This past weekend was the start of the Fluidride Cup series. Heralded as one of the best racing series' in the US, the 2010 Fluidride Cup series saw some major changes over previous years. First of all, they have split with the promotors over at Dry Hill in Port Angeles, WA, who wanted to go for their own series with 4 races being held at Dry Hill this year. Separating on good terms, this allowed the Fluidride series to expand and look to other venues besides Ski Bowl at Mt Hood (which will have 3 races this year for the series). Schweitzer, Idaho and Whistler were soon thrown into the schedule. It was like a dream come true, I have always wanted to race at Scheitzer since watching all of the old racing videos of the Norba races they held there. Oh, and Whistler! Well, what hasn't been said about the place. Its heaven to me. Adding Whistler also turns the Fluidride series into an international affair, and it is pretty much impossible to ever have a bad race at Whistler.
Once I found out what track we would be racing on, I new it was gonna be good. For anyone who has ever been to Whistler before... think about racing down Schleyer to Detroit Rock City. Gnarly with a little bit of freeride thrown in. With the wet conditions, the freeride part would turn out being my worst enemy. I haven't ridden Detroit Rock City before the race, and had heard lots of stories about it, both good and bad. It is a very technical trail to just ride in general, but trying to ride it at race speeds almost turned out to be a bit easier. I think it was because there were so many roots in sections that going faster allowed you to just float on top of the roots and maintain direction a little better.
My race run was all but perfect, but felt "fast" to me for the most part considering the really wet conditions. I smashed my left SPD pedal into a rock sprinting out of the start gate, breaking off the clip assembly on one side. I had a 50% chance of clipping back into the good side of the pedal if I ever unclipped for one of the many sketchy spots on track. Luckily I managed to get it right every time. About 1/2 through Schleyer trail is the really burly rock section followed by a simple downhill wooden berm to about 15 feet of a wooden ladder to drop. I nailed the rock section before it and came in a little hot into the (soaking wet) wood features. I grabbed the tiniest bit of back brake on the right-hand wood berm and the rear end swopped out to my right. I got it back and over corrected just a bit and the rear end swopped back the other way, then back again to the right, then I found myself sliding off the end of the drop almost sideways and barely made it onto the wooden lander. Oh, that left foot was unclipped too! By the end of that near catastrophe my heart rate was maxed out and I somehow nailed the rest of the track at a decent pace. As soon as my run was done I was back on the lifts, banging out runs on Dirt Merchant and A-line for the rest of the day. For anyone who hates on people riding those trails so much, I do it because you can't ride trails like that anywhere else, so you gotta get what you can when you can!
Next up is NW Cup #3 and Fluidride Cup #2.
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