Just a quick update, Snowshoe went great a few weeks ago.  Heather finished 3rd in Pro Women.  Pretty good since she had to contend with Missy Giove.  The rest of the team did good with several podium finished.  I was just happy to get back on the bike after being injured and feel fast within a couple of runs.
 

Last weekend, we had a few guys race at the Wisconsin AMBC downhill.  Craig Jeffers made the podium in Open/Pro.
 

Back to Snowshoe in a couple of weeks and then off to Plattekill for the Gravity East Series Final.  Also, we have been putting out quite a few internet videos this year.  We getting close to 10,000 unique downloads.

Friday started out a little shaky with several storm fronts moving through, and closing down the lifts for amateur practice. Thankfully the sun broke through and the lifts opened up again allowing us the practice needed for this always-tricky course.

Saturday brought qualifiers, and much drier trails. First out to qualify for High Gear, one of two team members racing the Open/Pro class was Chris Kring sporting the number 1 plate, shortly followed by Craig Jeffers. Craig and Chris clocked in at 132nd and 133rd place respectively, quite an accomplishment considering the stiff competition that was in attendance!! Amateur qualifying started with the women, Stacey Omland came across the line in 9th place, with Heather Brennan smoking down the course, garnering her a 6th place heading into Sunday’s race. Ryan Mulder was High Gear’s top amateur qualifier hammering out a 3 minute 37 second run, putting him in 31st place for the day. Jeff Galego was close behind, finishing up in 35th place. Jeff Hollowell, looking very comfortable on his new VP-free missed qualifying by a hair. John Malinowski, making a solid comeback from a severe shoulder separation last summer, tore it up for a 109th place. High Gear newcomer Johnny McDermott employed his exceptional BMX skills at the bottom of the course pushing him into a 139th place finish. Finally, Bill Stevens, atop his bright orange V-10, rounded out the High Gear field in 217th place.

Then came Sunday, race day, tensions were high but the course was pristine thanks to the excellent Diablo trail crew. Heather Brennan, despite a sprained finger the size of a kielbasa, was High Gear’s top woman finisher landing in 7th place with Stacey Omland coming in 10th. Ryan Mulder posted a flawless run which landed him in an impressive 25th place spot, with Jeff Galego coming in 54th.

All in all this was great weekend, a great showing of people, and a good opportunity to revisit acquaintances forgotten during a long winter. This was yet another great beginning to an undoubtedly great season to come.

I have to say a big thanks to SIC USA, as this was my first race using their direct mount stem, and also the first race I didn’t have to ride down the hill with my bars crooked – keep up the good work!! The’06 Boxxer’s performed like a charm, the improvements made were phenomenal. As always, Maxxis tires shone through, hooking up everywhere they were needed. My first season wearing Utopia Slayer goggles has been eye opening, literally – I won’t wear anything else!! Despite the 85% humidity, my goggles didn’t fog once, even while in the woods during practice waiting my turn to hit a line (and I didn’t have half the hill in my contacts)!! Thank you to all of our great sponsors that have made this racing possible!!

Pictures: http://highgearracing.com/gallery/US_Open_2006

We'll the high gear crew hit the road for the first road trip of the year to Ohio's Mohican wilderness, an early preride test and tune is always a good way to start the year out, Jeff Galego and Chris Kring picked up right where they left off last season busting through the rocks as good as ever and John Malinoski seemed much faster, must be the time off last year injured and the new Santa Cruz V-10 has done him some good, the new kid John McDermott took to downhill like he had been doing it for years, his first impressions on the Santa Cruz were "you can't even feel the rocks and bumps" he's going to fit in well here at HGR.

Early reports on our new gear are good, the new Boxxers are by far better than any other fork we've used in the past and man are we pleased so far, the new Truvativ cranks sure smooth and stiff and of course traction is never a problem on Maxxis tires. we got some new Super Innovative Concepts  "SIC" stems and parts the day before we left , so we will have all the feed back on those new when we return from Windrock Tenn. next month we are anxious to try them out and we welcome them on board for 2006 as a new HGR sponsor.

We must also give a thanks to Mohican Wilderness Campground  for the cool place to ride and all the other Michigan riders who came out it was great riding and meeting you guys. Video from Matt (new guy to the Michigan DH crew): http://upload3.putfile.com/videos/d1-7820535279.wmv

team HGR

1/18/06

Well 2006 is already here and the team is assembled and getting ready for this years summer racing. This year we'll focus on a few good races and throw in as many others as we can. 

A group ride in April at Windrock TN will kick off the season and then on to the U.S. open memorial weekend after that a few will hit the national at MT. Snow, and a couple of Mohican OH. races. the snow shoe series looks inviting and we'll try those and the Diablo series as well. At least 1 team member will be at the national championships in Mammoth and a couple will hit the world masters at sun peaks. The mid Atlantic series will see some more HGR as well.

New to High Gear will be a couple of team members hitting the NBL grands with HGR's newest young gun John Mcdermott leading the charge. This will John's first year at downhill and mtnx  and we forward to having him on board.

Maxxis, Santa Cruz, Sram/Rockshox and Utopia are already back to support HGR so it looks like HGR will be riding only the best gear once again for 06, this looks to be are best year yet.
 

HIGH GEAR RACING 2006

Heather Brennan  expert dh

Chuck Conlen      semi pro DH

Jeff Galego         expert DH

Jeff Hollowell        expert DH

Craig Jeffers         expert DH

Chris Kring           expert DH

John Malinowski   expert DH

John Mcdermott   expert bmx, sport DH/mtnx

Ryan Mulder        expert DH/mtnx

Stacey Omland    expert DH

Bill Stevens         expert DH/mtnx,cruiser bmx

Ward Wilson       semi pro DH

forever members,  Greg and Cheryl Crooks and family

Well there's another great weekend at Diablo. Weather was perfect, sunny and 80 on saturday and 70 and cloudy on sunday. Course was as dry as could be. Almost too dry with about 3 inches of dust covering the entire course.

The course was in good shape, as always. The top was the same as it was at the 2004 US open, but right before you get to the steep techinacal rock section is where it turned off. As soon as you make that left turn on to those big flat off camber rocks you turned down hill into the new section. There was some steep down hill turns with decent size rocks that led in to the Stigmata line. The rumors of the super steep rock face are very true. It was about 20 feet of near vertical rock face onto a wooden transition then across some pretty rough rocks and over about seven 6x6 wooden timbers which apeared to be filling in a hole. All that leading into a rockgarden, that if you could hold on and stay in control, could fly through at about 30 mph. That was the only tech part of the course after that it went out on to the ski run and a straight shot to the berms.
I was very impressed with the way Heather and Stacey rode. Expecially going down Stigamata. I was pretty nervous on the approach to it because a couple of times I almost lost it going too fast, and if you lose control going down that, good luck.

Saturday we pretty much just freerode. We found a couple new trails. There was a new trail after the Road to Nowhere drop and a new trail after Lower Dominoin that starts of with a pretty good size double.

I wish i could go back for the freeride but ITT Tech likes to screw up my weekends by giving me class on Saturday. So it looks like I can only do some day trips to Blue Mountain.

So all in all everyone had a good time. Some minor bruises and some sore muscles and a hole in a rear brake line, but thats downhilling.

Heather Brennan 2nd AM Women 4:32.67
Stace Omlend 4th AM women 4:55.98
Jeff Hollowell 41st Am Men 3:54.39

8-01-05

   After a long and tragic month of July, the High Gear crew thought it was time for a soul searching road trip, so after jamming everything we could in to a couple of cars we were off to snowshoe west Virginia, nine hours of driving for some downhill riding that had dry trails and a pro course that rocked, the whole west side has great trails when their dry. and after a day and a half of punishing our bikes we made the trip back home with Kring's really messed up wheel and one messed up shoulder thanks to Mr. Malinowski, but all in all for a nine hour drive it was aw some and now were ready to go back for the n.o.r.b.a national in two weeks. maybe we'll make this the annual Ryan crooks ride weekend. Ryan your missed but not forgotten

This was quite possible the worst day for the team.  Our teammate, Ryan Crooks, died in an unfortunate motorcycle accident.  Ryan was a great kid that we will always remember.

In Memory of Ryan Crooks 3/16/88 - 7/17/05
High Gear Team Member always

After spending the night in the Mohican Wilderness campground, High Gear Racing riders Ryan Mulder and Chris Kring were ready to start tearing up the trails of the Mohican downhill courses. We headed over to the registration area around 9:00 a.m. After both of us were registered the shuttles hadn't started yet so we decided to take Chris's truck to the top so we could start practice a little earlier than most. Practice seemed to go really well for all of the riders with no serious crashes or injuries. The courses were a lot of fun and flowed really well. A big thanks goes out to the Ohio Downhill Racing team and any one else who helped with building the courses. Right before the race was about to start HGR rider Chuck Conlen showed up late after navigating with some not so great, last minute directions. After quickly getting his gear on and getting registered Chuck was able to take a couple of last minute practice runs in between some of the other racers. All of the riders threw down some fast times on the hill throughout the day with all three of the HGR riders making podium spots in the Ex./Pro class. (Chris Kring- 2nd, Chuck Conlen- 4th, Ryan Mulder- 5th) Nice job guys. The race format was best combined time on two separate courses for the Ex./Pro class, and best combined time out of two runs on the same course for the beginner and sport classes. All in all, fun was had by all riders who attended and I'm sure the would all agree that Ryan O'Dell and Team Ohio Downhill did an excellent job putting on the race. Another big thanks goes out to them on behalf of HGR.

Pics: http://highgearracing.com/gallery/album02

Pictures: http://highgearracing.com/gallery/USOpen2005

March 12th, 2005

High Gear Racing Promotions, Inc Announces 2005 Team  

High Gear Racing Promotions Inc. welcomes new team members Heather Brennan and Craig Jeffers to the 2005 race team.   Most of the 2004 team will also be returning.  Team HGR will be representing: Santa Cruz Bicycles, Progressive Suspension, Maxxis, SRAM/Rockshox, E13 Components, Truvativ, SDG, Sun Rims, trails-edge.com, Utopia and Rockgardn Appairal.  This is the strongest team the HGR has fielded yet with the best sponsors.  The team will be represented at the US Open, most of the Norba Nationals, the Master's World Championships and many other events.  Stay tuned for more information on the team's schedule and frequently updated website.

Team HGR consist of:

Heather Brennan - Expert DH

Chuck Conlen - semi Pro DH

Ryan Crooks - Expert DH 

Greg Crooks - Sport DH

Jeff Galego - Expert DH

Jeff Hollowell - Expert DH

Craig Jeffers - Expert DH

Chris Kring - Expert DH

John Malinowski - Expert DH

Ryan Mulder - Expert DH

Stacey Omland - Expert DH

Bill Stevens - Expert DH

Ward Wilson - semi Pro DH

December 12th, 2004

Update your links.  

We were running the message board off another server.  Well, that server isn't available anymore.  Unfortunately, we were not given any notice.  The new board is up and running on the HGR server.  I was unable to restore the backup from the old server.  You will have to register your user name again.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

The link at the left is now working.

http://highgearracing.com/phpBB/index.php

October 25th, 2004

Results from the October 24th race are up...  

DH Results are posted.  Point series updates will be posted by the end of the week..  

Results from 10/24

September 28th, 2004

Results from the September 19th race is up...  

DH Results are posted.  Point series updates will be posted by the end of the week..  

Results from 9/19

Thanks to everyone that came out for a great weekend of DH racing and to everyone that helped.

Event Flyer for October 23rd and 24th

The DH will be on October 24th.  We are still working out the DS course.  More info to come.

Check out the event information here.

September 7th, 2004 -  September 18th-19th race info in up...

  DH only at the September 18th and 19th race.  DS will be back for the October race.

Check out the event information here.

August 9th, 2004 -  Point Series Standings are posted...

  DH Point Series totals through the first 3 events are posted on the Results page

Everyone in the top 15 in each class qualifies for the national championships.

July 26th, 2004 -  Results from last weekend are posted...

  DH Results are posted.  Mountain cross results and point series updates will be posted by the end of the week..  

Results from 7/25

Thanks to everyone that came out for a great weekend of DH racing and to everyone that helped.

The next race is September 19th.  See you then.  Stay tuned to the message board for additional riding opportunities.

June 27th, 2004 -  Site Updates...

The July 24th and 25th Race Venue has been announced as Z2, in Kalamazoo.  

A new venue was in the process of being arranged but a mutually agreeable date couldn't be scheduled for this season.  So, come out to Z2 for more DH and Mtn. X action!  The Mtn. X has been groomed further to provide a more rideable course for competitors of all abilities.  

June 6th, 2004 -  Site Updates...

A Gallery Page has been added where we will be able to post our photos along with user photos.  Also, the 2004 Series Points have been tabulated through the first 2 events and are on-line in the Results area.

May 31st, 2004 -  High Gear "Amateurs" Represent in at 2004 US Open

Team High Gear sent a group of representatives to this years US Open of Mountain Biking held at Mt. Creek Resort in Vernon, NJ.

Awesome Results were turned in by Chuck Conlen (formerly of Waterford) who qualified as the fastest Michigan Rider in the Open Class - just seconds off the world class pros in attendance.  Chuck's final placing had him in the top half of the open class, for an awesome overall results for a working class amateur.

Other High Gear riders raced in the Amateur Class, where the competition was equally tough.  Jeff Galego and Ryan Crooks also surprised everyone with good riding and strong results, placing in the top/middle of the field.

Stacey Osburn and Bella Velo rider Allie Rau raced in the Pro Women's Class and equally good runs - and were also DH Covergirls for the weekend, getting to take part in a Pro DH Women photo shoot at the slope.

A good time was had by all and the riding was said to be stellar.  Also, an "extreme" NYC tour was conducted by C2, which pleased everyone...see photo gallery.

April 16th, 2004 - Z2 #2 Flier On-line and Site Updates...

The Flier and schedule for Z2 #2 (race date - 4/24 and 4/25) is now online and can be viewed by selecting the link on the 2004 Events page, or directly by selecting this link.

Also - The Perspective page has been updated with tips for riders looking to travel out of state for some riding.  This article will continue to grow as we make more mistakes and learn more about how to get around outside of our neighborhood.

Tech articles on the e13 chain guide as well as a hand on comparison of a floating brake and standard set up are also in the works and will go live when we've had sufficient test time.

March 18th, 2004 - Z2 Season Opener Event Flier and Information are On-Line!

View all of the event details, race times, entry fees, and prizes by selecting the link found on the 2004 Events page.

March 6th, 2004 - The hills are alive...

With the sound of shovels and pick axes, that is.  Word has it, Bill Stevens is on a mission to make sure that midwest riders get to ride mountain cross at Kalamazoo in 2004.  I got the word today, and it sounds like Bill is putting some serious effort to make it happen.  

The 2002 Z2 "Powerline" DS/DHX course (complete with the 25 foot gap) is being restored and improved, hopefully in time for the Z2 2004 Season Opener.  Final course layout is still being determined, but the upper half of the course sounds likes it's ready to go!

Get your BMX face on!  More details to follow - and perhaps, spy photos of Bill's handy work to come soon.

February 22nd, 2004 - Mulligan's Hollow Snow Mtn. X Goes Off

18 Riders competed in the inaugural Snow Mtn. X at Mulligan's Hollow on the 22nd.  The course was designed and built by Chris Kring (with help from Ryan Mulder and Forrest Omland), and was widely recognized as the finest Snow X course to date, in Michigan.  

Rumors surround a potential return to the venue for Summer Mtn. X, but the sandy condition of the hill will have to be evaluated this spring before a date will be set.  

Results are are posted and can be found on the "Results " page.  Check the message board for more photos of the winter fun.

Photos of Mtb-Life's Eddie D. and HGR's Jeff Hollowell, courtesy of Stacey Osburn and Brian Lacross.

Click to enlarge.

February 17th, 2004 - Rockgardn Announced as Returning Event and Team Sponsor for 2004

Rockgardn protective gear saved the hide of many HGR Team Riders last season and it looks like it will be doing an even better job in 2004, with the addition of all new gloves, goggles, and shin pads.

Look for Rockgardn to be a prize contributor at our 2004 Events as well as Team High Gear's protection of choice - for DH/Mtn. X.

Well, there's been some changes at highgearracing.com this off season.  2004 brings some fresh management to High Gear along with some new blood, awesome new sponsors, and the return of some our key sponsors.

As of January 1st, Chris Kring is the new CEO, and owner, of High Gear Racing Promotions Inc.  Chris is replacing High Gear's founder, John Frucci, who served as CEO, and owner, since October of 2000.  John elected to turn the reigns over to Chris at the end of the 2003 Season in order to spend more time with his new family and pursue his riding.  John will remain on board with the company as web-site administrator and Team Co-manager.

I hope you'll all join me in wishing good luck to Chris in his new role as CEO of High Gear Racing Promotions, Inc.!

In an effort to fill some gaps in our line-up and continue with our goal of developing new Midwest talent, High Gear has added some new riders to its roster for 2004.

Here's the confirmed HGR National Team Roster for 2004:

Expert Women: Stacey Osburn (Multiple NCS Podium Finisher in 2002)

Expert Master: Chuck Conlen (Top 10 Master's World Championship Finisher) John Malinowski Bill Stevens Ward Wilson* Chris Kring John Frucci

Expert Senior: Jeff Galego Jeff Hollowell*

Expert Junior: Ryan Mulder (Top 20 US Junior X Rider) Scott Wanhala* Ryan Crooks*

*Denotes New Rider

Congratulations to our new Official Team Members, Ward , Jeff, and Ryan.

Be on the look out for out for additional sponsors and our 2004 Event Schedule that will be posted during the February!