Junior Freeride Tour #2 Telluride March 23, 2014

Truckin' up to Telluride

The Junior Freeride Tour had their 2nd stop for 2014 in Telluride, Colorado this past weekend. A great event, it was part of the Subaru Winterfest series that includes FWQ 2 star and 4 star adult events, so a cool vibe.

We flew in and out of Denver and drove quite a bit, so Truckin' seemed like a very appropriate song. Yet perhaps more telling was the fact that 1 out of 2 lift ops was listening to the Grateful Dead. Yes, Telluride has it going on.

But the #1 reason for Truckin' as the song was the long, strange trip that it was. There was no inspection of the Review venue for the Juniors other than visual, which made Graham's run down it the 1st run down of his life. Worse yet, we did not realize that his ski was delaming and his binding broken, and not skiable. So we searched every ski shop in Telluride for some demo skies, but could not find any with good bindings (max din 13, Graham skis on 15).

As such, we planned a run that was not too aggressive as we wanted hoping the bindings would hold. Well, when Graham landed perfectly on his last hit the right binding released immediately sending him in to a forward roll and crash. OUCH, it was a top 5 if not top 3 run. Oh well. We have been laughing for days about it.

vimeo.com/90328699

Enjoy the video and the views. The winner of this weekend was the spectacular San Juan mountains.

Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me, other times I can barely see....

Visual inspection is tough. That's all they do in the FWQ and FWT. Adds a whole new dimension to the game. Sorry about the crash.

Perfect Morgan, how did I miss that one

Thanks J. It does totally change things with visual only. But what really changes everything is the wrong gear. It was a big mistake on our part, especially as Graham had a brand new pair of next year's Gunsmokes sitting at the house. Good luck in Alpine, looks like good conditions!!

the visual inspection was a clue. bring that gear to my shop near you.
the young shot 8 rider will bring it next time!
b

^^^^ Will do. Big mistake. Already have G on the new gear.

Take a look from yesterday:

vimeo.com/90604251