Joe Sheppard: November Update

Hey guys,

It's been a while since my last update, but I have had a pretty busy last couple of weeks. It started at the beginning of november, Brad Hage, Ben Soule and myself jumped on a couple of big birds and flew over to Dili, East Timor. I've been over to Dili plenty of times before, but it the first trip for the other boys and I was pretty excited as we were getting out of Dili this time and doing a bit of freeriding in the mountains along the coast.

It was the beginning of the wet season over there, which meant it was rediculously hot during the day, then it would rain in the afternoon. This was good for the mx guys over there, but not so good for us when we were trying to build jumps out in the mountains. We percerviered though, and managed to build one sweet jump in a quarry out of town and found a few smaller fun hits while doing some incredible trail riding.

We drove five hours down the coast to another town to do a demo at their soccer stadium, and on the way we saw some terrain which has to be some of the best natural riding I have ever seen. We didn't have time this trip, but I'm already itching to get back over there and hit it up.

The actual motocross event in Dili was a blast, the crowd was huge, weather stayed good and we all had a great time.

After coming home for two days it was time to head to Bali to ride a comp Steve Sommerfeld was putting together over there. My fiance Casey came with me which was good, although I hardly saw her, the shopping there was too much for her to resist!

We got to do a ride through town on some KLX140's with a police escort, those things are awesome for key bangers! We tried to wreck them but they didn't miss a beat, I highly reccommend those lil buggers. The event had a few dramas, mainly due to bikes for most of the FMX guys being a bit how-ya-goin. All the guys did the best with what they had, and the crowd still seemed to really get into it.

Kiwi bro Mitch McHardy got the win, doing one of the scariest flips i've ever seen. I still don't know how he pulled it around... Gotta give him credit though as he wasn't feeling it all day but he still got the job done. I came in second place, and USA rider Greg Schaff ended up in third. Fingers crossed they hold the event again next year, all it needs are a few little things sorted and it has the potential to be a killer event.

The highlight of the trip was Jason Rosyski, on his first time overseas, getting lost the first night we got there and coming home at 9 the next morning after sleeping in a KFC! Awesome effort.

That's it from me, I'm just taking it easy for a couple of weeks now and getting back into a routine at home.

Cheers

Joe

• By Allan H