Viva La Mexico X-Games

Coming from the mouth of a California resident that was born and raised in Florida and spoiled with sea level horsepower and Taco Bell as my favorite food source; I realized that I never really had a desire to go to Mexico. Well at least until 2005 when I travelled down to Mexico City to ride in the 1st annual Red Bull X-Fighters and Won! It is definitely a completely different world down there. It has its ups and downs, good spots and bad, but the best part is that there is a hunger for action sports! With the success of the X-Fighters opening the eyes of ESPN, they have held the X-Games series there the past 2 years. I would have to say that the BMX guys were the most popular, with FMX and Skateboarding following close behind. I headed down to Montezuma's favorite watering hole so that I could give it a go in the Step-Up and Whip contests. Though it was super tempting to enter into he FMX portion of the shin-dig, I stuck to my guns and kept out of the mess.

I say mess because this day and age, it is super tough to shoot for that podium period, let alone when your bike is running at about 80% due to the lack of oxygen at 7,800ft and there were a few riders who paid the price.

I say mess because this day and age, it is super tough to shoot for that podium period, let alone when your bike is running at about 80% due to the lack of oxygen at 7,800ft and there were a few riders who paid the price. I was only allowed to send 1 bike down due to the logistics, so I decided I would bring the 450 so that I could be at 100% on Step-Up versus the Whip comp which didn't pay as well. My choice proved to be a good one. I won the Step-Up in a lengthy battle with Myles Richmond and got 2nd in the crowd judged (via text message) to Todd Potter. Todd had a gnarly crash in the FMX comp just a few minutes before the whip comp started, so I've got mad respect for him coming back out and whipping us. The breadwinner of the weekend was Jeremy Lusk. The X-Games Los Angeles FMX winner kept his momentum going and walked out with 2 golds (FMX and Best trick) and 1 Bronze (Whip). Big thanks to ESPN for having us down and treating us all amazing. And a big shout out on a personal level to all the crazy fans down there that really pump me up to ride my bike and turn up the risk knob to the next level! Don't drink the water! rr