Scoop: Huvard, Day and Sharrah See Daylight

You know it’s gonna be a good day when a story shows up that has three scoops in one. And these three scoops are tastier than Baskin-Robbins on its best day.

Over the past three years, we have covered the progress of Richard Huvard, and his resurrection of the Staats and Ciari brands. In that time, he and his posse have built an impressive line of products, a top-drawer team, and one of the flashiest pit areas on the USA BMX circuit.

Today, Richard brings news that the whole crew is making a big change for 2016–with the launch of Daylight Cycle Co., which will be out this Spring with an American-Made product line. That is scoop number one.

Scoop number two is that Mike Day is back on the scene, joining the new company as Director of Product Development and Sales, presumably leaving behind the MTB career he has been building since his last BMX race about 18 months ago. Along with that, he has parted ways with GT Bicycles after a very long stay.

Which leaves the final scoop–and this one is of the megawatt variety. Corben Sharrah and Haro have parted ways and Corben will join Daylight as their anchor AA Pro. This being an Olympic year and all, Corben is one of the guys who we’ll be watching as the Rio qualifying gets going in earnest, so we may-just see Daylight atop the big hill, come August.

Wowza…Now that is some sizable scoopage right there!

Here is the official release, seen for the first time anywhere, right here on News:

After three years of directing the rebrand and resurgence of Staats Bicycles and Ciari Parts, Richard Huvard and Eugene Bustillos, and their NeedThree (N3) Design have launched the manufacture of a new American-made BMX race frame and line of complete bikes, Daylight Cycle Co.

A division of their growing SoCal retail store and coming BMX online outlet, Gold Coast Bicycles, Daylight also brings together two of the most formidable U.S. racers in the last ten years to steer product development on and off the race track–BMX Olympic Silver Medalist, Mike Day, who joins Daylight as Director of Product Development and Sales–and one of this year’s top US Olympic hopefuls, Elite/AA Pro Corben Sharrah.

Prototyping is underway with a target release this spring, and a new parts company is also in the works. “We wanted to build a bike and brand from inception that was all our own and all American.” Huvard explains, “or as it will say on the bike, ‘Hand Built on the California Gold Coast’.”

“I’ve known both Corben and Mike since they were kids racing BMX. When the opportunity to work with them came together with a first rate design and manufacturing team right here, like a racer breaking through the pack, we saw daylight and knew where and when we had to go.”

Huvard’s Factory Staats/Ciari team will immediately transition to Factory Daylight Cycles and will continue to receive support from sponsors and marketing partners including O’Neal MX, POC Sports, Stealth Hubs, and Vittoria Shoes. And as the latest addition to their brand offering, Gold Coast Bicycles will also be the exclusive distributor of Faith Wear race gear in the U.S.

Look for Corben Sharrah and the team to debut their new colors next month at the Pro Series opener, the 2016 USA BMX Winter Nationals in Phoenix, AZ.

For dealer inquiries or to see daylight yourself, contact Daylight Cycle Co. at 855-269-7853, or online at sales@daylightcycles.com. Be sure to like Daylight Cycle Co. on Facebook.

Well, this development will certainly add to the excitement and intrigue of the new pro season, which starts in only 36 days, and it will be great to see MDay365 back at the races in his new off-track role. Be sure to keep it right here on BMX News for all the headlines leading up to the 2016 USA BMX Winter Nationals.

—Mike Carruth

Top Photo: New logo for Daylight Cycle Co., with partners Eugene Bustillos and Richard Huvard; incoming Director of Product Development and Sales, Mike Day; and New Daylight AA Pro/Elite, Corben Sharrah.

#WinningWednesdays Calls it Final

Over the past 77 weeks, Mike Day and Donny Robinson have been writing the weekly #WinningWednesdays email newsletter. In that time, they have brought readers the most authoritative, insider tips to BMXers all over the globe. And they have engaged thousands of BMXers who have the next win in their sights.

Today’s edition, entitled “#WinningWednesdays, The Final Chapter” ends the first phase of their work. Here’s what they sent out to readers:

Where Oh Where, has the time gone? 

It’s been 77 weeks since we first started this little journey. Do you remember where you were when you first heard of Pedals 2 Medals? It’s likely hard to fathom how you survived as the person you were back then. Just like your wedding day and the birth of your first child, the Pedals 2 Medals press release, was an instance in your life you won’t ever forget.

It started with a name – Pedals 2 Medals – but it needed more; a purpose; a following. We knew there was a path that led us to this point in the sport, and life, and as our competitive careers were beginning to wind down, what good would it have done to keep all our knowledge to ourselves? Why not spare the future generation(s) the learning curve and share what has taken us decades to figure out? It was then, that #WinningWednesdays was born. 

Honestly, as we look back, we could have never imagined coming up with 76 different topics to speak on. But, every book needs an end, and we feel this chapter is perfect to end on. Speaking of looking back…
The very first #WinningWednesdays entry had Mike share with you the need for a training notebook. We hope you’ve gone through a few of them by now. By writing down your goals and your executed workload, you’ll hold yourself more accountable and create a better work ethic. 

In week #3, Mike shared his “pre-gate” routine – covering how he prepares mentally and physically before he steps on the gate.

Episode 10 saw Donny pointing-out the need to be smart about your health and recovery following crashes.
 
So, while this is the last of this #WinningWednesdays series, what’s good isn’t always lost; sequels happen regularly, and we hope you’ll stick around for the next phase of what we’re working on at Pedals 2 Medals–something that will make the success of future generations even moreso than our own. 

For a limited time we are making the full, 76-week collection of #WinningWednesdays available for download as a convenient and searchable PDF.  For readers who purchased the first-22-episode PDF, we are offering episodes 23-76 as a separate PDF, so you can complete your collection.

Click to order the PDF of your choice

Thank you for reading #WinningWednesdays each week.  We hope we have helped you take your racing to a new level. Stay tuned for the next phase.

—Donny and Mike

The full collection is a great resource for anyone who wants to take their racing to the next level, and we hope you’ll give it a click, just to check it out. They have a PDF posted with the full Table of Contents, so you can see how each of the 76 articles is set up.

Meanwhile, we wish Mike and Donny all the best in whatever is next for the Pedals 2 Medals program.

—Mike Carruth

Links

Order the #WinningWednesdays PDF

Yess BMX Sprint Stand

Your sprint sessions just got orders-of-magnitude easier, thanks to Yess BMX and the Yess Sprint Stand. It folds down for backpack transport to your secret sprint spot, then offers adjustable height and fold-out legs for rock-solid support as you’re settin’ up for repeated rock & roll, at maximum warp.

On raceday, bring it with to display the bike with the factory-fresh flav of a winner, in every way, who knows how to showcase for maximum sponsor recognition.

If you’re not doing regular sprint sessions now, you should be. And to demonstrate why, we called upon a big friend-of-News, Olympic Silver Medalist, Mike Day, to walk you through the why-and-how of it all. See the link below for the PDF.

The article in the PDF is plucked from the Pedals 2 Medals “#WinningWednesdays” series, a free e-newsletter Mike and Donny Robinson send out every week to set up your stoke for the next big race. A subscribe link is also below.

Meanwhile, order up the Yess Sprint Stand from J&R today. The MSRP is $74.95, but with the magic J&R Bicycles Product Spotlight discount code, you can get 15% off on this, plus any other non-sale items in your cart when you use JRSPOT15 during checkout.

Links

Yess BMX Sprint Stand on J&R Bicycles

“Take the Hint: Do Those Box Sprints” PDF

WinningWednesdays E-Book Weeks 01-22

WinningWednesdays Sign-Up Form (at bottom)

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Product Spotlight is Presented by:

Free Download: Pedals 2 Medals E-Book Sample

Mike Day and Donny Robinson have been doing a weekly email message called #WinningWednesdays since founding their virtual BMX coaching company, Pedals 2 Medals, six months ago. As the list of people receiving the weekly email grows, they had been receiving more and more requests to bundle all the back issues into one place, which they have now done, in the form of a PDF e-book.

Mike and Donny have granted BMX News special permission to take four articles and offer a sample of the full e-book to BMX News readers, as a free digital download.

The full e-book, available on the Pedals2Medals website for $9.95 (link below) has all 22 articles, which provide some great tips and insight based on Mike & Donny’s own 20+ years apiece in the sport. The table of contents for the full book is in the free download, so you can get an idea of what’s inside.

Meanwhile the weekly #WinningWednesdays emails are free to receive in your inbox, and you can sign up for the list while you’re purchasing the first 22 bundled-up back issues.

Be sure to check out Donny’s Pro Gate clinic at the Grands (details coming next week).

Big props to Mike & Donny on the e-book. We always look forward to reading the newest nuggets every Wednesday. Thanks for giving us this special freebie-peek.

When there’s no doubt, share it out! If you enjoyed this article, we would appreciate if you would share it with your friends:

Download the Free #WinningWednesdays E-book Sample

Order an instant-download of the full e-book

Pedals 2 Medals Launches Video Critique

Back On May 11 of this year, the BMX News Anouncers Tower Podcast welcomed US Olympians Mike Day and Donny Robinson to the show. They were here to talk about their new venture–Pedals 2 Medals, a virtual coaching service which will bring subscription-based video tutorials, as well some other services to BMXers around the world.

The guys have been busy developing the project, and have since written 21 consecutive weekly #WinningWednesdays email messages to their free email list.

Today marks the official launch of the first in the Pedals 2 Medals suite of products and services– personal video critique.

Mike and Donny have developed an easy-to-use method for you to upload video of your rider (on the gate, in a race, sprinting, or other on-track scenario), and receive a personal review by Mike or Donny.

You can also use videos upoaded to video sharing services like YouTube, Photobucket or Flickr.

Rather than an endless stream of back & forth emails, they are using a project management tool called “Basecamp” to hold all communication in a private, central location. Basecamp is used by tens of thousands of big companies for online collaboration and is rock-solid reliable. Plus, it’s “Made in Chicago!”

The standard critique service has a turnaround time of 48 hours and is priced, for an introductory period, at $49. This includes two responses on the same issue (your initial question about what you want reviewed, their answer, and a follow up to that response, and another answer).

There are also two levels of faster service: a 24-hour “Expedited” response for $69, and a 12-hour “Rush” service for $79. Donny tells News that the Rush service is in place for times when riders may need critique/feedback on a practice lap, or day-one main event at a national. The Rush service will get the critique moving in time for you to make use of it in the next day’s race. HUGE advantage, right there.

Over the past two months, a select few beta testers have been using the service, and have reported very positively, one saying “I would pay to use this service in the future!”

Donny told news:

Mike and I were very pleased with how smoothly the initial Pedals 2 Medals video critique tests went. As long as the submission clearly indicates the rider to study, along with adequate angles and clarity of the video footage, I truly believe this is the fastest and most efficient way to optimize any rider’s gate / track technique or bike setup, whether on a practice night or a crucial race weekend.

Mike expanded on what Donny said:

As we continue to work on the site, it feels good to get the video critique up and running! The Basecamp project management system makes it super-easy for us to go back and forth with the riders (and/or parents) to help achieve the results they are looking to achieve.

The key is for the rider/parent to come in with a clear idea of what they want out of the critique, and to get clear, steady video, shot from the right angle. I guess I am repeating some of what Donny just said, but it bears mentioning twice, since it is SO important for us to do the critique.

We can definitely see how this service will help riders and their parent/coach keep the program moving forward in a positive direction. It’s pretty awesome that Joe racer can make a small investment and have his race/training evaluated by an Olympic Medalist to make sure the money s/he is spending on race day isn’t wasted. Check the links below for more on the Pedals 2 Medals Video Critique, and how to join their #WinningWednesdays list (next message goes out tomorrow).

There are more headlines coming from these two, so we’ll keep the com-link to Pedals 2 Medals HQ open so we can bring scoop to you as it happens.

If you enjoyed this article, we would appreciate if you would share it with your friends:

Pedals 2 Medals Video Critique page

Pedals 2 Medals Website (Join #WinningWednesdays at bottom)

Podcast: “Riding Hurt” with Robinson and Fraga

Over the past month or so, we have seen an unusually high number of “trip to the ER” posts on social media, as well as some friends suffer career-ending injuries–just in the past 30-45 days. One of the topics that comes up for discussion alongside a weekend of racing is “how hurt is hurt?” How hurt to do you have to be to pull out of the rest of the weekend’s races?

Donny Robinson took up this topic in a #winningwednesdays email he will send out today to subscribers of the Pedals 2 Medals free email list. They have had some really good topics the past few weeks, and I encourage you to go to the site (link below) and join the list.

I thought this topic would make a great Podcast, so invited Donny to expand on his WinningWednesdays article and come on the Announcers Tower program. Joining Donny is Jay Fraga, founder of The Knockout Project–a nonprofit founded by the former BMXer in 2012 to advocate and serve as an information source for head injuries suffered by athletes of every stripe.

In the podcast, Donny and Jay both share their deep knowledge of this subject, and tell some very moving stores of their own experiences of injuries, and how the after effects of those injuries have shaped their current selves.

“People told me ‘you need to hang it up…you need to retire.’ That’s not the way I wanted to go out”
—Donny Robinson

http://www.bmxnews.org/podcasts/at-099-jay-fraga-donny-robinson.mp3

iPhone users: paste the following link in your device's browser - http://bmxurl.com/at99

A big thanks to Donny and Jay for sharing their insights on this most-important topic. We encourage you to share this out to friends you care about, regardless of whether they race BMX, moto, play hockey or football.

Sign up for the weekly #winningwednesdays email list that Mike Day and Donny take turns writing for their new venture Pedals 2 Medals (link below). It’s free to join.

Pedals 2 Medals Website

The Knockout Project Website

Mike Day on Race Day Pressure

Over the past two months, Mike Day and Donny Robinson have been sending out a weekly “pro-tip” email called #WinningWednesdays to promote their forthcoming virtual coaching service, Pedals 2 Medals. There have been some really great messages, giving insights into the heart and soul of Mike and Donny’s Read more

Podcast: Mike and Donny on Pedals 2 Medals

Most of the top experts and pros do clinics throughout the year, both to promote their sponsors and to give back to the riders who aspire to one day be a top expert or pro.

All the riders we talk to who lead clinics talk about how great it is when they work with up & coming riders, and finally their teaching “connects.” The student gets it, and moves to the next stage of their journey from intermediate to expert, or from expert into the ranks of the “super experts.”

Mike Day and Donny Robinson have done a ton of clinics in their time–and have told News about that “boom” moment, when the rider is pushed beyond their comfort zone, and leaves the clinic with new moves they didn’t have when they pulled their bike off the rack that day.

The thing about live clinics is that, once you have passed out the goodie bags, and said “go get ‘em sport!,” the students tend to stay where they were on that day–or, worse yet, revert to their old behaviors.

To bring a constant state of coaching to the masses, Mike and Donny have come up with an idea to solve the day-to-day doldrums of “do-sprints, do-gates…and now what?”

We sat down with the Olympic Medalists to hear about their new venture, Pedals 2 Medals–which will bring videos, smartphone apps and direct-access to their 45 years of combined BMX Racing experience to anyone who wants to move their racing to the next level.

Listen now.
http://www.bmxnews.org/podcasts/at-094-pedals-2-medals.mp3

iPhone users: Paste this URL in your phone's browser: http://bmxurl.com/at094i

That is some very exciting stuff these two stars have in store for us in the BMX Racing community. As they count down the days to launch, they have set up an email list, to which they will send a #winningwednesdays tip of the week. It’s a great chance to hear, straight from the Silver and Bronze medalists, how you can jump your game to the next level. Mike and Donny also tell News that members of the list will receive exclusive invites to participate in live Google Hangouts with them, for free, between now and launch.

Click the link below to visit the Pedals 2 Medals website, and join the WinningWednesdays email list.

Pedals 2 Medals Website

BMX Wedding Bells

Saw this on Instagram last night. Mike Day and long-time girlfriend, “Amazing” Leigh Walter were engaged over the weekend. Sorry ladies, now he’s taken for keeps. No word on the big day just yet, but we wanted to extend a big BMX News congrats to Mike and Leigh, and to compliment Mike on picking some tasty carats of the carbon variety.

In other wedding bell news, J&R Bicycles owner, Kirk Morrison got engaged a few months ago to his gal, Delaney Johnson. Wedding is set for early November, strategically timed during the lull between Disney Cup and the Grands. As any BMX wedding should be.

All the best to the brides and grooms-to be!

Podcast: Pope, Post and R.Evolution

In case you missed the live show yesterday, we’re posting the podcast version (with some of the rough spots edited out) this morning.

We ran over the hour when we were on-air, and were cut off, so we edited the final six minutes back into the show for the on-demand Podcast.

It was a great show, with Weston Pope telling us about his plans to live part time in Africa for the foreseeable future, Alise Post talking about her decision to step-up her already-successful charity event for 2013, and the Red Bull R.Evolution crew of Johan Lindstrom, Tom Ritz and Mike Day talking about the vibe at Mellopark, and how they came to build one of the gnarliest BMX tracks of all time.

Give it a listen now:

Also, after the show, we put together the following links we discussed in the show.

Weston Pope’s Africa Photo Essay

Alise Post Charity Palooza Online Auction

Practice Laps at Red Bull R.Evolution

Barry Nobles takes on “The Wall” on Johan’s Mountain Bike

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