When we got to the race venue I was amped to go ride. After I survived the sketchy shuttle and a 10 minute hike, I was at the top. Right off the top the course is a steep and gnarly section. I was trying a new Leatt neck brace which was too tight and it made it so I could not look up. It took a long time to get down but I got down none the less. My new Transition TR450 was feeling really really good. About 5/6 of the way down my dad was standing on the the side of the trail and I dropped off my Leatt with him. I took three practice runs which were focused on exploration of the track and lines. It was really surprising how well the TR450 rode. My old bike (Turner DHR) was smooth in the rough but it was pretty much just going were it wanted to. With the 450 the rider is able to put it where they want it to go. Being able to put your bike where you want it is super key in a DH race so you can get on or create the best line.
The next day I met up with Cody Kelly, who is an amazing BMX, 4x, and dual slalom racer from Utah. He is just starting to really get into DH racing, and he is quite skilled. Really his only weakness is that he only weighs 120ish pounds so he has a hard time keeping his momentum over the flats. We took quite a few runs together and spent about 20 minutes examining the top section, looking for the lines with the most exit speed. It was really nice having someone with me to bounce lines and ideas off of.
On race day I had a plan to make one practice run to see how the track has changed, and spots that were getting blown. A couple of berms were pretty blown out, by my race run they would be really blown, so I made some mental notes.
As soon as I got down to the bottom I went into total chill mode. I plopped myself down on our chair and began to look for food. When my dad and I were chilling and talking about race strategies he noticed that the people parked next to us had a lot of electronic gear. We watched as they unpacked what turned out to be a remote control helicopter, and a nice one at that. They were there with sicklines to film the race by air. I will be checking up on sicklines every once in a while to see if the video is up.
I did a bit of a warm up at the bottom, then went to the top for my race run. I do not remember much from my race run, except that I caught a kid and he let me pass, which was nice. I placed 5th out of 5 but the 2nd through 5th times were all within less than 4 seconds. Had I raced my lighter wheels I could have been on the podium. The kid in first smashed it and was about 19 seconds in front of me... I need to start ramping up my training.
One of the reasons why gravity mountain biking is not a popular sport in the US is because it is hard to film, the riders are here one second then gone the next. Helmet cameras are good for filming the whole course but do not show an accurate depiction of how scary, steep, rocky, and fast the course is. Zip-lines are also used but they are not realistic in a race scenario. The prospect of being able to follow riders down the course with a RC helicopter is a cool idea and I really think it could push the popularity of this sport to new highs.
So....the people unpacking the heli and photo gear next to us? Turns out that their names are Luke and Crissy Waters and they are from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Check out their website Onlocationaerial, its pretty cool. When you look at the heli footage you are seeing one of the pieces that will increase the popularity of our sport.
Luke working on the chopper.
Here is a quick video of the helicopter on a test flight over the Bootleg parking lot.
And finally the sicklines video with some of the heli footage edited in. You can see how the perspective helps the viewer intuitively understand the severity of the terrain.
Nevada State DH Championship 2011 - Bootleg Canyon - SickLines from Sick Lines on Vimeo.
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