first straight - Friday evening


track overview - Saturday afternoon

Forward Progress:
Thanks in large part to the efforts of Mike Froh, Fred Yanke, John Mittlestadt, Dana Mittlestadt, Jason Leikam, Todd Zimmerman, Milwaukee BMX at Crystal Ridge is really beginning to take shape. The crew worked a ton Friday and Saturday and have the first and second straights in their final form and to the point that they are ready to be compacted. Serious thanks to these guys for volunteering a whole lot of sweat, and a little bit of blood to make the dream of Milwaukee BMX a reality. I still can't get over how ridiculously efficient Mike is in building jumps, like an artist working in a dirt medium, every stroke of the rake counts big toward the final outcome of the jump ... there is no wasted motion ... Mike is an exercise in efficiency, or, appears to me to be, at least. Yeah, it's safe to say we owe Mike a heckuva lot.

Props to Fred as well ... who, has a similar skill set to Mike's ... and had a fair amount of collaboration into the final outcome of the jumps. Not to mention ... he really gets how to work to get the job done. Saturday afternoon, I kept finding myself hoping he'd call it a day ... but, on we worked ... and I still think I'm beat as a result.

Todd Zimmerman brought Bryan Dickerson's drag, that worked particularly well for progressing the shape of the third straight rhythm and last straights.

Work left to do includes finish work on the last two straights and finish work in the turns. Having personally raked the first half of the first turn now twice, I think it's safe to say ... it's going to be a muther of a job.

I took a few track pics with the digital that I will get uploaded this afternoon or tomorrow.

We owe huge thanks to John's friend Eric, who provided the use of a skid steer that worked flawlessly all weekend. One or two more days with that machine and the fearless crew mentioned above would have us riding for sure.

Because we are still working without water, compacting began to some degree with Fred's ATV ... the dirt is sticking against the wind, but is soft beneath tires. Our MTB friends have been really cool and totally responsible with regard to how patient they've been. But, we can not emphasize enough the amount of work you guys can save us through your continued patience. We are still shooting for late July ... so, please hang tight ... you'll all be riding soon.

Fun(d) Raising:
Every track needs some cash outside of entry fees to run. And, though we've temporarily shelved the Joe Kid on a Stingray screening that we had in mind for this summer (we'll shoot for next spring as an alternative for the event), an idea for an alternative fund raiser has come up. When the time is right ... we're just going to invite a bunch of you to come out and check out the new track with us ... suggested donation is probably going to be like $5 per rider. With the amount of progress made on the track this weekend, it would seem as though we're shooting for late July for this event. Details are going to evolve quickly, so stay tuned on it for sure. We're planning: open jam at trackside, a tailgate cookout of some sort, fundraising raffle and blah blah ... you know ... pretty seriously fun stuff that gets you guys on track, and affords us the ability to construct and pay for a gate.

ABA Great Lakes Nationals
Milwaukee BMX regular contributors Tim Eiring, Bryan Dickerson, Randy Behnke and Curt Zizzo absolutely killed it for team Direct Link during the ABA Great Lakes Nationals at St. Cloud, MN this weekend. Three of the four doubled in the older cruiser classes (Eiring 26-30, Behnke 31-35, Zizzo 36-40 and Dickerson 41-45) and Eiring had a 1st and 2nd, plus a win in 28+ expert on Saturday. We hope Direct Link is able to capatilize on the team's recent success as all riders also had top finishes at the recent Midwest Nationals. All four have been helpful in the development of Milwaukee BMX and we're obviolusly stoked to have the participation of a factory team on a week to week basis. Kids who wonder what it takes to get fast would be wise to learn from these four guys. They practice together, pushing one another further on just about every lap, and, the results pretty much say it all.

That's it for the moment ... track images and details on the fund raiser will be coming very soon.

Kevin O'