September 1, 2010
The Windham World Cup was doap. We got to see a ton of great racing on courses that were gnarly, fast and sketchy in a lot of places. So many blown tires. Both in the DH races and in the XC races. Really cool to see riders just blasting through a race blown tire and all.
We left Baltimore at 5:30am. It was me, Big Jim, Patrick and our buddy from way down south,Toshun. All of us are avid riders but Patrick is the only one with roots in DH. He’s a former semi-pro racer with Commencal. Coolest part of the trip was that Patrick knows a ton of of riders and support people in the DH scene so we got to meet ’em and hear all the conversation first hand.
I used this trip to test a new camera I bought. A Nikon Cool Pix S8000. Left my Nikon D500 SLR at home. Kind of a mistake. The S8000 takes sick low light pics, indoor pics and even good (still) outdoor pics. But it when it comes to action shots, its just another point and shoot. Really wish I had my SLR on me cause Sam Hill, Steve Peat, Greg Minnar, Gee Atherton, Rachel Atheron and Aaron Gwin were all jumping over my friggin head on the road gap. I could have had some sick-ass shots. Sorry yall. Below is a run-down off what I was able to salvage of the booty-ass S8000.
As we arrived, we came up on the citizens DH practice. Some of these guys were good, others so-so. Here are a couple shots that came out “decent” near the bottom off the ramp.
We positioned ourselves about 1/4 of the way up the mountain near the rock garden for the mens’ XC category 1 race. This was a great spot as we could see into the eyes of the riders. Many were totally gassed. Some were flying. I counted at least 3 blown tubes. Check out the photo below. The guy on the inside is getting smoked and just sitting there watching the dood smoke him. RACE YOU BASTARD. QUIT GAWKING!
The guy in the photo below (pink shirt) was a total prick-face. Kind of funny, but mostly a dick. He was standing on the inside of the turn straight-up yelling at the riders and shaking his fists. He kinda pissed me off only cause it seemed disrespectful to a bunch of guys who were blowing out their bodies to win this race.
As primary content developer and writer for the online blog Traction Mag, Patrick got himself a media badge. Totally should have gotten one myself but didn’t even cross my mind to do so cause I don’t think of myself as “media.” All I wanna do is sell some frickin’ shirts. That said, I snagged Patrick’s media pass and got way down on the high side of the 4X burm. Two cool shots came outta those high-jinx.
There a nice set of doubles near the bottom third of the 4x track. Here you see the larger of the two. About a 40 foot gap. There was some really good air going on here.
We took the chairs up to the top of the DH course and walked the entire length down. Patrick raced the course before so he knew all the spots to check out. The course was sick. Steep, loose rocks in lots of places, and lots to huck / gap. What you see below is an elbow of the course that pops out from the woods. Riders could choose to transition the rock ledge in one of three places. The outside line was cleanest with nothing to huck. The center line was about a 5 foot huck. The line to the right was about a 7-8 foot huck.
The road gap. So many good shots of mine got screwed in here. The gap was long. I would estimate about 35 feet. You can see in these shots just how high there guys where.
One of the coolest things to see at this race was Rachel Atherton come back from a broken bone to podium at this event. As you can see in this shot, she was super stoked to win.
Not much to say about these photos. Gee had a great run. Won by .37th of a second. These guys are so sickly fast and close to one another.
Greg Minnar After The Race
Gee & Rachel Atherton After The Race
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