrating. It was time for the team to head farther south to Orange County.

Arnaud de Bluze (left) and Arnaud Blin (right) shredding down Summit

After finding some of the best hills in Southern California it was not long before the cops came to tell us to leave. They told us about a ban on hills in the city and gave us a pamphlet showing all the banned hills.

The cops came to try to stop all our fun telling us about the roads being banned

Thinking we had won after finding a hill that wasn’t on the list the Dethbox (Freebord van) crashed into a parked Mustang.

The Dethbox eats up a Mustang

It was time to move on to other hills. Heading down south to a popular road in San Clemente everyone got some shredding in without being hassled.

From right to left. Corey Lucero followed by Bently Anderson and Richie Verost shredding Talega

The trip wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the skate park. The shreddage and elbow/hip/ass carnage was exhilerating to watch.

Nicolas Gaillard does a 360 at San Clemente skatepark

After another day of shredding the team was headed back up north.

Arnaud de Bluze takes the best right hand turn Modjeska Canyon has to offer

Epic hills, cops, car crash, more cops, shredding, getting yelled at by the locals, camping, more shredding, road rash, swell bows, skate parks, and more shredding. Wouldn’t be a Freebord trip without all of this.

Related articles

• R.I.P. Sam Trowbridge (adrenaline-fueled.com)
• What a year so far… (adrenaline-fueled.com)

Everyone gathered for a fun day of skating

Shredders, photographers, videographers and spectators met on Jan 22 & 23 on a service road in San Clemente to witness and participate in two days of Southern California’s finest downhill skateboarding.

This was an outlaw event that brought riders from all over California and other surrounding states together for a couple fun days of skateboarding. This event was held on a service road that cars could not drive up making it an ideal location.

The first day of the event, January 22 was the slide jam portion of the event. The second day January 23 was the race portion of the event.

The “Rad Zone” is in between the red lines

The slide jam featured two different sized kicker ramps and a rad zone. The rad zone was marked by a chalk line and it started just past the second kicker ramp and went into the turn. “If you usually grab rail then get rad and don’t grab it, throw a switch stand up slide, just get rad” said Danny Connor, Event Judge. Anything done in the rad zone was worth more points.

Before the contest began, a police officer came up to talk to us. “You all look like a good group. Everyone’s got their helmets and I saw mom’s bringing coolers up the hill. I wanted to give them a ride up” said the police officer. “Please yield to bikers and pedestrians coming up the hill and there shouldn’t be any problems.”

Police officer talks to skateboarders

Skateboarding greats Danny Connor, Marcus Bandy and Max Capps judged the contest. A 20 minute jam session was held. After eliminating part of the field another 20 minute jam session was held. This happened once more with all the finalists and then the winners were decided.

The Finalists

Hunter Schwirtz, Laguna Beach took 1st place, Kody Knoble, Los Angeles took 2^nd and Trevor Watkins, San Diego took 3^rd.

Following the slide jam after the winners were announced, it was time to stoke everyone out with gear from all the sponsors. Everyone was gathered around and stickers were thrown. Wheels were tossed down the hill and everyone started racing to get it. The first person to bring it back would get the set. Trucks were thrown out, dvds, more stickers, bushings, and so much more. It was raining product and stickers and shirts for almost 5 minutes, maybe even more.

Hunter Schwirtz the winner doing a slide

The race on the 23^rd was held on the same road. This road is steep and technical. Riders must be able to slide in both directions. The road features 2 lefts and 2 rights and no cars. The whole outside of the track is dirt so riders can really push their speeds not having to worry too much about crashing.

Racers try to find the fastest lines throught the corners

Not as many people showed up for the race but there was still a good turnout. The race was very exciting with many crashes and close competition. At times both racers crashed off the course taking the turn too fast. The races then became a battle to see who could get their board and back on the track the quickest. Everyone seemed to find this very exciting.

Max Capps got some road rash

Jimmy Riha, San Diego took 1^st place.  AJ Haiby, San Diego took 2^nd place. Chance Gaul, Laguna Beach took 3^rd.

There were a few bad crashes and some riders left with road rash, ripped shirts, torn shorts, but one thing’s for sure, everyone had a good time. –Lee

Related Articles

• SDDRL # 23 “Pin it to win it” (adrenaline-fueled.com)
• Southridge USA Winter Series – Race 1 (adrenaline-fueled.com)
• Halloween Costume Contest/ Slide Jam (adrenaline-fueled.com)
• Talega New Years Event Jan 22-23 (adrenaline-fueled.com)
• SDDRL # 24 “Another Brick in the Wall” (adrenaline-fueled.com)

On August 15, some of the biggest names in longboard racing gathered on closed-off access road in the coastal town of San Clemente, CA ready to race on the 18th stop of the San Diego Downhill Racing League.  Swept, fast, and curvy, the course differed from the more traditional straight-a-ways, time-trial races are usually held at.  Multiple hairpin turns and short, fast sections are what was on the plate and the riders ate it up with the appetite of a beast – showing the world that to be successful in the business, you must not only be fast, but be able to also handle turns like a champ.

It was a close race with Evren Ozan and Louis Pilloni taking the first two spots to race man vs. man from the top.

“The more experienced rider is going to purposely hold back and then try to pass around this turn here (talking about a hairpin left turn),” Tye Donnely, organizer of the race said.

The day is capped with Ozan taking first with Pilloni second.

1st- Evren Ozan

2nd- Louis Pilloni

3rd- Riley Crone