Amazing Weekend in the Mountains

This weekend was filled with riding, riding, and more riding! It started with my Sick of Work day and a $5 lift ticket at Keystone on Friday. Kevin and I went up for the day, and even though we only got 3 runs in before the lightening started, I had a good day. I feel like I learn something new about my riding or my bike every time I ride it. I don't know if Kevin had quite as much fun as I did, but it was a good day of riding for me.

Saturday, we moved the show to Winter Park and added another cast member, Lisa Myklak. We rode DH at the resort in the morning and then we met up with Cody, Forest, Wade, Robbie Bourdon, and a couple of the Kona groms to ride out at the Hut. I really enjoy riding out there. It has really good energy.

After some good burgers and a mint chocolate chip milk shake in Empire, we were on our way to the Bangert's in Twin Lakes to meet up with the Morewood crew and a whole cast of crazy fast DHers! We awoke Sunday morning with so many options of fun things to do for the day. A few people decided to head to Vail for some DH runs, and the rest of us decided to do an awesome shuttled XC run. Steve let me use his Turner 6 Pack, as I hadn't brought an XC bike with me. Robin and Geritt drove shuttles for us so we could do one of the coolest, okay, maybe THE coolest XC ride I've ever done. They dropped us at the top of one of the beautiful peaks near their house. The top section was Choose Your Own Adventure over the steep terrain with no trails. After a little ways we linked up with the trail. I've never thought I was scared of heights before, but that part of the trail just about made me change my mind. It was only about a foot wide in spots and off-camber with a nice steep drop off next to it. It made me a little nervous for sure! After that craziness, we got to descend for a long time on a beautiful winding, twisting trail. There were several downed trees that put my subpar bunny hopping skills to the test! The trail winds around and drops out right at the lake. All I can say, is wow, well, and THANK YOU to the Bangert's for being so amazing and sharing their awesome trail with us!!

After some much needed lunch, we picked teams and played some very serious pro basketball. Okay, so maybe it was actually pro (downhillers trying pretty hard to play) basketball. Darryl and Robin were definitely the ringers for the b-ball tourney!! They made us all look bad! The team mechanics, Andre and Rusty, both had a rough go and sprained their ankles pretty badly. Luckily, those were the only injuries in the serious competition! Darryl kept trying to get us to go on a "real" cross country ride with him, but we were all too tired. I'm not sure where he gets all of his energy from! Lisa and I made it home around 9:00 after some stellar driving from Lisa and Molly (oh, and no stupid I-70 Sunday summer traffic!!). I was ready for bed, that's for sure!

Cole showing us his skills while Darryl towers over Tracy

1 day of work this week! Nice. Off to Deer Valley with Cody and Nate on Wednesday. I'm really looking forward to the DH track. I didn't race it last year, so I'm very excited to finally get to ride it, not just hike it!! MX is at a BMX track south of Salt Lake city. I'm trying not to complain about it, cuz everyone else is doing enough of that for everyone. I'm just happy that I've been riding out at the BMX track quite a bit lately. It'll be fun no matter how bad NORBA tries to make it!!