Furlong, DrNo, and Paul taking the sweeper at 45 mph

On March 12, 2005, Abdil "Furlong" Mahdzan was scheduled for a job interview with his sponsor, Petronas Malaysia at the Marriott Crystal City Hotel in Arlington, Virginia, located on the outskirts of Washington DC. His interview was scheduled at 10:00, and the rest of the weekend would be spent waiting for the other Petronas scholars to finish their interviews. Obviously, he had already planned to go riding since Spring Break also coincided with the interview weekend.

He had hooked up with DrNo and Paul who live in the surrounding area to go riding at some of the hills the East Coast riders had hit up. These hills include Reno Monument and Need For Speed in Maryland on Saturday (March 12), and Van Dorn in Virginia on Sunday (March 13).

At Van Dorn, they were joined by DrNo and Paul's significant others, namely Kim and Judy respectively. Paul and Judy even brought along their 5-year old daughter and Paul gave her some kiddy rides on his yellow Banana luge (looks more like a rectangular sponge!)

Other interesting things that occurred during this Spring Break riding trip was that Furlong got to ride a 3/4 fairing gravity bike for the first time at Van Dorn. Van Dorn is a non-technical hill that is located right in the urban city but has very little traffic on it, making it suitable to train beginners in any gravity sport. Paul was one such beginner, having been trained by DrNo and Kim, and they had done a good job of training him, since he has already acquired the basic skills.

Furlong had also purchased a CC-Video helmet camera system, which he had put to the test during the riding trip.

Furlong would like to thank DrNo and Paul for taking the time to go riding that weekend. Huge thanks go to DrNo for lending his Rogers Bros pegless street luge (which was also riden by Furlong for the first time) as well as providing transportation from the hotel to the hills and back.

In short, everyone had a blast riding after being dormant in the winter. It was definitely refreshing. No one can get enough of it though!

Furlong riding a 3/4 fairing gravity bike for the first time

Click image above to view photos taken at Van Dorn

Click image above to view the video of a first person perspective of Furlong's crash at Reno Monument