Bones Over Metal Freeride and Downhill Video Blog

Saturday and Sunday Racing
A small storm came into the area Saturday night and made the course more interesting for the expert racers. As the day went on, between pro and expert practice in the morning, the ruts began to show in the muddiest areas of the course. The flat, slightly up hill root section became even more impossible to navigate (see my comments below to learn how they messed me up in my race). But in the end, the racing was fabulous and the competition was stiff.

When the pros raced on Sunday, the rain threatened again, but held off and everyone got an equal chance at winning. Well, almost everyone. I counted at least 10 flats. Geritt Beytagh won by two seconds over Cody Warren. They were the only riders to break 5 minute mark. Geritt had a great week, coming in second to Eric Carter in the Dual Slalom. Duncan Riffle was third, Curtis Keene fourth and Ryan Condrashoff came in fifth. Everyone agreed that the course was a brutal mix of gnar and peddling. Kathy Pruitt flatted so she was unable to revenge Melissa Buhl for her loss to Melissa in the dual slalom. Marla Streb got second by only 2.9 seconds. The rest of the pack was way back and included Dawn Bourque, Darian Harvey and Allegra Burch.

Full Results

I’ll follow this up in the next few days with more photos and a video. Off to Mt. Saint Anne for the World Cup.

Friday’s Practice
The lines are getting worn into the grass slopes and every is finding speed. As expected this brings crashes and flats. More flats than crashes, but up top when a rider’s speed pulls them too low in the off-camber, the rider is more often than not pushed into the tough rocks and through the tape. I am amazed my wheels have held up. The moto-freeway section is lined with big slabs of rock. If I get off line, the cha-chunk, cha-chunk is more than a wheel should take. I feel fast, but there are still a few things that I have to work out before I race on Saturday.

Aaron Gwin impressed me today. He was the fastest I saw in the grassy off-camber stuff. If you haven’t heard of him by now, you should Google his name and get to know him. This is his first year racing pro and riding for Yeti’s national team, he’s already surpassed expectation. Last week he beat both Leov and Blenkinsop at Snowmass. It’s good to see this kind of competition in the USA. It’s good for DH.

Thursday’s Practice
Tonight we met Greg Fisher, Mt. Snow’s Event Director at TC’s, a great local pub in West Dover, VT. Make sure you say hi to Becky and Tim when you go in there. Great food, good drinks. Anyway, back to the point. Greg was telling us that Mt. Snow worked real hard with the National Forest to get a new trail open for the top of the race course. Every year they have swapped two trails and were sure that they needed to mix it up to keep interest in the race at Mt. Snow. After much work and deliberation to make sure that they could reseed the new area and avoid endangering species, Mt. Snow set the top third of the course down the ski slope, “Committed.”

The expert riders were the first down the grass slope freshly mowed and never before ridden by bikes, then into the woods. Having scouted for three plus hours the day before with Evan, I was in the fun zone right from the get go. I have never felt so ready, so early in the race weekend. I still made a ton of mistakes, but that is why we had another day of practice. Later when I pulled out my camera, the pros were willing to show us how it was done. Some of them were ripping out of the gate, but they too had to stop and learn the location of the baby heads and sharp rock hidden under the grass. Garitt Beytagh, Duncan Riffle, Aaron Gwin, Cody Warren and many more looked motivated to be America’s Top Pro. For the first time, I got a sense of what it means to win the National Championship. Peace!

Wednesday Walk-Through
Arriving at Mt. Snow, VT after a long journey that seemed to take days definitely was a relief. Packing up a bike for flying with today’s airline weight restrictions was very stressful. Add to that the packing requirements for bringing my film gear and the late arrival at the airport, the annoying guy at the rental agency, etc. and you will get a picture of why I was glad to get here. I had met up with Even (ET) Turpin in Burlington. The first thing we did when arriving, before registering and building our bikes up was hike the course.

I’ve have never seen a course like this in person. Sure, I’ve seen woods like this and even the number of environmental zones that are included in the course. There is the freshly cut, steep and treacherous upper ski run zone, the open moto-zone, the upper woods, the lower woods, and the bottom gut busting sprint to finish. What I have yet to see in a race course, is the the upper ski run zone. Seriously, this section is freshly cut. When we walked it, there were zero bike tracks. It also moves back and forth across the mountain like one would ski, using the headwalls and drops to sift weight and turn.

We took a ton of photos, with the idea that we could use them to trigger our memory later. When we got back to the room and started looking at them, we found ourselves even more confused. Today, when we take our first runs, I’m hoping that my memory for the tread will be better and allow me to find the confidence to go fast in the days to come.