// ARFREERIDERS.COM | HOME OF THE ARKANSAS FREERIDE SOCIETY 2010

Yo check it out. A Truvativ HammerSchmidt is in our possession. Eric and I work at Competitive Cyclist. Sometimes we get to benefit from the company’s resources and get our hands on some really sweet new toys! so to make a long story short, one of these highly sought after units is at the AFS world headquarters. We have examined it at length. A full and thorough testing will be done on it. We’ve poked it, prodded it, and completely disassembled it. We even gave it the anal probe, though results from that test were inconclusive.

Here is the HammerSchmidt bolted onto Kit’s most favorite bike in the whole world…an ‘06 turner RFX!

I gave it a sturdy test. No problem with a 36″ drop to flat, but we didn’t expect it to blow up. This thing is built to take a serious beating. We have the freeride version. Expect a full blown technical review soon…

-Ryan Wednesday’s Chief Technical Consultant

We are boys who like their toys. I’m not sure if we’ll ever grow up. To that end, we love to get our hands on new bikes and bike stuff to check out. We have an ‘09 Mongoose Nugget on the way. If you’ve visited our site before, you’ll know that we have just completed a huge three week push to get our dirt jump park onto the ground. Now that we have plenty of dirt, we need to finish it off — ride, dial, ride, tune, repeat. It looks like the forecast is callin’ for some serious fun. What would be better than riding a brand new DJ/slopestyle park? Doing it on a brand new bike is what comes to mind!

Here’s a video that Mongoose made to show the virtues of the Nugget. Hmmm, it’s pretty good. When we get the bike we’ll do an in-depth product review. Check back here or the reviews category for the down low…

-Ryan

I almost titled this one “we dig better”, but didn’t want to offend anyone;). It was going to be all in fun(Ben). Long story short we made a tremendous amount of headway Sunday after the ground dried from being saturated the last few days. The volunteers didn’t come out in full force as on the previous week, but we made due with what we had. This marked the last day of using the donated equipment and with much work still needing to be done we all pulled together and marched forward. Kit and myself visited the site Saturday after the National Trail Symposium (which was pretty cool by the way). On first glance of our park after being beaten by the rain it was a little discouraging to look at all our hard work being literally washed away. It was obvious that we were going to need to due some more figuring of the drainage issues we’d encountered. We spent the better part of the day out there- some of us (Ryan) spent ALL day out there. Ryan can freakin’ work the hell out of an excavator- Kit and I joked about how he may have been born in one! We got the final shaping done on the Expert Jump line and Kit and Mark made a picture perfect ” Super Booter” after topping all the clay with a nice layer of top soil. Chris was busy on the skid steerer making good use of the top soil from our previous jump location. I think all in all this was one of, if not our most productive day we’ve had since this project began. Thanks to all the volunteers who have shown up so far and to those who stuck it out with us yesterday in order to get as much done as we possibly could before giving Andy back his machines. Enjoy the new pics.

E2

I jetted a little early today to pick up kids and make time to write this post while everyone is still out there diggin’ and getting this Park underway. There is still plenty of work to be done and volunteers are starting to come in larger numbers now. Yesterday’s turnout saw somewhere around 25 people(maybe more?) who came out and helped shape jumps for the beginner table tops and intermediate roller tables. Whole Hog Cafe catered some truly awesome Bar-B-Que- so a BIG thanks to them for feeding all the hungry workers. After quite a bit of raking, digging, shoveling and tamping it was ride time- the beginner table line is now packed down great and rolls FAST, it ends with a slight hip landing into a left hand exit berm- and man is that berm fun! The park is starting to take shape the way Ben said it would- and over the next three days the expert and pro lines will start to develop. The park promises to cater to riding smooth so you can nail everything, it’s all tight and twisty. You can see from the photos that there is no shortage of berms- in fact it seems like after every second or third jump you are railing a berm. The box jump should be done and ridable today- it is going to make a very nice feature to separate our park from Slaughter Pen Hollow up in Bentonville. Seems like the Arkansas riders have raised the bar for what can be done park building wise. We will now have 2 venues to choose from for getting your fat tire jumping/riding fix all within about 3 hours of each other. Perhaps even hold a small series soon of Slope Style competitions. Saturday night ended with an outdoor viewing of the Latitudes movie- good stuff. I’m sure Ryan will fill you guys in on the haps from the rest of today- for now I’m out.

E2

Ben and Jen have been rockin out at the site for a couple of days now. Chris, Eric and I played in the dirt today as well. While I dug with the excavator, Eric prepped the site with a box blade and pushed away any junky leftovers from the city burn pile. Meanwhile, Chris started placing dirt for the beginner roller line, finish berm, and tabletop jumps after Ben pinned the locations on the ground. Jen dug an enormous hole in our dirt, creating a nice, loose material supply. Ben has finalized our design and now, just needs to get it painted on the ground. We’re super pumped about the next two weeks or so.

It’s been pretty dry lately, so we stirred up some dust!

Here’s the man, Ben Blitch. He digs good…

Chris placed dirt for the beginner line berm.

There will be some hucker lines on that steep stuff back there!

Ben has a website. He builds trails, pumptracks, and dirt jump areas all over the country. Check it out at http://benblitch.blogspot.com/

Don’t forget, we need as much help as we can get. The AFS welcomes anyone to come to our workparty weekend. See the work party post for info.

We want to do more of this!!!

The Arkansas Freeride Society will be having a work party weekend on November 8th & 9th from 10:00am – 4:00pm. It will be held at the construction site for the dirt jump portion of Argenta Freeride Area in Burns Park. Work will consist of final raking, shaping, and packing of dirt jumps and a pump track. We’ll also be seeding and strawing portions of the park.

The AFS will provide food and drinks for all volunteers. There will be a prize raffle for bike industry T-shirts and merchandise. On Saturday night, we’ll have a premiere showing of New World Disorder 9, the latest and greatest mountain-bike freeride film from Video Action Sports.

Volunteers will only need to bring themselves, and a good attitude. We’ll ask that everyone wear closed-toe shoes and perhaps work gloves. If volunteers would like to bring their favorite shovel, hard rake, or tamper, that would be great. Please remember to label all personal tools with names, so they are easily recognizeable.

Don’t forget to bring your bikes! We want to work hard, but we also want to play on our new dirt jumps and pumptrack!

The Argenta Freeride Area is located at the base of the Quarry in Burn’s Park. From I-40 take exit #150/Burns Park exit, go south on Championship Dr. towards the river, through the golf course to the T in the road. Turn right at the T and drive west towards the Burns Park Soccer complex. Look for signs indicating the entrance to the bottom of the Freeride/quarry area on your right.

For more information, please call Ryan Johnson at 479-366-7926 or see updated info in our forum/work days