ALEX , WITH YOUR MINDER , TOM FRASER , LIVING OVER IN ENGLAND , IS THAT GOING TO BE AFFECTED BY COVID ?
Andi is going to be my minder for the East Coast nationals ; the West Coast nationals depends on Covid . Tom Fraser was supposed to come over and mind for me in Arizona and Oregon , but at the moment , it ' s looking like it might only be Oregon . Andi ' s still involved in the sport and loves going to events . Me personally , every moment I ' m not at work is trials ; even work , with Trial Store USA , is trials centered . The more I can do to help promote the sport , the happier I am because I enjoy it so much .
ANDI : Riding with Alex is fun , and to be able to push him is as valuable to him as it is fun to me . We completely revamped the riding area we have at home . We do that every couple years , but because I knew I wasn ' t going to ride , I figured it was time for us to gear it 100 % toward Alex . It ' s now set up in a way that I can ' t really ride it well anymore ; everything in there , you have to fully commit and be on your A-game .
We know each other ’ s strengths ; I know Alex is better at one thing , and I ’ m better at another . We would laugh at each other because we would bet at the Nationals , I would say ‘ I ’ m going to do this ,’ and he would say ‘ are you crazy ? That ’ s never going to work .’ He ’ d tell me how he would ride it , and I had the same reaction . Most of the rides worked out , but the style and the approach were polar opposites . Now we have double the experience and double the knowledge .
HOW WAS IT SWITCHING BACK TO BETA AFTER SO MANY YEARS ?
ANDI : What was nice about the changeover was all of the research of what I felt the tweaks needed to be , like suspension settings , how much oil to use in the transmission , all the little stuff that takes a bit to get used to , Alex basically jumped right onto a competition-ready bike . Alex told me what he wanted on his , and it was basically plug-n-play .
ALEX : When the bike arrived , it was very strange ; the bikes couldn ’ t be any more different . The starter ’ s on a different side , frame ’ s completely different , the engine and the clutch are different , it ’ s just a completely different bike . The only things that were the same were my bars and grips . It obviously took me a little bit to get used to , but I had Andi there who knew what to do to make me feel more comfortable . We got to training , and I started feeling very comfortable . Then the race bike showed up and that was a huge confidence boost ; the factory models have a little bit different suspension and it was a little more aggressively-tuned . That really helped me as far as my style .
VOL . 6 ISSUE 6 - JUNE 2021 // PAGE 177