[Full Trucker]

...I'm going to ride Vail today with Cooter Brown, TTGF and their misfit band of low-landing downhillers! We rode Keystone yesterday, and it's been tons of fun hangin' with these clowns! It's been super funny for me to watch these guys just tearing @ss down the hill, while gaping Denver-ites on rental DH stuff are walking down easy sections, mouths hangin' open and staring. So far, no injuries and smiles all around. I gots no pics cuz I don't carry a camera, and those in the crew that do are too busy huckin' ladder drops to stop and take pictures. We'll see about later this week though, might get some pics up eventually.

Hopefully I'm as good of a tour guide as they are hosts, these guys ROCK. We're hooking up with one of my junior teammates in Vail today, he's local and should be able to show us all the good stuff. Definitely going to ride the Magic Forest/Old 9 trail, at least one Matterhorn run, and for sure ride the '94 Worlds track.

Booyah!

 

[DRB]

Go FT!

 

[splat]

Sweet

 

[COmtbiker12]

Evan where the hell were you this weekend? Crested Butte was WAY better than last year and pretty damn awesome!

How much longer are Cooter and crew going to be up here in CO? I'd like to hit up some DH with them before they leave if possible. PM me a phone number or I'll give you mine, plus this way you and I can go DH riding and strategize to win in Snowmass.

 

[Jimmy_Pop]

.....Definitely going to ride the Magic Forest/Old 9 trail.....

is that the trail that is super steep and either has a stright down shot or a sketch right hand switch back ??

we rode up on that trail our first day of a week long DH vacation last year. We walked that section. F all that noise. sketch.

 

[Nick]

.....Definitely going to ride the Magic Forest/Old 9 trail.....

is that the trail that is super steep and either has a stright down shot or a sketch right hand switch back ??

we rode up on that trail our first day of a week long DH vacation last year. We walked that section. F all that noise. sketch.

Here is a pic of the start of Old 9 taken right after it opened in '04.

edit: oh yea, steeper than it looks.

 

[DNA]

It's been super funny for me to watch these guys just tearing @ss down the hill, while gaping Denver-ites on rental DH stuff are walking down easy sections, mouths hangin' open and staring.

Bah! It ain't the same without 2 big ole' drooling yellow labs flying down the hill behind him. Now that ought to really scare them city folk.

 

[SkaredShtles]

Here is a pic of the start of Old 9 taken right after it opened in '04.

Hell, I'd ride that on my XC bike.

NOT!!

 

[Cooter Brown]

good good times y'all, hit up vail today, the WC course, Old #9 and Matterhorn, funness

Comtkr12, we're here til saturday, we're leaving early sat morning. we'll be hitting up keystone wednesday, and friday for sure, and maybe thursday, come on up, it's true redneck fun fo shizzle

DNA, yeah, it's not the same without my boys, I miss em so much, I'm having to poach other peoples dogs to pet just to get me thru til I get back home

 

[COmtbiker12]

good good times y'all, hit up vail today, the WC course, Old #9 and Matterhorn, funness

Comtkr12, we're here til saturday, we're leaving early sat morning. we'll be hitting up keystone wednesday, and friday for sure, and maybe thursday, come on up, it's true redneck fun fo shizzle

DNA, yeah, it's not the same without my boys, I miss em so much, I'm having to poach other peoples dogs to pet just to get me thru til I get back home

Cool, not sure if I can manage Wednesday, but should be able to do Friday. If I'm there, I'll probably be sporting my Ridemonkey or mtbr jersey.

 

[Full Trucker]

Yeah Tony... try and get up there on Friday! My whole damn team is planning on a chill-out, hang-out day up there, so I'll be kicking it with the likes of them most of the day, and we'll be takin' runs with whoever wants to rally.

Vail yesterday was SWEET SWEET action... hit the '94 WC course first: fast, flowing, rooty and fun. We took a little detour at the bottom to the mini-Bailey's drop, which is like a smaller version of the Bud Light Bail Out near the bottom of the 2001 Worlds DH track. Mini Bailey's might have been mini, but it was techy and skeery lookin' - I passed but several of the TF crew hit it. Nice! At the bottom of that, our tour guide Kyle realized he had snagged his shorts on his shifter and broken it clean off the bar. Doh! Since it was about lunchtime so we hit Moe's Bama BBQ for some grub while Kyle searched for a shifter, and it was super tasty. Refueled, we headed back out, with plans to hit the Magic Forest/Old 9/Mainlane decent. And yeah, Jimmy_Pop, Old 9 IS that trail that is super steep and either has a stright down shot or a sketch right hand switch back to loose as hell left hander up and over the shoot with several steep, rutted, rocky roll ins. It RULES.

So all morning one of the Tusla Freerider's crew nicknamed The Russian was hounding me: "You know that log double that Minaar jumps in Earthed 2? Can we go check that out? It looks big!" I almost didn't have the heart to tell him that section of trail was closed...yeah right... ALMOST! I don't think he was buying it anyways... and it turns out that upper and lower Magic Forest was indeed open, so we'd get to hit the video-famous spot for sure. Although I passed on the double myself, a couple of the TF crew, including The Russian, hit that thing proper! It's not untimely huge, but it slightly hipped, made out of logs, and has a freaking TREE right at the crest of the landing. I'm pretty sure I saw a camera out, we'll have to see if Cooter will post that business up!

Next we dropped into Old 9, and I swear the TF crew felt right at home: steep, techy, loose, rocky, and sketchy as all get out. Sweetness! Old 9 gives way to Mainlane, with sweeping turns and perfect berms, fun hits and jumps all over the place. SWEET!

Next we rallied for a Matterhorn run. Off the gondola and up the ridgeline, looking out over Vail's massive back bowls the view is not one to be reckoned with. Matterhorn drops west down a fast, flowing ridgeline into West Vail, and necessitates a rather unpleasant pedal back to the Lionshead village. Well, unpleasant on a DH bike with full armour, but the trail itself is just fun fun fun. Super fast, flowing corners, dusty and loose would be the way to describe it. Super sweet SINGLEtrack in a lot of spots, some of it with bushes and grass encroaching from the sides and barely over a DH tire width wide. Although it was never built as a DH trail, it's sure fun to rip down on a 6"+ travel bike and just hug the turns and rip the descents!

Everyone was pretty whooped, as we'd ridden Keystone the day before, but for a final run we settled on the '94 WC track again. Everyone rallied hard and wrung that thing OUT, we snapped pics at a few choice spots - berms, hip jumps, that sort of thing. Just before the bottom, we detoured again to mini-Bailey's. Everyone got their A-game on and dropped it like it was HOT. Only one casualty was Russ, and I was above so I don't know how it played out except there was a LOT of hootin' and hollerin' and laughin' from down below so he must have gotten right up, and it must have been pretty funny. All I saw was a cloud of dust. Everyone else hit it first, and I almost b1tched out on it, but dropped it with no problem... I even told Cooter I don't know what the heck I was scared of, and he was like "Yeah, no kiddin..."

I had to hightail it for Denver, I'll be "working" through the middle of this week, but I'll be back up in them there hills on Friday to get some quality DH riding in. Heck yeah! Not saying I ain't riding this week... while the Tulsa Freerider crew is taking a day off to raft the Royal Gorge today, I will be in Boulder getting some skills training with Lee McCormack. Extra bonus? Lopes is cruising through town, and will be rallying at Lee's pump track this afternoon before our session, probably have to head up a little early and watch the Master of Form in action...

My life sucks.