The 2009 U.S National Championships were held in Sol Vista, Colorado this year as opposed to Mt. Snow which had hosted the event for the last 3 years. I was excited for this race, I enjoy Colorado very much...the area is just awesome in general. The downhill course was quite challenging and as the weekend progressed, the course conditions deteriorated. The pro downhill course featured three large jumps which seemed to be the talk of the event, everyone pretty much agreed that they were "huge." Practice was a bit of a challenge for me, I was feeling a bit ill the first couple of days and was just not feeling the track. Saturday came along and I finally got the jumps down and feeling semi comfortable...Unfortunately, my fork blew it's rebound cartridge during my second run and my practice time ran out while FOX repaired my damper. Sunday came along and I was just focusing on a clean run, perhaps thinking a bit to much about the monster jumps as I took the rest of the course rather conservatively and made a couple of timely mistakes. It was great to see everyone out there, including most of the gravity side of the CFR team! Overall, I think this race and venue were good for the "sport" of downhill mountain biking...the course was obviously geared towards the spectators and it showed, there were hundreds of people gathered during the pro finals to watch us launch the massive gap jumps! Despite this, most every pro racer I talked to though this was the best track they had ridden in years, a win-win situation in my opinion.
Please check out the video of the 2009 US national Championships, I filmed some of it:
www.Channelmtb.com
Please check out the video of the 2009 US national Championships, I filmed some of it:
www.Channelmtb.com
