2024 Southridge Winter Series DH: You Don't Need Brakes

 You don't need brakes. It is a familiar admonition, commonly given words of advice around any downhill course. You don't need brakes. Well, but I need brakes, and knowing that I would run up to one of those big drops, loose my nerve somewhere in the rocks, hit my brakes and... well, you and I both know what happens then. You don't need brakes, and that flat out is why you've never seen me riding a downhill course. Yes, I need brakes, but many of those riders taking DH practice runs Saturday morning and afternoon didn't really seem to need them, or at least didn't need them very much.

Those big drops, those big rocks, and the fact that riders young enough to be my grandkids (or old enough to be me) can fly over them with more confidence than I bump over those six inch cobblestones out in the wash, does make for some pretty exciting photo ops - no question about that. 

Link to photo album is right here.

I don't know who this rider is (Mondraker Factory Team) (maybe someone will fill me in), but he was carrying some major speed down the hillside. Maybe just as interesting, he got back up to the top fast too. While I saw other racers pass by my spot on the slope once, maybe twice, I have photos of this one speedster from six different runs. Whoa! How the heck did he manage that.