How much riding have you been doing?
With Aldon [Baker], really, it’s not the amount of riding; it’s the quality of riding. That’s what he always says: quality over quantity when it comes to that kind of stuff. We’d rather go out there and do sprints on a good track rather than try and push it late it the day. That’s normally when mistakes happen. It’s not as much riding as people think, but when we’re out there it’s like a race.

Well, the guy certainly seems to have the Midas touch, huh?
Yeah, absolutely. For sure. 

Guys like Ryan Dungey and Marvin Musquin, do you see them around while you are riding and training?
We’re all friends. We see each other every morning for our road bike rides and at the track and the gym. We’re kind of always around each other. There wouldn’t be any point of not being friends. You’re with each other all the time and all of them are super-cool dudes. You know, Jason [Anderson], Ryan, Marvin—all of those guys—are super-cool. It’s a professional environment, but at the same time, we all take our digs at each other. I think with how good everybody is in our group, everybody learns something from someone and we just try to take advantage of that the best we can.

Have you seen Ken Roczen around at all?
Well, actually right now Kenny is in California because I know he’s doing some rehab on his ankle, but before he had all those little problems, of course he’s been around. We all live within a two-mile radius of one another so somebody is always hanging out at somebody’s house.

The shoulder: how is it?
It’s good. I guess I’ll basically go back to the beginning here. Basically, when I did my shoulder in Geneva this time it wasn’t a matter of the same injury happening again. According to my doctors—and multiple doctors—if I would have landed with the same amount of pressure that I had on my other shoulder, the same thing would have happened. It’s not like it’s a case of chronic dislocation; it’s not just coming out because it’s weak. In Geneva I basically jumped off the track and right onto the concrete and right on my shoulder. It was just an unfortunate coincidence that it was the shoulder that I had done before. After Geneva I got this surgery called the latarjet repair [Ed. Note: anterior stabilization of the shoulder]. Basically, they take a piece of bone and they extend my socket to the point of where it’s weak and comes out all the time. In theory, once the bone hardens there the socket basically can’t come out anymore. It has a very, very high success rate. With that being said everything strength-wise and rehab-wise and range of motion and all that is on track. I got back on the bike at the beginning of last week. It feels really good. We’re still taking it slow. We don’t want to do anything crazy at this point. We just want to be cautious. We just want to strengthen it now and we’re ready to go.

So you’ve just got back on the bike. What kind of riding are you doing?
Right now they just want me to start on more of a turn track. I’ve been riding at the Baker’s Factory. The section they use to get ready for the Daytona Supercross, I kind of turned that into a little bit of a turn track, which kind of puts me at a lap time a little over a minute. I’m just getting back into the flow. It’s good because if you can ride that type of dirt—that kind of slick sand—it makes everything else feel a lot easier when you get on it. I’ve been enjoying that and enjoying being back on the bike and progressing.

So I’m going to guess that you’re getting prepared for the nationals?
Yes. Absolutely.

Do you have enough time to be ready, or might it be one of those “I’ll ride myself into shape” types of deals?
I mean right now for me, my biggest thing is that I’m 18 years old and the way I look at it is that I went pro at 16. Obviously that is real young. Most people don’t even go pro until they’re 18, and a lot of the guys around me are a year or a couple years older than me. For me, there’s no reason to do anything stupid. With that being said I do believe I’ll be 100 percent and that I will be ready for outdoors. I’ll be strong enough and my shoulder will be strong enough; it’s just whether the speed will be there 100 percent or not. I’m not sure where I’ll be with that, as it’s kind of an everyday thing on how I feel and all that stuff. But my shoulder will be strong enough. It might be that kind of racing you were talking about at first—kind of racing myself into shape—but it won’t be a case of me going out there and nursing a shoulder or anything like that. My career in the long-run is my number one priority so the shoulder will be 100 percent by Hangtown. 

If I have it right, the last national you raced was Lake Elsinore back in the August of 2013.
Yeah. It will basically be a year and a half since I raced anything in America.

You know something I wanted to ask you about is that you grew a lot in the past year. Did that affect your riding and racing at all?
It definitely was an issue. When you’re growing, you’re growing upwards and your body isn’t going to let you go out, meaning it’s going to be really hard to gain muscle. When I turned pro in 2013 I believe I was 122 or 124 pounds, around there. By supercross last year I was at 140 and right now I’m at 161. It’s hard to keep up with, to be honest with you. I’m glad I kind of stalled out over the course of this last injury. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise and I can finally put some muscle on.