Killed by the hill

I daresay that I may no longer be the killer hiller. I know, it hurts me too. I weigh more now than I ever have, and I've been on, like, 5 serious road rides in the last six months. The only justification that I have is, that, at least I haven't been sitting on my couch all six months. I have gotten some sweet downhill biking in, raced 4 cross races (no I didn't count those as the serious rides), and learned to rip it on a snowboard.

That said, last weekend I was down at Brian Head with my family. We had a swell time in a chill cabin, and Ash, my cousin Jeff and I had a sweet day of riding. We found this cliff that appears below in video. Keep in mind that this is about the worst angle possible of it and makes it look kinda lame, but this was a 5 footish drop to 60 degrees from horizontalish landing. We rode it all day.


I had a great time, finally feeling comfortable and good at snowboarding. On the last run of the day however, I got eaten alive... by the mountain.

Ash and I were cruisin down and ended up in the terrain park. Ash took off and hit a nice 3 foot step-down kicker and sped away, leaving me up at the top, debating what I should do with the rest of my life. Should I hit the jump, and die a terrible death? Or should I skip it, and live my life out as the world's biggest wimp? Of course, I chose the first, and unfortunately for my bum bum, did not die. I hit the jump at a good speed, at least I thought ( I had no clue, I've never hit a jump before), and next thing I knew, My butt was below my board and my board was sideways. Oh, and I was falling from the sky six feet above the icy sheet of snow. Ouch. Pain shot from my bum through my leg. I limp-boarded to the lodge and was glad it was time to go home. I sat on the couch the rest of the day and watched X-Games athletes make my jump look like a little anthill.

Anyway, just so everyone who misses me on Saturday group rides knows that I'm not just sitting on the couch, here is proof that I'm not just making this snowboarding thing up. Try not to laugh to hard.