keystone

Last weekend I got up to Keystone in Colorado for a day of downhilling. The resort this season has added a new area called the "Drop Zone." They've taken a steep ridge line and created a series of extreme drops.

You reach these off the Paid in Full double-black trail.

Here's what awaits those adventurous enough to veer off the main trail for more challenge:

Alley 1: There are three ramps -- Piranha, Barracuda and Jaws -- ranging from a "small" 5-foot drop to a 14-footer "that allows you to launch up to 22 feet," according to the Keystone website's description.

Alley 2: Called Paranoid, this is a rocky lead-in to a natural take-off point that aims you at a narrow wooden landing between the trees. As you can see from the photo I've included with this article, you have to aim just right; get a bad line in the air and you're gonna have a hard time missing the tree that's tight to the right side of the wood landing. (The guy in my photo made it look easy.)

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I rode downhill at Vail yesterday with the Tulsa Freeriders and it was SWEET sweet action... We hit the '94 WC track first: fast, flowing, rooty and fun. We took a little detour at the bottom to the Mini-Bailey's drop, which is like a smaller version of the Bud Light Bail Out near the bottom of the 2001 Worlds DH track. Mini-Bailey's might have been mini, but it was techy and skeery lookin' - I passed but several of the Tulsa Freeriders crew hit it. Nice! At the bottom of that, our tour guide Kyle realized he had snagged his shorts on his shifter and broken it clean off the bar. Doh! Since it was about lunchtime so we hit Moe's Original BBQ for some grub while Kyle searched for a shifter, and it was super tasty. Refueled, we headed back out, with plans to hit the Magic Forest/Old 9/Main Lane decent.

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The MSC finals at Keystone pretty much, without question, r0x0rd my s0x0rz. Loads of racing and fun and more racing and stress and more fun and DAMN GINA where are my pants? So there is a lot to speak of, let me summ up and essplain one at a time. ready? Oh kay!

Friday I got out of work late, I had to work on freelance late, the race promoters called and needed this that and the other thing (namely missing awards and coroplast), and things were just generally balled up, so even though I originally wanted to head out, I called it and just went to bed. Ah yes, a good night's sleep does the body wonders. Saturday morning I got in to keystone around 7:30am, got registered, dropped off awards and coroplast, got into my gear and headed over to the dual slalom course.

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