Ruth had to work this weekend, so I was left without a running vehicle. This threw a wrench into my plans for the weekend of racing. After some frantic phone call and emails to friends, I found a ride to Mt Hood with my friend Ben Schepper. Ben just acquired a beat up Nissan truck, so we loaded the bikes, our gear, Rylie, and ourselves into the little truck on Saturday morning and headed south with the final destination of Ski Bowl in Government Camp Oregon.
Rylie, Ben, and I crammed in the little truck.
Lacy from Contour, the helmet camera company, has been hounding me to actually use the cameras she's given me. I decided this would be a great trip to try out the cameras. I spent most of my "packing" time on Friday night playing around with the cameras, figuring out how to use them, and charging them up before we left. I used to do a little bit of video filming/editing back in the day, so I was excited to try and do it again. In the few years I've been away from the video side of things, cameras have changed a lot! My new helmet cam is HD, and not much bigger than a lip stick tube with a battery. I love how simple the Contour cameras are to use. Turn them on and slide the button forward. You don't need to look at them, and can easily do it using gloves. They have a new camera that can connect via Bluetooth to use your phone as a monitor. The new camera even has a built in GPS system that records location, speed, and elevation!
Epic view looking down the final sprint of the DH course
We arrived at noon in Government Camp, which is nestled at the base of Mt Hood. We geared up, got registered, and hopped on the lift to the top, all while filming everything I could see. I got to the top of the hill, clipped the camera onto my helmet and went to put my goggles on. While setting up the position of the camera on my helmet, I took into account angle of the camera, alignment of the camera, ease of use etc. The one little thing I forgot to figure into my camera locating equation was that I wear goggles when I ride!
With my goggle strap bent away from the camera mount in the least uncomfortable way possible, I turned on the camera and headed down the hill for my first warm up run. I ended up practicing for the rest of the day and really enjoying myself on the course. I was feeling fast, hitting some good lines, and all in all, riding well.
Practice ended at 6pm, and I went on a course walk with Rylie to look at the track one more time and let her burn some energy before heading back to the hotel room for the night.
Spoiled doesn't even begin to describe this animal...
While back at the hotel, I tried to upload the footage from the camera. I didn't realize that I only had a 2gb memory card in the camera and had filled it up with all of the HD footage on the way to the race! Of all the runs I did that day, I only captured the first section from the very first warm up run! I deleted some of the useless footage, determined to at least get one run for Lacy on race day.
Mt Hood Race Day Warm Up NW Cup #3 2011 on pinkbike.com
Microwaved burritos provided the majority of our continental breakfast race day morning. Usually I'm a little nervous before race day, but I was in a good metal place this weekend. I headed up for a warm up run with Charlie Sponsel. I followed Charlie with the camera rolling. The footage came out great! After a little bike maintenance, we ended up at the top of the hill again for our qualifying runs. I forgot to turn on my camera, but I had a pretty decent run. I sat down on the fire road sprint and was really conservative in the woods. I put in a few good pedal stroked along the final sprint and came across the finish line in second place.
A quick shot I snagged from Greg Tubbs from my qualifier.
Mikey Sylvestri is the undisputed king of Mt Hood. He's the course record holder, and has put all of us to shame in the past on this track. I qualified in second place on the demanding course, with a 3:59, Mikey destroyed the pro field by an astounding twelve seconds, running a 3:47! I hate to say you "expect" someone to win, but really, when Mikey comes to Mt Hood, we all feel like we're fighting for second place. The only consoling thing I could tell myself was that Mikey did beat Greg Minnaar and a handful of other world cup riders last weekend at the Sol Vista race down in Colorado. (Minnaar just set a record of 51 world cup podiums at the last world cup. He's consistently one of the best riders in the world. His worst result last year was 3rd at a world cup!)
Mikey getting loose through the rocks.
After finishing my announcing duties for the race while Mike Estes, the NW cup announcer, went up for his race run, I prepared my bike for my race run. I cleaned my bike, adjusted my gears, lubed everything, checked my tire pressure, grabbed my helmet and headed for the chairlift. I arrived at the top and relaxed while the last few junior riders started their race runs. Final runs go in reverse order from qualifying, so I was second to last, with only Mikey behind me. After watching the usual suspects head off down the course, I rode into the starting gate as the announcer called my name.
Mitch Angus didn't have a good weekend either.
The beeps sounded, the gate dropped, and I put the power to my pedals. I came into the first section of course faster than I ever have. I jumped the entire first rock garden and did a little natural step up off a rock before jumping into the first rocky chute. I couldn't believe how fast I felt, I had never done this section this fast. When you're in the zone and really pinning it, it feels like time slows down. The adrenaline rush that you have during a race run in so intense. You don't hear people cheering, you don't notice what's going on around you. You're so focus on what you are doing... most of the time. I was in the zone, nothing was going to break my concentration, or so I thought. All of a sudden, I heard the worst noise a rider can hear in their race run. the loud hiss of my front tire deflating brought me back to reality in the blink of an eye. Trying to hold my bars straight through the rocky chute, proved to be a little difficult with the deflated tire, but I managed to keep it upright and pull off the trail. I said a few choice words that I won't repeat here, and waited for Mikey to come by.
I don't like being left out of this photo
After watching Mikey run off the track and nearly die through the section that caused my weekend to end, I hiked back up to the chairlift and took the ride of shame to the bottom. To add salt to my wound, I found out Mikey broke his own course record, even with his big mistake up top and took the win. Tyler Immer put in a great run for second, Charlie grabbed the third spot and Adam Ransavage put an amazing run together for fourth ahead of Eric Loney. It's hard watching the podium awards and not hearing your name get called. I was really bummed on the way the weekend ended up, but I'll be back in 2 weeks for the next round of the series. Without a result, I've dropped in points and I have to lay it on the line now in the last two races to have a shot at my overall NW cup title.
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