Nice Weekend

The two best things about hanging out with friends are (1) the joy of discovery (when our suspicions about our friends being gracious and fun and interesting are proved true); and, (2) the mere hanging out itself, which is lovely in that you can just enjoy what you're doing. For those I was hanging out with - thanks for a great weekend. A seriously great weekend.

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Lift assisted downhill mountain biking is awesome. It is amazingly amazing. Some things I discovered at Wisp on Saturday:

• My ~29 pound, 4" travel 29'er is a very capable downhill rig. It seems to be a capable everything actually. I haven't seen many reviews of Salsa's Big Momma, maybe because it doesn't naturally fit into a particular category like XC, and no magazine wants to have a review of "Bikes We Have Trouble Categorizing. All mountain maybe?
  
• I am not a very capable downhill rider. Crazy downhill technical stuff (roots + rocks + twisting down the fall line) isn't exactly my thing, though pushing my limits there will definitely help out on the trails. I learned *so* much.
  
• 40 MPH down a bumpy fireroad on the other hand, or high speeds down near-IMBA standard bench cut rocky and root trails traversing a mountain's face... very nice.
• Reading the trail at 25+ MPH is a totally different skill, and figuring out what obstacles are hidden in the grass takes on a whole new urgency.
  
• If you see a sign that has an arrow and says "feature," be very afraid. Be very ****ing afraid. It means something like "huge drop," "massive high speed jump," or "my friend Bob actually died trying to ride this."
• Skills / dirt freeride parks are way fun. And another place where I totally don't know what I'm doing.
  
• Bill B. rides with more skill in his cocyx, than some people ride with in their whole bodies. Unfortunately, Bill chooses to ride with his cocyx sometimes when other parts of his ass might be more suitable to the occasion.
• Chris Nystrom looks as good upside down 8' up in the air, as he does railing a cross bike around a muddy turn. Just born to ride. He doesn't look so hot skidding backwards down a steep hill, but two out of three ain't bad.
• A good downhill mountain is by necessity coupled with an evil, evil uphill ride. If you are ever doing some downhill, get bored with the lift and get the urge to ride up the hill prior to a run, put down the bong, go back to your car, and take a nap until the urge passes. Trust me on that one.
• XC riders seem to have a different relationship with their equipment than downhillers. Downhillers seem to ride stout cheap heavy stuff they beat the crap out of. We ride lighter expensive stuff we try to baby.
  
• The outlook between XC and downhill may be a little different. I spoke to a few random downhillers while waiting for the lift. They were horrified that we'd ride up the hill, and then ride down on high saddles set for optimum pedaling efficiency. I was horrified at the heavy, inexpensive and rugged (and totally beaten to crap) gear that they ride (extremely well over gruesome obstacles).
  
• An intermediate level downhill trail is probably what most XC'ers would consider to be a solid advanced trail. An expert downhill trail - well, you'd have trouble avoiding injury just to walk to the good places to have a big crash. I thought one of our party was going to break his leg just walking onto one trail, and as he noted (I paraphrase), "I'd crash before I could get to the place where you're supposed to crash.
  
• When you ride with friends, clean the "features," crash on them, or get dropped riding a hill that hasn't seen MTB tires in years, it's still a great day of riding. Even if you stink. It's all good. Much respect to the downhillers... even the bad ones look pretty damn good.