Just Sending It At Thunder Mountain

The first race of the 2019 Eastern States Cup DH was held at Thunder Mountain Bike Park and down The Schist, an off-camber root menace that I’m familiar with from last season.

The forecast was calling for thunderstorms throughout the weekend, but fortunately they held off until just after racing finished up on Sunday. It’s a good thing too because The Schist is treacherous enough with any moisture, let alone soaked.

I like racing at Thunder Mountain because they have some sweet trails, like The Gronk, that are perfect for warming up and playing on in contrast with the brutality of the race course. With some moisture in the ground, the flow trails were running with tacky perfection! I had a blast training it down with my race buddies.

By the end of practice on Saturday, I felt I had the course dialed to where I wanted. My runs where clean and I was able to muscle my way through the slick roots. On Sunday morning, during my first practice lap, it seemed as if the course was dryer than the day before and so I think I let my guard down, and that’s when it got me. I took a huge crash as a root swiped away my front tire and sent me over the bars. I had a cracked visor and a bruised thigh, but otherwise I was okay. It shook me up though because it seem to come from out of nowhere.

Back at the bottom, I was anxious to go back up and do another run. I didn’t want The Schist to hold that crash over me and I wanted to prove to myself that I could do the course clean on race day. On the second practice run, I lost control in one of the tricky corners and ended up going through the tape and off course. I was pretty upset as I hadn’t been able to get a clean run in and my race run was next. Talking to some other racers, it was apparent that most everyone was getting tossed and that they thought the course had gotten slicker. They were thinking that with all the racers going down that more moisture in the earth had been stirred up and that maybe the bark on the roots was wearing off and exposing slime.

I strategized and decided to dial it back a bit during my race run - a slightly slower pace was better than a crash that seemed like it could happen at any moment and be completely out of my control.

I had a good clean race run. At the end of the course there is a long double that sent me flying, so good! Stoked to get second place and amped for the next race.