, Idaho...
There's a phrase I never thought I'd be able to use...and I never want to be able for it to be true again. It all started on a sunny Friday afternoon, June 30th I believe... There I was, at work for 3 and a half hours before being able to cut loose on my biggest adventure to date. The Jeep was all packed and I had enough spare parts and tools to make a NASA mission look like preschool playtime. It took 4 hours for me to get to my first destination: Whistler, BC! 5 days of lift accessed bliss was about to start...so I unloaded my gear and suited up for some warm up runs. 2 runs down Dirt Merchant and Lower A-Line, then 2 more runs down Crank It Up to Lower Whistler Downhill. That got all the rust shaken off and it was time to hit the bars for a Canada Day Pre-funk...
The next day, I ran into John Sullivan, the owner of Rotec Cycles. Oddly enough, 10 Rotecs (all new!!!) were in attendance on that fateful Saturday. We made the most of it and chained down B-Line and A-Line. Later in the day, the few that were left made a couple trips down Garbanzo before calling it day.
I ran into two Project 529 racing members and we made several runs down the mountain. I also got to see what overshooting the Containers' transition on Frieght Train looked (and sounded) like!!
I found that No Joke really is no joke...By the end of the Whistler trip that trail would account for half my scars and all my broken spokes. But the trails were so fun, it didn't matter.
Fast forward a couple days (Pretty much 'cause all that happened was riding and drinking....) and we get to the worst incident on the trip thus far. After already replacing my derailluer and hangar once, I decided that it was a good idea to go ahead and hit the Upper Whistler DH trail by myself for the first time. Since the lower DH trail is so much fun at speed, I decided that it wasn't any big deal and railed into it at full tilt. This turned out to be not such a good idea. There was a right-left-right turn combo into a very steep rock wall. In my quest for adrenaline, I was going way to fast and ended up clipping a little stand of trees at the top of the wall with the left side of my bars while trying to slow down and turn right. This sent me head first down the wall, all the way to the bottom with my bike ghost riding into the foliage.
Shaken but not stirred, I decided to reclaim my rightful perch atop that wall the next day. With a group of friends that I had met while up there, I conquered the beast that ate me and another derailleur hangar the day prior. That was one of the best feelings of the trip.
So, after a day of riding on July 4th, I decided that it would be a good idea for me to head home and see my wife, refill the coolers, and wash my gear before heading out on the second part of my journey.
At 8am on the 5th of July, I headed out for Deer Valley, Utah for the next round in the NORBA series. I stopped off at a friends house and picked up his gear since he would be flying in later that day.
8 hours later, I was pinnin' it through Burley, Idaho...Total amount of driving 880 miles in 12 hours. That makes for a long day. I found out that my buddy's flight had been cancelled for some whack reason and he wouldn't be in until the next morning.
Once he arrived, we went and walked the course and took some photos of the pro/semi-pro practice session. (His are better...but here are two decent ones...)
Once we got here:
...there was some carnage to be had. When we walked up, the EMT's were treating on of the semi-pros for a broken collar bone. At this point Matt and I opted to go down and get our gear on for our practice time.
Out of the start gate the trail was pretty benign. You pedalled around a few loose gravelly turns then you didn't have to pedal again. The course turned decidedly harder once you were into the first of the large rocks though. Little Niagra was not all that tough, however, I saw more than a couple experts take themselves out for the season on this section. When people crash, and immediately start screaming, it's not a good thing for your confidence on that section.
Once throught that waterfall, it was on to the entrance to Barney Rubble. This rock garden got into my head, but I got through it cleanly twice in practice on Saturday before my race. I beat it!! The course continued to the Bam Bam Drop, but it was closed for good after Friday and the go around was now the only way through. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-6 people broke something on their body trying to hit it. The drop wasn't the tricky part, it was the back tire bucking takeoff and extremely steep, off-camber, loose shale runout that was giving everyone problems...
Once you were into the final woods section, you were almost home free. The last challenging section was the wall drop right before the finish. If you mached over it too fast with out pre-jumping, you went to flat and would lose control very quickly. In practice, I had no problem with this drop...This would prove to be costly...
On Friday, Matt and I decided that we were going to try and make the Mt. Hood race in Oregon on Sunday. We'd leave after our race run on Saturday and drive the 8.5 hours to the next venue...Sounded good on paper anyway...
And now, my race run: Out of the gate...pedal pedal pedal, feeling good. Rocks!! Zoom...To the waterfall, split second decision says that I take the go around...heading into the woods before Barney, I'm seething about chickening out. But, I live to fight another day. Lose focus going into Barney...Fall to the right, roll the bike over me...get up...guy passes me...F*CK!...Take back off...I can see him...get all the way to the final 3 really loose turns, I'm catching him!! Gogogogogogo....Last turn to the drop! "Move!!" He pulls to the side...I go full tilt over the last drop. Hopey damper on almost all the way to avoid front wheel deflection by previous rocky sections, body position perfect, land at the very last part of the tranny, hit the G-out. Arms give way, left leg that was dinged in Barney gets all tweaky and gives out....
Face, meet ground, ground, meet face at 20mph...30' later I come to a stop...Get up...6' more to the finish line, run bike across, fall over...black for a little bit...come back around...Them: "Where does it hurt??" Me: "Yeah, I'm O.K....just hurt a little....I'll be fine. I'm just gathering in the scenery...."
Matt crosses the line and gets 4th (I think...). Don't know where I stack up yet...Prolly not great...Pack up the car and head off to Mt. Hood hyped up on pills @ 5pm...ahhh...how I love Canadian Ibuprofen!!!
So, Matt and I pull into Mt. Hood at 3am following a warning for doing 84 in a 65 somewhere in Oregon...phew...:love: We grab about 5 hours of sleep...I only got about 3 cause everytime I moved it felt like someone jabbing knives into my body....Then it's race time for Matt. I can barely walk and end up taking some photos and hanging out with lots of cool people. Being injured sucks! I'd much rather be riding. Instead, I feel like a million bucks if I can wipe my own ass without crying...
Here's a couple of pics:
Project 529 member Dan blowing by his competition for 1st place:
Project 529 member John on his way to the top spot in his category:
Rotec Factory racer Anthony Brownrigg charging hard to win the Elite category by 17 seconds and 5th overall!!!:
Matt ended up 2nd place in the Expert 30-39 category.
I finally got home to Seattle at 9pm on Sunday. It was such a fun trip !!! I would definitely do it again, but without hurting myself so much...Now my bike needs to be completely rebuilt and cleaned out before Crankworkx...so much fun.
Yee-ha.
Greg
There's a phrase I never thought I'd be able to use...and I never want to be able for it to be true again. It all started on a sunny Friday afternoon, June 30th I believe... There I was, at work for 3 and a half hours before being able to cut loose on my biggest adventure to date. The Jeep was all packed and I had enough spare parts and tools to make a NASA mission look like preschool playtime. It took 4 hours for me to get to my first destination: Whistler, BC! 5 days of lift accessed bliss was about to start...so I unloaded my gear and suited up for some warm up runs. 2 runs down Dirt Merchant and Lower A-Line, then 2 more runs down Crank It Up to Lower Whistler Downhill. That got all the rust shaken off and it was time to hit the bars for a Canada Day Pre-funk...
The next day, I ran into John Sullivan, the owner of Rotec Cycles. Oddly enough, 10 Rotecs (all new!!!) were in attendance on that fateful Saturday. We made the most of it and chained down B-Line and A-Line. Later in the day, the few that were left made a couple trips down Garbanzo before calling it day.
I ran into two Project 529 racing members and we made several runs down the mountain. I also got to see what overshooting the Containers' transition on Frieght Train looked (and sounded) like!!
I found that No Joke really is no joke...By the end of the Whistler trip that trail would account for half my scars and all my broken spokes. But the trails were so fun, it didn't matter.
Fast forward a couple days (Pretty much 'cause all that happened was riding and drinking....) and we get to the worst incident on the trip thus far. After already replacing my derailluer and hangar once, I decided that it was a good idea to go ahead and hit the Upper Whistler DH trail by myself for the first time. Since the lower DH trail is so much fun at speed, I decided that it wasn't any big deal and railed into it at full tilt. This turned out to be not such a good idea. There was a right-left-right turn combo into a very steep rock wall. In my quest for adrenaline, I was going way to fast and ended up clipping a little stand of trees at the top of the wall with the left side of my bars while trying to slow down and turn right. This sent me head first down the wall, all the way to the bottom with my bike ghost riding into the foliage.
Shaken but not stirred, I decided to reclaim my rightful perch atop that wall the next day. With a group of friends that I had met while up there, I conquered the beast that ate me and another derailleur hangar the day prior. That was one of the best feelings of the trip.
So, after a day of riding on July 4th, I decided that it would be a good idea for me to head home and see my wife, refill the coolers, and wash my gear before heading out on the second part of my journey.
At 8am on the 5th of July, I headed out for Deer Valley, Utah for the next round in the NORBA series. I stopped off at a friends house and picked up his gear since he would be flying in later that day.
8 hours later, I was pinnin' it through Burley, Idaho...Total amount of driving 880 miles in 12 hours. That makes for a long day. I found out that my buddy's flight had been cancelled for some whack reason and he wouldn't be in until the next morning.
Once he arrived, we went and walked the course and took some photos of the pro/semi-pro practice session. (His are better...but here are two decent ones...)
Once we got here:
...there was some carnage to be had. When we walked up, the EMT's were treating on of the semi-pros for a broken collar bone. At this point Matt and I opted to go down and get our gear on for our practice time.
Out of the start gate the trail was pretty benign. You pedalled around a few loose gravelly turns then you didn't have to pedal again. The course turned decidedly harder once you were into the first of the large rocks though. Little Niagra was not all that tough, however, I saw more than a couple experts take themselves out for the season on this section. When people crash, and immediately start screaming, it's not a good thing for your confidence on that section.
Once throught that waterfall, it was on to the entrance to Barney Rubble. This rock garden got into my head, but I got through it cleanly twice in practice on Saturday before my race. I beat it!! The course continued to the Bam Bam Drop, but it was closed for good after Friday and the go around was now the only way through. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-6 people broke something on their body trying to hit it. The drop wasn't the tricky part, it was the back tire bucking takeoff and extremely steep, off-camber, loose shale runout that was giving everyone problems...
Once you were into the final woods section, you were almost home free. The last challenging section was the wall drop right before the finish. If you mached over it too fast with out pre-jumping, you went to flat and would lose control very quickly. In practice, I had no problem with this drop...This would prove to be costly...
On Friday, Matt and I decided that we were going to try and make the Mt. Hood race in Oregon on Sunday. We'd leave after our race run on Saturday and drive the 8.5 hours to the next venue...Sounded good on paper anyway...
And now, my race run: Out of the gate...pedal pedal pedal, feeling good. Rocks!! Zoom...To the waterfall, split second decision says that I take the go around...heading into the woods before Barney, I'm seething about chickening out. But, I live to fight another day. Lose focus going into Barney...Fall to the right, roll the bike over me...get up...guy passes me...F*CK!...Take back off...I can see him...get all the way to the final 3 really loose turns, I'm catching him!! Gogogogogogo....Last turn to the drop! "Move!!" He pulls to the side...I go full tilt over the last drop. Hopey damper on almost all the way to avoid front wheel deflection by previous rocky sections, body position perfect, land at the very last part of the tranny, hit the G-out. Arms give way, left leg that was dinged in Barney gets all tweaky and gives out....
Face, meet ground, ground, meet face at 20mph...30' later I come to a stop...Get up...6' more to the finish line, run bike across, fall over...black for a little bit...come back around...Them: "Where does it hurt??" Me: "Yeah, I'm O.K....just hurt a little....I'll be fine. I'm just gathering in the scenery...."
Matt crosses the line and gets 4th (I think...). Don't know where I stack up yet...Prolly not great...Pack up the car and head off to Mt. Hood hyped up on pills @ 5pm...ahhh...how I love Canadian Ibuprofen!!!
So, Matt and I pull into Mt. Hood at 3am following a warning for doing 84 in a 65 somewhere in Oregon...phew...:love: We grab about 5 hours of sleep...I only got about 3 cause everytime I moved it felt like someone jabbing knives into my body....Then it's race time for Matt. I can barely walk and end up taking some photos and hanging out with lots of cool people. Being injured sucks! I'd much rather be riding. Instead, I feel like a million bucks if I can wipe my own ass without crying...
Here's a couple of pics:
Project 529 member Dan blowing by his competition for 1st place:
Project 529 member John on his way to the top spot in his category:
Rotec Factory racer Anthony Brownrigg charging hard to win the Elite category by 17 seconds and 5th overall!!!:
Matt ended up 2nd place in the Expert 30-39 category.
I finally got home to Seattle at 9pm on Sunday. It was such a fun trip !!! I would definitely do it again, but without hurting myself so much...Now my bike needs to be completely rebuilt and cleaned out before Crankworkx...so much fun.
Yee-ha.
Greg
