Snowmass Mountain States Cup 2009, Part 2

Atmosphere
I love the atmosphere at the races. People cheering, pushing themselves, having fun, it's all great.




The two girls (the shorter two in armor, backs to the camera) were walking up to do their qualifying runs in Mountain Cross (like skier cross, on bikes). They couldn't have been more than 12 years old, and as they passed me, I heard one say to the other, in a little-girl voice: "Hey, are you in Girl Scouts?" I couldn't help but turn and take their picture.


DOWNHILL
After my race, I hiked up the hill to watch the pros race DH. I spent most of the time hanging out at the Waterfall / Hell's Kitchen, and saw a lot of crashes.


It's really loose, and we got dusted a lot.


Addie, riding for Go-Ride out of Utah, looked really good through Hell's Kitchen.






She had a stellar weekend on the downhill course, taking 3rd place, also her first ever National Podium as a Pro! We were both flying high on the drive home.





Not only that, but Chris Hadley, a friend of ours also racing for Go-Ride, won his Cat 1 race:






Way to represent, Utah!

Downhill Carnage...
And speaking of dowhilling, while watching the pro men come through, some crazy stuff happened. I didn't have my camera for the first part, but it was carnage. One rider with a flat tire was being passed at the finish by another rider, and the flat tire rider was in the middle of the trail. The announcer shouted "move over, move over!" and the flat tire rider unfortunately moved into the path of the passing rider...and the passing rider, who was going at full speed, was launched off the trail, over the netting, into the archway supports, landing on several spectators and their bikes.

He must have flown 20 feet, easily, and we were holding our breaths until he got up.

I got my camera out after it was all cleaned up, but for perspective he went into the air before getting to the arch, and landed on the red pole to the right there.


I do have pictures of the aftermath, however, since he had shredded one of the guy-wires for the archway. About 2 riders later, the arch began to fall over, and the rider had to pedal for all he was worth to make it under the arch before it blocked the trail.

Here are people holding up the arch.


Then, they gave up, and put a hold on the race so they could take it down completely. Crazy I say.


All in all, fantastic weekend that pretty much made my summer for biking. Yep.