Tyler's Side Flight Recap

Last weekend I went down south for a contest that was put on by X-Fusion called the Side Flight Championships. It was the first of it's kind and the object of the contest was to see how whipped out you could get your bike in the air and bring it back before landing. Riders were judged on amplitude, style, and how sideways they got. They have this same event in the X-Games for Moto but this was the first for bikes.

I came pretty prepared and even built a practice jump in the woods at home to feel out my whips before I went to the contest. I also built up a special bike for the event that I thought would be well suited for the course. It's a prototype GT frame called the Ruckus 7 and I built it up as light as possible to help me whip it around. I even put a semi slick rear tire on it to help me gain as much speed as I could into the jumps which were super big and definitely suited my style. It started out with a 45 foot slightly stepped down double into a 40 foot step up and ended with a 30 foot hip jump. There were lots of different types of riders that came to this event from top dirt jumpers to world cup downhill racers. We had a practice session Friday evening and once we started riding it was evident that there were about 6 or 7 people that were standing out, including Thomas Vanderham, Brendan Fairclough, Kevin Aiello, Ryan Howard and Sean McLendon. I felt good and never really stepped out of my comfort zone in practice and was feeling that I could possibly take the title the following day.

On Saturday we woke up to howling winds but tried to make it happen anyways. I think it's safe to say that everyone that tried to jump on Saturday had a near death experience. The wind was coming head on and killed all of the speed that we had going into the first jump. We were all optimistic about making it work until until we saw Cody Warren sprinting into the jump and still not gain enough speed to make it over the landing. He came up about 3 feet short and broke both of his cranks off on impact. Once we saw that, we decided it wasn't safe and that we should wait it out in hopes that the wind would stop. Unfortunately it never did. The wind just kept getting worse so the event holders decided to call it. Results were then based on the practice session the day prior and it was rider judged.

Later that night we went to a local sports bar where they announced the results and they went as follows:

1st: Sean Mclendon
2nd: Tyler McCaul
3rd: Brendan Fairclough
4th: Ryan Howard
5th: Thomas Vanderham

I was bummed that the contest ended the way it did, but I was super pumped with the outcome. There's already talk of trying to hold these types of contests more throughout the year and it's something that I think could get really big in the future. It was a fun contest that wasn't as dangerous as most but still put on a really good show. Hope to see more in the future like it!

Here's a video clip of the practice session that was made by Shawn Spomer from VitalMTB.com

http://www.vitalmtb.com/videos/features/Sideflight-Champs-Practice-Blasting,993/sspomer,2

Thanks to all of you for the continued support!

-Tyler