Southwest Gives Sam and Alise the LUV

A ton of BMXers fly Southwest Airlines, multiple times each year, to one race or another. Southwest Magazine, their in-flight publication, is a great way to keep yourself occupied and entertained.

That will be especially-so during the month of June, when you’ll sit down in a comfy seat Read more

Recap: 2017 Worlds Junior and Elite Classes

By Mike Carruth

Whenever there is a race so action-packed or important that it calls for a longform, slow-down-the-sands-of-time-and-really-dig-in recap, I sit down to write it with a little devil on my shoulder the whole time, who tells me at the beginning of every new sentence “it’s too long Read more

Letter: Where Was Alise in Papendal/Zolder?

I watched the Papendal and Zolder SX races on YouTube, and did not see Alise Post. Why wasn’t she there? Did she get hurt?

AS, Midwest

Thanks for writing AS! We are big AP11 fans ourselves, and had a head-scratch moment over not seeing Alise on the moto sheets in Papendal, when we sat down with our popcorn at 9 in the morning.

We reached out to Alise after receiving your letter, and here’s what she said:

It was a late decision between myself and USA Cycling for me to pull out of Papendal (editors note: and, by extension, Zolder).

I love that race and would’ve loved to be there, but during the lead up a lot of things came up at home and with so many moving parts it just wouldn’t have been fair to expect myself to go there and perform. We all agree that it’s almost more important to be 100% mentally prepared than physically for these events to get results and stay healthy, so I chose that being supportive to Sam and getting home life in order as the priority for this period of time.

As much as we would have loved to see another sky-ride into the first turn in Papendal (above), we have to applaud Alise’s decision to put family first.

The good news is that she is said to be enroute to Nashville, for the next round of the 2017 USA BMX Pro Series. We hope you’ll be listening to the webcast as she gets it done!

Top Photo: News regards this as one of the best BMX Racing photos of all-time, but do not know who actually snapped it.

USAC Crowns 2017 Elite Champs

The annual USA Cycling BMX Elite Nationals Championships were held Friday, alongside the second of four Team USA World Championship qualifiers, and the Carolina Nationals pre-race.

Like most of these USA-only events, the Elite portion of the program was not packed with rack after rack of household name stars. Instead, one rack of Women, two racks of men, and one rack of Junior Men (which is an improvement, since we did not have any Junior classes at all last year, partially owing to the USA BMX rule at the time that said if you race Junior Elite, you are immediately turned up to A-Pro. This year, the rule was relaxed, and we had a gate of Junior Men.

Junior Men, by the way, was the race of the day, as Bryce Batten and Kamren Larsen battled the last half of the track. Bryce led it to turn two, but Kam came in and put the swoop down, taking the lead into the third straight.

BB jumped into the last turn, which gave him some nose room into the last turn, and he took every-bit of it to come up roses, and on to the stripe for his first title win in a championship class. We’ll be waiting for the next one in about 110 days or so, right back here in Rock Hill.

There was no Junior Womens class, so the only Junior Woman—Sophia Foresta—was combined with the Elites, however received her own podium award and “stars & bars” jersey.

In the Elite classes, Reigning Champ, Connor Fields was coming off an ankle injury sufferend in Oldsmar, and said, in a post-race interview, that he only recently started walking on the injured ankle again, and the trip to Rock Hill to defend his title was one of last minute decision, based on how he felt at the time.

Corben Sharrah—who had held the USAC title before, had gate two, next to Connor, and got out to a nice lead early on, and held it all the way home. Jared the Jet Garcia was riding strong all day, and had a slammin lap in the main, with second place.

In the Elite Women, Alise was sitting on six USAC wins—every year since they started running it off the SX hill in, maybe 2011, (check us on that). Her seventh running down the SX hill would work out the same as the previous six, with a win taken wire to wire.

Felicia Stancil is edging her way back to the front of the pack, after an injury/illness took her out for substantially all of last season. Felicia ended up second at the USAC Nationals, and Dani George was third.

Here are the podium finishes, via USA Cycling’s website.

Junior Women
1. Sophia Foresta – GT Bicycles

Junior Men
1. Bryce Batten – Factory Throdwn
2. Kamren Larsen – USA Cycling Devo
3. Brady Kincheloe – Powers Bike Shop

Elite Women
1. Alise Post – Troy Lee/Klean Athlete/Promax/GW
2. Felicia Stancil – GT Bicycles
3. Dani George – Dale Holmes Racing

Elite Men
1. Corben Sharrah – Daylight Cycles
2. Jared Garcia – Box Components
3. Connor Fields – Chase BMX

Top photo by Traci Batten. Thanks Traci!

Alise Inks Promax Parts Deal

Last week, with much anticipation created on social media, Alise Post announced she would be riding a GW frame in 2017. This week, she sliced off a few tasty appetizers and showed off some of the components that would go in to building her perfect race rocket. Read more

Official: Alise Post Will Ride a GW

In a week otherwise laced with the standard fare of Facebook BMXer bellyaching, geopolitical pablum and working for the weekend, Alise Post brought some sunshine to social. The BMX community was watching, as Alise released a tasty teaser on Tuesday, depicting a shadowed BMX bike, under the headline “New Bicycle.”

That image set the wires on fire, with speculation of every-sort, being offered by riders, parents, grandparents and people long departed from the BMX scene–all climbing on to take a ride on the speculation train.

Wednesday morning, Colombian bike brand, GW posted a similarly-styled teaser to the one Alise had posted, but this one said “New Rider,” with a silhouette of a rider’s head and shoulders, backed-up with red white & blue stripes.

Well, the cat was pretty much out of the bag from there but, still, the speculation ran strong. Folks were convinced it was some kind of misdirection campaign, and one even surmising that hackers got into GW’s Facebook account, and posted the “New Rider” image (gotta love the conspiracy theorists).

Well, Friday, as the East Coast was sitting down to lunch, the official word came forth, via the image above, that Alise and GW had, in fact joined forces. The new rallying hashtag of #bepartofus is present on Alise’s FB and Instagram posts, as well as on the GW Bicycles FB page.

For us here in the US, GW is a mystery brand. We know Mariana rides one, but that’s about it. We don’t know who’s behind it, where to buy one, or the sizes and colors available in the US. Someone asked “what does ‘GW’ stand for?” Good question. We keep thinking of another ‘GW’ when we hear those initials mentioned– GW Bush (for better or worse).

We’re fairly-sure that, with a high-horsepower, high-starpower player like AP11 in the house, GW will make the necessary moves to maximize their new partnership.

Today, it is all confetti, noisemakers and streamers, as we wish Alise and GW all the best in getting 2017 going strong. Next likely stop: Rock Hill, SC next week.

—Mike Carruth

Alise Post: Who’s It Going To Be?

Social media has been all-a-twitter (small t) over a teaser that Alise Post dropped earlier in the week, regarding her 2017 frame deal. She started it out in her characteristically-classy way—by thanking her outgoing sponsor, Redline Bicycles, and giving away her 2016 Grands Redline jersey to a deserving fan.

Then, an image with a mysterious outline of a BMX bike appeared, with promise that she would soon announce the lucky brand she will ride to glory in 2017.

Facebook practically needed to add more servers to handle the load, with people booting up Photoshop to try and match up the frame of their choice to the mysterious image Alise put out there.

One commenter asked “Is Intense BMX making a comeback?,” another was convinced it was a Sty Srg, and made a compelling Photoshop mockup to help bolster his case.

Then, early Weds morning, Colombian bike brand GW posted the following image on their FB page—which has the same typeface, and “Star Trek movie poster” look and feel–and suspiciously-American red, white and blue behind the shrouded rider.

We’re NOT saying it’s official. Maybe they are just drafting on Alise’s hype, and will announce someone different. A different Americano? Hard to imagine all this as pure coincidence.

Of course, y’all know that GW is also the favored mount of another female mega-star: Mariana Pajon. So, adding Alise to the lineup would be pretty Feng shui, from a representation point of view.

Only time will tell, as Alise has promised to give us all the official 4-1-1 in due course. Stay tuned to BMX News, where we will update the haps as soon as they happen.

Big props to Alise for getting people talking about something positive, and giving us something juicy to report on a VERY slow news week.

—Mike Carruth

Sam Willoughby Update!

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It’s been a while since we passed-along an update to BMX News readers on the progress Sam Willoughby is making in his recovery after a tragic injury during a routine practice session in September 2016.

Sam was surrounded by friends and family as he made a triumphant, New Years Eve return Read more

Sam’s Going Home Soon!

All-around the building, for all the days of Grands weekend, BMXers from around the world were thinking of the one hero who wasn’t able to join us. Sam Willoughby was busy in Colorado, working hard on his recovery routine, impressing-the-heck out of the staff with his commitment to doing the hard work that will soon clear him to move into the next phase: Going home to San Diego.

Yesterday, Alise wrote a comprehensive update on how things are going for Sam at Craig Hospital, including some very good news about the next phase of his recovery plan. Here is that statement, complete with a video of Sam, digging-deep to finish off his time at Craig like the champion he is.

After 70 days of eating, sleeping, breathing rehabilitation here at Craig, our official inpatient stay is coming to a close! This means that Sam is considered medically stable enough for he, his mum and I to move out of this hospital room and transition towards home life by moving into the outpatient program here in Denver.

We plan to stay here for December and have a jam packed “work schedule” utilizing the world class facilities available to us here at Craig. This seems to be the perfect transition allowing us to stay close to the hospital while living on our own without the haunting “quick set of vitals” phrase!!!

It will also allow time to get all of his equipment and our home more prepared for home therapy and everyday life…this has been a continual process behind the scenes to get organized.

Sam and all of us are really looking forward to freedom to use all of the crazy technologies and work with many motivated therapists through the PEAK center here before transitioning to that next step home. As successful as his inpatient stay has been, the opportunity to direct his own care and focus more on his personal goals is what Sam is ready for!

Throughout the past month Sam has managed to stay fit and even put a bit of muscle back on. A big part of this in his legs would have to be the increased amount of stimulation through the FES bike (video shown), pool workouts, and more time upright in harnesses on the Erigo (boxing machine in an earlier post) and vibration plate.

We’re hoping that all of this stimulation work will aid in his bodies’ “message sending” process. Some other exciting news is how stable Sam has gotten at getting on all fours and balancing. He is even able to use a swiss ball and some spotting to get on his knees which is pretty cool. All of the work on his tummy, posture and balance is definitely indicating a bit better core activation which is super exciting this early on in the game for someone with an injury like Sam’s.

His hands continue to improve in function, he increases his weights or reps almost daily with his dumbbell, cable and med ball work which means his grip and upper body are only getting stronger! We are all super proud of Sam and can’t wait to continue this journey with him.

We need to extend a huge thank you to his entire inpatient team here at Craig as they have taken our ideas on board and done their best to accommodate Sam’s goals amidst ticking all of the boxes to get him “medically functional” to get out of the hospital.

We had our discharge meeting yesterday and every single one of the team members said they had never worked with a more motivated individual that forced them to use all of their resources and push the limits for not only Sam, but all of the future patients that come through Craig Hospital.

Thank you to everyone who has helped keep Sam’s spirits up so that motivation never lagged, every positive energy sent our way has played a role and will continue to help him as he turns the page to the next chapter in his road to recovery.

Having just went to Tulsa, OK over Thanksgiving for our year-end finale of the USA BMX series, I’ve experienced first hand how strong and genuine the support for Sam truly is, and we can’t thank you enough for that.

I know I fed on all of those good vibes myself and was somewhat surprised with a great performance in Tulsa winning both days of racing and taking my fifth women’s pro championship title, and 9th overall prestigious USA BMX silver cup.

None of those feats compared to the feeling of accepting Sam’s “Pro of the Year” award amidst the loudest cheers of the weekend though, so thanks for letting him hear you all the way in Denver!

We even got a few visits from our closest friends on their drive back west which is much appreciated and we thank them for taking the time to stop by.

Checking in on Sam’s Road2Recovery fund today, the BMX community is in the proverbial last-turn of the first round-win. With $191,000 of the $200,000 goal on the board, each contribution is another crank-stroke toward the finish line, so check the link below, and let’s do this!

—Mike Carruth

Links

Sam Willoughby’s Road2Recovery.com Page

Big Sam Willoughby Update

Lots of great happenings in Sam Willoughby’s ongoing push toward recovery, and also his fundraising cause. Sam is feeling the support of tens of thousands of BMXers from around the world, and is moving from day to day smiling and working hard to progress his rehab in Colorado, surrounded by family Read more

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