I played hooky from work on Friday and went DH'ing up at Vail. It's the first time I've taken my Bullit up for lift runs and only the second time I've been downhilling. WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! What a frickin' blast it was!! 
I have never worked so hard at going downhill.
Ascentrek and I hit up the local coffee shop and headed up early Friday morning. We got there well before lifts opened so we poked around Vail village and managed to find a place making breakfast burritos. After that we suited up and then picked up lift tickets. We were impatiently waiting for first lift and I remembered the last time I had been waiting for this lift to open was a weekday when S.S. and I hit Vail for the opening of the back bowls right after a 2 foot dump of snow!
We headed up and were planning on hitting an easy trail to warm up and get the feel of the bikes. (I just put a new spring on the Bullit) We headed for the trail and found out it was closed. So, our only option was the '94 DH course. 
WHAT A BLAST! I didn't do too great on that run but started getting the feel for the new spring and everything. I got the first crash in for the day by jack-knifing the bike in an ugly switchback. It was a slow motion crash so no glory there.... 
We hit the bottom and decided to do it again. The second time Ascentrek started out by hitting a drop off of a retaining wall by the lift.
(I took more pics than had them taken of me, so most of them are of Ascentrek)
The second run down the '94DH was a blast. I started flowing through the turns and steep sections. I made some adjustments to the rebound on the 5th and worked with the brakes a bit on the way down this time. The bike was starting to feel right. Here's the hip jump at the bottom of the run.
We headed over to the Gondola after those two runs to try out the other set of DH runs. Unfortuntately, on the way over we had stopped and I noticed that my rear hub was completely loose. :mumble: We stopped in a shop and got the hub tightened up. We rode over to the gondola and headed up for the next run. When we got to the top I noticed my back tire was flat. :mumble: :mumble: I felt like I had spent the whole morning working on my bike instead of riding it. After fixing that we FINALLY got to ride again, and fortunately did not have any more mechanicals for the day. We made our first run down Magic Forest / Old 9 Line / Main Line. WHAT AN AWESOME RIDE!!!! Magic Forest was sooooooo much fun, I couldn't wait to get back on it. Old 9 Line was rather eye opening. The entry was super knarly steep! The rest of the trail was wet and super rooty. I wasn't too sure I wanted to do that again. Main Line was awesome fun. You can just fly down it through huge banked turns and some really nice drops. We headed back up and hit Magic Forest then the Vail Village loop DH section. The VV loop was a lot of fun but not quite as demanding. So, back to the MF/#9/Main run. Here's a pic I shot on Old Nine Line looking uphill at a triangle bridge into wet, muddy roots.
Down at the bottom of Main Line there is a really nice drop that we stopped to take pictures of. The first pic is me. Ascentrek got a little camera courage and came off a bit hot. He ended up in a pile after the pic, unfortunately I didn't get a pic of him crashing. He took a shot to the nads and had to walk that off, but otherwise was fine and for some reason stoked about adding another scratch in his armor.
After those runs we went up to catch a trail that is off menu. I found it with some friends last year after doing the commando run. We found out later it is called the Matterhorn. It is soooooooo good, it's an absolute must ride. Narrow single track ripping down through stands of pine and aspen. Every time you start to think it can't get any better something changes and it does. Unfortunately, the pics from this section didn't turn out. Maybe next time. We finished off the day on the first patio we found with a cold beer. I'm probably the only person around that has a computer on a Bullit, but it turned out to be kinda interesting. We covered 37 miles that day. We guesstimated that we did between 15,000 & 16,000 feet of elevation.
Can't wait to do it again. What a STELLAR day!!!!!!
I have never worked so hard at going downhill.Ascentrek and I hit up the local coffee shop and headed up early Friday morning. We got there well before lifts opened so we poked around Vail village and managed to find a place making breakfast burritos. After that we suited up and then picked up lift tickets. We were impatiently waiting for first lift and I remembered the last time I had been waiting for this lift to open was a weekday when S.S. and I hit Vail for the opening of the back bowls right after a 2 foot dump of snow!
We headed up and were planning on hitting an easy trail to warm up and get the feel of the bikes. (I just put a new spring on the Bullit) We headed for the trail and found out it was closed. So, our only option was the '94 DH course. WHAT A BLAST! I didn't do too great on that run but started getting the feel for the new spring and everything. I got the first crash in for the day by jack-knifing the bike in an ugly switchback. It was a slow motion crash so no glory there.... We hit the bottom and decided to do it again. The second time Ascentrek started out by hitting a drop off of a retaining wall by the lift.
(I took more pics than had them taken of me, so most of them are of Ascentrek)
The second run down the '94DH was a blast. I started flowing through the turns and steep sections. I made some adjustments to the rebound on the 5th and worked with the brakes a bit on the way down this time. The bike was starting to feel right. Here's the hip jump at the bottom of the run.
We headed over to the Gondola after those two runs to try out the other set of DH runs. Unfortuntately, on the way over we had stopped and I noticed that my rear hub was completely loose. :mumble: We stopped in a shop and got the hub tightened up. We rode over to the gondola and headed up for the next run. When we got to the top I noticed my back tire was flat. :mumble: :mumble: I felt like I had spent the whole morning working on my bike instead of riding it. After fixing that we FINALLY got to ride again, and fortunately did not have any more mechanicals for the day. We made our first run down Magic Forest / Old 9 Line / Main Line. WHAT AN AWESOME RIDE!!!! Magic Forest was sooooooo much fun, I couldn't wait to get back on it. Old 9 Line was rather eye opening. The entry was super knarly steep! The rest of the trail was wet and super rooty. I wasn't too sure I wanted to do that again. Main Line was awesome fun. You can just fly down it through huge banked turns and some really nice drops. We headed back up and hit Magic Forest then the Vail Village loop DH section. The VV loop was a lot of fun but not quite as demanding. So, back to the MF/#9/Main run. Here's a pic I shot on Old Nine Line looking uphill at a triangle bridge into wet, muddy roots.
Down at the bottom of Main Line there is a really nice drop that we stopped to take pictures of. The first pic is me. Ascentrek got a little camera courage and came off a bit hot. He ended up in a pile after the pic, unfortunately I didn't get a pic of him crashing. He took a shot to the nads and had to walk that off, but otherwise was fine and for some reason stoked about adding another scratch in his armor.
After those runs we went up to catch a trail that is off menu. I found it with some friends last year after doing the commando run. We found out later it is called the Matterhorn. It is soooooooo good, it's an absolute must ride. Narrow single track ripping down through stands of pine and aspen. Every time you start to think it can't get any better something changes and it does. Unfortunately, the pics from this section didn't turn out. Maybe next time. We finished off the day on the first patio we found with a cold beer. I'm probably the only person around that has a computer on a Bullit, but it turned out to be kinda interesting. We covered 37 miles that day. We guesstimated that we did between 15,000 & 16,000 feet of elevation.
Can't wait to do it again. What a STELLAR day!!!!!!
