All Gravity Series #2 - Silver Mt

There was a dog show going on at the same time. Standing atop the impromptu podium!

Wow, what a weekend! With the van still out of commission, I had to figure out how I was going to get myself to Kellogg Idaho for the 2nd round of the All Gravity Series at Silver Mountain. After a few phone calls, I found some room with Adam and Jesse Ransavage. I had to work late on Friday and we didn't end up leaving Seattle until midnight. The plan was for Jesse to drive the first few hours, I'd drive the next few, and Adam would drive the last leg of the trip. I curled up in the back seat and tried to sleep, but that ended quickly as we were all still excited about the weekend of racing that lay before us. I managed to get a solid 20 minutes of sleep in before Jesse woke me up saying it was my turn to drive. I grabbed a RedBull at the gas station and we kept on heading east. I ended up driving the rest of the way to Kellogg with Jesse keeping me company in the front seat.

We arrived at the base of the mountain just before 5am local time. We went to check into the hotel and found out that the front desk wasn't even open for another hour. We were hungry too, so the three of us went on a mission through Kellogg trying to find anything that was open. Surprise, nothing happened to be open in a small mountain town in north Idaho at 5am. With a least an hour to kill, we decided to hike the course. We got a look at the last sections of both day's courses before heading down and checking into our hotel.

I brought both my DH bike and my modified Mission for the weekend. The initial plan was to ride the Mission on Saturday and depending on the course, ride either the Mission or the DH bike on Sunday. After registering, getting changed, and grabbing our bikes, we hopped on the gondola and headed to the top of the hill for Saturday's practice. Silver Mt. has racing on both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday is an enduro downhill, which is usually 10-15 minutes of mostly downhill riding. There is a lot of pedaling and nothing technical, then Sunday is the true DH race. Walking out of the gondola, we were treated to a winter wonderland. There was still quite a bit of snow at the top of Silver. We had to ride through the snow field to get to the start of the race course. Feet off, sliding sideways, trying not to wreck, was the only way down the soft, mushy snow. The enduro course was pretty straight forward. Local trail gnome PK, had fixed up a lot of the berms on the course and it was really fun to ride, albeit quite greasy from the recent moisture.

Tommy from Shimano was on hand all weekend racing and offering rider support. Steven Bafus is back riding bikes again too!

My first practice run went without a hitch, but right after starting my second run, I flatted my single ply tires. With another 15 minutes of riding left, I decided to wrap my tire and tube around my frame and ride the rim to the bottom. Surprisingly, my wheel made it to the bottom in one piece and after some work with a file, would be good to ride again. I switched to dual ply DH tires and headed up for my race run.

After riding without a tire!

After getting to the start much too early, we all stood around cheering the other riders on before lining up for our runs. Without a warm up, the start of the pedally course was brutal. I was sitting down much more than I should have and not really pushing myself. The 20 minutes of sleep I got the night before, probably didn't help me either. I still put a half decent run together and managed to finish 2nd in pro, but we all got beat by local pinner Rob Crump, who put a great run together and took the overall win. Nice job!

Creeper shot of Rob! USA cycling needs to give him his pro upgrade!

While standing around, covered in mud, it was collectivly decided to take advantage of the waterpark at silver. They have a big indoor waterpark with multiple slides, an indoor surfing wave, a lazy river, among other ways to keep people wet. We stayed there until it closed at 8pm, at which point we went back to the room and I fell asleep, still in my wet shorts, on the couch in our room.

Jesse found my camera while I was sleeping.

I awoke the next morning still soaking at 8am. 12 hours of sleep does wonders for a person! The morning routine of food, changing, lift tickets, bike maintenance, etc was performed and I headed up the hill. With the rain from the night before, the track was going to be REALLY muddy. I was planning on riding my DH bike, but Jesse had an issue with his bike. I was feeling pretty good on my Mission, so I said I would try and race that again and let Jesse use my DH bike.

It was a little muddy.

Shifting was difficult

Welcome to the NW!

I've never been a fan of Silver Mt. They had so much potential with the terrain, but their upper management, won't let the bike park builders build what people want to ride. The mountain is nothing but flat smooth trails. The race course was supposed to start by going into this flat, narrow, wooded section with a lot of roots that ended with a dumb uphill. Fortunatly, someone conviced the race organizers that we didn't need to do that section and we started right after that. Combining the new start with the high speed sections and the mud that mother nature gave us, turned Silver Mt into a legitamite DH course! I was actually enjoying the course at Silver for once! I ended up doing a few practice runs that morning as the course was really fun. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm actually excited to go back and ride that course! I wish I would have had my DH bike, but the Mission was holding it's own down the high speed, rutted, muddy course.

Coming into the final section.

I dropped into the course for my race run and had a few close calls along the way, but all in all it was a pretty clean run considering it was mud race. I tried really hard to use as many of Simon's cornering techniques in the mud and they saved me in more than a few places. I came through the line breathing hard and after looking over the timers shoulder, found out I had won! The modifications to the Mission were a success and they landed me on top of the podium again. Adam and Jesse wern't as lucky, with Adam blowing a brake line on his way to the start and Jesse having to ride a bike that was too big for him and set up for my weight and riding style.

The mud made times drop off fast!

The awards ended, everyone packed up, and we headed back west. A little pit stop with some friends at the Taco John's in Spokane ended the good weekend. Time to head back, fix up the bikes, and get ready for some real downhill at Mt Hood Oregon next weekend!

The line for the bike wash.

-KT