Ghostship

Don't Forget...

2009-06-27T20:09:00.000-07:00

...when in doubt...

...go faster! Have a great 4th of July weekend! Fingers work better when they're attached to your hands....

Did you know that we also have a Facebook? Check us out here!

Team Update...Part I

2009-06-27T19:56:00.001-07:00

We're a little late updating, but team rider Mike Stock has been up to a few things, including riding his bike down the side of mountains really fast, and not getting his mini-monster truck stuck out in the woods. Check him out:

"Hey Matt ok so since the snow has finally melted and the season is in full swing i am super pumped to get to the mountain every chance i can get. With the win with the Ghostship crew at the Hustle and Flow being an awesome opener to the season i was ready for the first real race of the season at Plattekill Mountain in NY.

-Mike tearing it up at the US Open.

I am racing Cat 1 (expert 19-29) again this year and it is off to a great start. I ended up 6Th outta 20 on my first race of the season, few seconds off the podium. I am feeling pretty good with my riding getting a lot more confident with every weekend at the mountain. My fitness isn't quite where i want it to be so i am doing a lot more trail riding to prep me for the races.

-Highland...photo by Tony Tyrant.

This summer I will be racing the Plattekill Series which is about one race a month, the US. OPEN at diablo on memorial day weekend. Along with riding a ton this summer and racing my family and I are planning a fun multi-day camping trip up north to get away and relax with everyone. Should be a great summer full of racing, riding and enjoying life!

-Wheelin'!

Clearing Out Cobwebs....

2009-06-23T21:24:00.000-07:00

Yikes...it's been a while. Sorry! There's been lots going on. Lots of shirt making, designing, stressing, riding, getting sick, like, really sick, then sickness-turning-into-infection kind of sickness, no riding, weddings, freelance work, busy season work, etc, etc, etc. But you don't care about all that. We just wanted to let you know why there's been a lapse in updates. So anyway....

It's raining like whoa here on the Right Coast....frankly, we're sick of it. If you can't beat 'em, get some fenders and a jacket, and get yer ride on! So as we get settled in the next week or so, we'll have some more stuff for you. New shirts, new designs, some team updates, more fun stuff! Promise. Stick around....

Best Trick Jam!

2009-05-10T23:13:00.000-07:00

We've put together a Best Trick Jam for Friday May 15th in New Haven on the eve of Grand Theft Velo 3. The big idea is to get everyone out to cruise around together, do some tricks at a few different spots, win some prizes, have a few beverages, out-of-towners can learn the city a bit before the big race on Saturday, and generally get everyone together to have a great time riding bikes! We're tossing in a couple of prizes to get the weekend started. Oh yeah...NO ENTRY FEES! Check the flier:

Check out www.scorchers.tk for more info.

Ghostship Best-Trick Jam

2009-05-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

...is in process of organization at the moment. We're shooting for Friday evening prior to Grand Theft Velo 3 down in New Haven, sometime around 9:30ish. We're thinking a jam style format with the possibility of multiple locations, as well as plenty of spectating, and booze-cruise style amble between spots. Awards will probably take place at a local watering-hole. Details to follow!

-Scorcher Sean Milnes gapping the quarter...where ya skills at?

Stock Up on Asskick'n!

2009-05-04T16:06:00.000-07:00

Ghostship team rider Mike Stock took it to his competition this weekend up @ Plattekill. Mike finished 6th out of about 20 riders and was only a couple seconds off of a podium spot. Way to go Mike! Keep kill'n it!

Hustle and Flow in Photos

2009-04-30T20:14:00.001-07:00

Here are a few more we managed to find online...thanks to their respective photographers:

-Dave pinn'n it...photo by Alex Buell

-The event organizer Jamie with the Gship boys in the background....photo by Alex Buell

-Mike charg'n hard!...photo by Max Breslow.

Some great shots from Bryan Culbertson as well. His site is all fancy-like and wouldn't let us snag photos from there. Head over and check it out!

Hustled and Flowed!

2009-04-29T08:13:00.000-07:00

The Ghostship Collective had a strong showing this past weekend, claiming 1st Place Honors at NYCMTB's Hustle and Flow Relay Mountain Bike Race! The team of Doug Jenne, Mike Stock, Anthony Vecca, Dave Blachura and Erik Zukowski destroyed the competition, putting nearly a minute over the second fastest team!!! Doug also set some course records, 3:57 for the seeding run on the XC leg???!!!! The next fastest time was a full minute behind Doug's...insanity! Let's not forget Dave's fastest Super-D run at 2:24. Sick! Great job guys!

-Time Killers...

-Doug kill'n it...

-Mike takin' it to the dirt...

-Dave, Can-One-Hander...whaaaaat???

(Anyone have photos of Erik? Send us some!)

All in all a good time defending our title from the previous year. Thanks to Jamie Bogner and NYCMTB for putting the race together and making it so much fun!
We got some great press from Mountain Bike Action Magazine Online:
"The Ghostship Clothing team from Connecticut repeated their domination of the team category, breaking their own course record by a whopping 19 seconds." "Notable performances included the team XC leg ridden by Doug Jenne (Ghostship Clothing, whose under-4-minute-time broke the previous course record by over a minute."

First Alleycat?

2009-04-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

Remember your first alleycat? People have been asking how we got mixed up with the Scorchers lately and Matt recounted his story a couple of times. Then we stumbled on this entry over at Fyxomatosis:

2001.

I can remember parts of my first alleycat.

I'd heard from another courier during the week that there was a 'race'.

The next day I got a scrap piece of paper which have rough details of the event.

Meet at the Duke of York, Friday 7pm.

Pretty Boy wore a blonde wig. I didn't know him, but I'd sold him a pair of handlebars, and he was one of the riders who could REALLY ride back then. He was one of the VERY few brakeless couriers. So few that you could name them all in the same breath.

I rode my carbon Giant MCM team mountain bike. I had niteriders blaring for the occasion thinking it'd help.

I'd never heard of the first checkpoint in Camden (well I had but couldn't understand the organiser so just followed wheels)

It was the first time I'd really split an intersection, while trying to hold the wheel of a pack of 20 motley riders doing the same. Drafting wheels in the dark, darting across streeting, dodging potholes.

Horns honked, in the darkness oncoming headlights stole my vision, and my heart had never raced so hard.

After a number of checkpoints, and tasks at each, including telling funny stories, drawing pictures on oneself, shots of brandy, climbing fences it was the home stretch.

Marco and Andrea were talking tactics in Italian so I couldn't understand them as we hurled up City rd together in the dark. I figured they were planning on dropping me so I thwarted them by punching the last climb up to Essex rd and left them in my wake.

Riding into traffic never felt so good....

I hugged Cuba at the end, a euphoric sense of arrival came over me from living through my first alleycat.

Young, dumb, and feelin' invincible. I wouldn't change a thing.

There were no forums, websites or the like to promote these 'races'. It was word of mouth and ultimately this meant a BIG race was 20-30 people, and only couriers.

Even couriers didn't know about them unless they hung out at the 'spot' or knew other couriers that knew couriers that knew. Know what I mean?

There was maybe a handful of events over that summer. Not one every other week.

Alleycats weren't even a blip on the radar.

Ahhhhhhhh.....memories...

More News From India

2009-03-30T11:22:00.000-07:00

Doug writes:

This trip has been a rollercoaster of greater proportions. The past two days (we've dubbed "race day #10" and "race day #11") have been both stressful and tiresome. So much for resting post-race...

Many promises were made about this 'race' (logistics, winnings, etc..) and many promises were broken from the minute we set foot here in India. This continued all the way to the amount the winners got in their checks yesterday (0-50% of the advertised amount). We (all 40something participants) questioned the authority during yesterday's 'awards ceremony'. As a result we were all over this morning's local newspapers and TV. After yet another stressful day today, things are rectified and the winners are paid out what they were owed while I was paid what I was owed in hotel and food and transportation bills that my race entrance fee was supposed to cover.. In the end, this was a life changing trip..

Tim, Janel and I begin our travels home tomorrow morning, 12hrs from now. Harlan and Courtney are staying another week.

I gave away a bunch of my Vicious Cycles jerseys and vests to some of our new-found friends and compadres. I also gave my one-off Ghostship T-shirt (from last year's Hustle 'N Flow contest) to my friend Mangal, one of the top Nepalese mountain bikers. Ghostship is now global. hahaha

Time to finish packing.
Doug

News From India

2009-03-29T16:43:00.000-07:00

Our man Dougy-Fresh sent us a heads up all the way from India:

we finished the race today and are back in gangtok. its been a long 9 days on the bike (something like 30hours). feels like an eternity but i got stronger as the days went on. lots of good and bad things. we are all safe and okay. the bad has been trying to eat in a timely fashion and get protein. also decent sleeping arrangements. the bike race wasn't what we expected. we weren't racing all day as we have come to expect with endurance races. That kind of killed tim and i with our singlespeeds but we fought hard and did well. actually switched to a tougher gear ratio on day 3 because the grades of the climbs weren't as steep as we thought. it allowed us to ride faster and hold our on on the climbs. probably less than a mile of singletrack and the climbs were all pavement roads and jeep trails. i had two flats and blew the compression cartridge on my fork (this morning... last day thank goodness). tim had one flat and also blew his fork (he had a spare lefty). halan and janel had no mechanical issues.

harlan took 1st solo men. janel (tim's gf) took 1st solo female. tim took 6th solo men (singlespeed) and i took 7th solo men (singlespeed).

met some great people from canada and india, europe and nepal. the nepalese riders want us to come back and ride/race with them in nepal.

time to eat again. i think i've lost a lot of weight. protein has been hard to find since chicken and eggs are banned due to bird flue.

DOug

Dougy-Fresh Update

2009-03-24T05:15:00.000-07:00

Our man Doug is racing in India. Yes. India. We know. Crazy, right? Here's his latest update:

March 19th

Hello all.
I have been here for four days and it feels like it has been a few weeks. the people here in Sikkim are so nice it has significantly reduced the stress within this adventure. We have found some wonderful people to host us in their hotel (hotel owner's name is Bassant) and make us feel at home. I'm even using their computer right now. The culture is very interesting and I've been taking in so much and have had such a great time interacting with the locals. So much taken in that I have to go get another notebook for the one I brought with me is just about full.

We (us Americans) are all here now (Harlan, is girlfriend, Tim, Janel and myself) and had safe travels out here. Harlan and I got a 50km ride in yesterday out to an old Tibetian monestary in the village of Rumtek and back (we are staying in Gangtok). The climbs are long and seem to go on forever (2000 vertical feet in 12km). Everyone seems to stop what they are doing and cheer us on. School children come running out to support us. Kind of like in Costa Rica. It has been a thrill.

The roads are crowded (very narrow) and are quite scary to ride in town seeing as there is only one road in and out. Traffic as bad as NYC traffic (or worse at times). There is no room for error and we are being very conservative with our speeds (specifically when descending). It is not worth it to hurt ourselves just to ride down a road quite fast.

My 32x22 gear ratio on the 29er singlespeed feels good on my legs. We are all feeling pretty good but a lot of our competition (including last year's winner) are Nepalase Sherpas. Kind of intimidating but, regardless, I am positive it will be a good event and experience. Tomorrow is day one of the actual event.

Things have been quite challenging, exciting and fun thus far. It is only getting better!

Talk to you in a few weeks. Enjoy!
Doug

News From India

2009-03-14T16:41:00.001-07:00

Doug made it to India...here's his latest:

Made it to New Dehli, India. My friend's uncle picked me up from the airport and is letting me stay at his family's house until my next flight (11am and it's 2:30am now). Using his wifi with my phone and used his iPhone to call my parents.

Didn't have any trouble finding him, or rather he finding me. Let's see: tall skinny white guy with tattoos lugging around a bike box and a ton of gear looking utterly confused. Yup, thats me.

Driving in this city. Oh My God!! Pure chaos. I thought driving in Costa Rica was crazy. This is a whole new level. Upwards of 100km down dilapitated roads with trucks at a standstill. Good thing he know this place like the back of his hand. I'll have to get video tomorrow on the way to the airport. I was taking stills but the rough roads make for blurry photos.

Time for sleep in a bed rather than in cramped economy flights....

One more flight and the heli tomorrow.

Doug

Dougy-Fresh's World Tour

2009-03-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

Our man Doug is traveling halfway around the world to race his bike in India. Crazy! You can check his blog to see what a single-speed endurance racer packs to withstand 9 days + of riding. You should also subscribe to his twitter to get updates of where he is. Not sure what the wireless connection is going to be like at the foot of the Himalayas, but we're guessing somewhere between non-existent and offline.

The Scorchers have been kill'n it lately. Head on over to their website to see what they're up to.

The Highbridge Hustle and Flow race is going off again this year, April 25th in NYC at the Highbridge Mountain Bike Trails. The Ghostship Collective was the 1st place winner at last year's first annual event. Head on down and watch our boys defend their championship. Or better yet, jump up to get beat down here.

It's finally nice out here in our corner of the world. Temps are expected to reach the 50's today and 60's tomorrow. Alas, broken bikes and unfulfilled dreams are keeping us stuck inside doing some artwork...get on out and enjoy the weather!

Haven Feb Rental

2009-03-02T23:25:00.000-08:00

Haven's Scorched!

2009-01-29T00:20:00.000-08:00

Here's a little web-edit of a bit of what went down last Saturday, Jan 25th @ Haven Skatepark:

The Hotness!!!!!

2009-01-28T20:42:00.000-08:00

Right here son!

Teaessare has outdone himself this time!!!

Online Purchasing Resolved!

2009-01-20T05:21:00.001-08:00

Our online store issues are resolved! As you can see, the shop is back up and running. There are some markdown and sale items in there. Get some!

Online Store Issues....

2009-01-15T20:26:00.001-08:00

Apparently, there's something wrong with Cartfly (the online storefront that you're used to seeing at the top of this page). We're working to figure out what the heck is going on. Please bear with us while we figure it out. If there's something you'd like to purchase, please send us an email in the meantime and we'll sort it out for you. Thanks for your understanding.

What's Hot?

2009-01-05T18:58:00.000-08:00

What's hot?

1....Sales and markdowns yo. Check the store-front up top there and check out some mark-downed goods as well as some clearance pricing. Get yours before someone else does.

2. LEDs. Our Scorchers have been making moves, keepin' it hott to def (yep, with 2 t's). Check CT Drew:

Scorchers x Aerospoke Collabo from Scorchers on Vimeo.

Does it get any better?

Poker Run...Boston Styleee!

2008-12-08T20:03:00.000-08:00

The Poker race happened! Sounds like it was a blast! Our Scorchers team showed up and brought a few of the Hard Frost shirts w. them. We also got a very nice write up from the good folks over @ Open Bicycle. Scorchers were rep'n hard in the photo:

We think Drew was impersonating Matt, as Matt had to stick around the 860 to screen up some new hoodies (coming soon!) and get a freelance project taken care of. Regardless, the Boston kids sound like they're stoked on The Gship. We heard nothing but great things from the Scorchers about Boston and their hospitality. Matt will be at the next one...swear! Thanks for the kind words guys!

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!

2008-12-01T22:25:00.001-08:00

This Sunday:

Watch out Boston! The Scorchers crew are heading your way! Matt will be racing along with the Scorchers and will also have an assortment of Ghostship shirts for sale @ the after-party. Good times for sure! See you there!

The Newness

2008-11-22T05:13:00.000-08:00

Here's the newest in new! Late season t-shirt. You can pre-order these now. Just check out the shop up above. Shirts will ship out next week. Image features a large chainring that follows the neckline. "Italian Custom engraving" just for us! Enjoy!

-Available in white w. grey ink and brown shirt w. baby blue ink.

-image detail

New Additions

2008-11-16T16:00:00.000-08:00

We are proud to announce the addition of The Scorchers to our team. We've been racing, riding and causing general mayhem and terror with these guys and gals over the past 5 years. Some limited edition team apparel will be posted shortly. So far, the only way to get your hands on this stuff is if you're a Scorcher. We are honored and stoked to support and be supported by this family of riders. Keep an eye out as there are lots of great things in the future for this team. Expect to see them rolling into your city for your race soon! In the meantime, you can keep tabs on what they're up to here: EC Scorchers.blogspot.com.

Weekend Racing

2008-11-03T21:44:00.000-08:00

Hey CT! There's a fun race right in center of the state this weekend! Get out there, race and check it!:

The details:

THE EEL
3pm sign up & 3:30 race
the start is at the gazebo at charter oak landing hartford, ct
$5 entry fee
it's off and on road, but nothing so technical that couldn't ride it on a road/track bike.
cash prizes and perhaps some other stuff, too
it's not going to be marshaled, so don't cheat

directions:
From South of Hartford, take I-91 North to Exit 27, Airport Rd / Brainard Rd. At the end of the ramp, continue straight onto Murphy Road. Go straight through the next intersection and the park entrance is on your right, under the Charter Oak Bridge.