Blue Mountain Snow Cross!

I survived! In the previous post, I talked about heading up to PA to try the dual slalom racing on snow, and I'm happy to report that I made it up there without issue, had a blast riding my bike down a black diamond run on the snow like a maniac, and made it home all in one piece!

There were just over 40 people who showed up to race. We all got one practice run, then the racing started. We went down in heats of 4 racers, with the top 2 finishers in each heat advancing to the next round. Somehow I managed to actually advance through the first AND the second rounds...but didn't make it past the third round. I was pretty happy with that though, since I wasn't even expecting to advance past the first. There were some really fast guys out there, and it was obvious they race this kinda thing all the time. So for not having the race being broken up into different ability classes (beginner, sport, expert) I was very satisfied with how I did.

Here's some pictures my friend Andrea took of me, the course, and some racing action. And I got some pretty decent footage from the camera I had mounted to my handlebars, so I edited together my three race runs so you could get a better idea of the course and how fast we were going! Enjoy!

View from the starting gate

All thumbs up

Heading down on a practice run

This was during the first race, coming over the single jump approaching the table-top jump

That's me just after crossing the finish line [stopping proved to be a little tricky!]

And here's the video!

[If you look at the shadows, you can see my head slamming down upon all the landings, my neck is still a little sore!]