Guy´s Downhill / Free Ride Team

Rick´s Log Ride

The newest member of the Guys Racing Organization is the Downhill / Free Ride Team. We are a new breed of rider; the extreme; the lunatic fringe of the biking world. How hard could it be you ask? You ride up the mountain on a chair lift for crying out loud! Your races only last 3 to 5 minutes! Why would any normal person want to jump off a 12-foot drop on a bike? All good questions. The logical mind has no answers. All I can tell you is that once you start there is no turning back! It´s like a fever, an obsession...an ADDICTION!

Let me explain the process. First there is one impossible obstacle on your cross-country loop that you have to conquer. Then you are up for the challenge of conquering several obstacles. And next, you find the loop is not challenging enough on its own merit so you find yourself building additional obstacles for the ultimate challenge! Maybe! But I´m not finished explaining! Within the next year the cross-country loop is now a Free ride park with 10 to 30 foot long ladders, many log rides and 4 to 12 foot drops. Now just when you think you´ve settled into the whole Free Ride groove, you discover the thrill of racing. This is like an epiphany! There is an entire "cult" of downhill free riders...one crazier than the next! When you see your first few mountain courses you think to your self "I could never ride down that, it´s insane!" You see super skilled riders with no fear (possibly lacking a few brain cells even) making those obstacles look easy. Of course since we are not dealing with the sane, the downhill racer is challenged by this instead of deterred. In the next few months you are doing things you could never have dreamed of.

Now as the obsession grows you find yourself spending more time and money on your bike. The sick part is that you just spent more money on the new bike than you did on your first few cars put together! That´s when you know you´re a Downhill / Freerider. You can try to explain it to your friends, but they just don´t get it. You speak to the roadies on your team and they get a look on their face like my dog gets when it cocks its head to the side and stares blankly back; "what is it with you freeriders?" You can show them videos of your first 6-foot drop but on film it looks like nothing! Little do they know you spent 3 weeks building it and 2 more to get the guts to try it. Your wife does not find it amusing that you´re at the bike shop every week buying new parts. "I thought you said if you buy the best they will last forever?" she asks. She does not understand that "forever" is one season if you´re lucky!

This is the obsession known as Downhill. These are the sorts of people your mom warned you to stay away from! Welcome to our world! We are proud to be a small but hard-core part of Guys racing.

Races

We train at our Local free ride park a few times a week until the racing season starts in April. Interested? Contact our Downhill Team Coordinator Nick Fortune

The Team participates in the Plattekill extreme series (the biggest and best on the east coast), Snowshoe National event in West Virginia, Mount Snow National event in Vermont, the Reading Duryea downhill, Spring mountain series, and for 2004, Mountain Creek will be added to the calendar. Most of the racers get 8 to 12 races in a year.

Photos