Team Fezzari Bicycles

Hey, Kade Salisbury here. So the Utah Downhill Race Series as come to an end with the last race at Brian Head Resort in Southern Utah a week ago. And I must say it most definitely didn’t disappoint. The course was absolutley a pure adrenalin rush and being set at 11.000 ft overlooking Cedar Breaks adds a spectacular view, not to mention it’s quite literally breath taking. Haha. It’s crazy what an effect it has on one’s body. Fortunately, the body was prepared for the challenge. Which looking at the weeks prior I’m suprised I’m still in one piece. Fortunately I survived at Nationals in Sol Vista, Colorado. The week after racing at Nationals I was off to Canada for my3rd annual Whistler trip. I only went over the bars once up there, But managed to survive. The week after B.C. I was off to race up in Pomerelle, Id. where I sorta hit a tree up there, ok I pretty much nailed a tree booking it with my shoulder on the first day of practice. I’d say the tree won, but I feel I fought a good fight. Haha. But I ended up winning 2nd place the next day.So I was stoked on that. A week after Idaho I was off to my parents cabin down in central/southern Utah at Fishlake. That is where I tried my hand at sailing. Yeah Yeah. It’s been a dream of my sister to pick up sailing and this year she did just that. So I went sailing with her, and talk about a rush. We about went over board a time or two, but it was a blast and I didn’t die. The week after risking my life at sailing I was off to risk my life in the final Utah Downhill Series Race at Brian Head resort. Now usually these DH races are on Sunday, but this was actually on Saturday thus shortening practice time, so I had to make due. I made my trip on Friday and was able to get some good practice in. All went well… As for race day it was a bit different. I ended up meeting up with fellow Fezzari rider Robbie Bamgartner and we took a couple practice runs together before our final race runs, I believe it was 2nd or 3rd run down this course when I was following Robbie and all I saw was him bookin it as always. But he got caught up in some rocks and totally got ejected. So he ended up going down in a nice jagged rocky part of the trail, and somehow one of the rocks entered in his helmet and managed to do some damage. He had a tore up lip with blood on his neck anda nice wound to his elbow which didn’t look fun at all. I believe it took 20 to 30 stitches to fix him up, so he didn’t get to race the downhill. An hour or two later it was time… So this is where it went down. Off the line I was feeling good, I managed to put down a solid first run until I got to the last corner to the finish. This was a corner I’ve yet to practice due to the fact that there is a car to jump over if you go straight instead of taking this corner. So I ended up taking a bit to much speed into it and I just remember breaking loose probably 7-8 feet before the finish line. Luckily I made it across but kinda in the wrong direction. I had pulled off a sweet 180 skid though for a out of the ordinary finish. Now I believe that is what costed me. So I had a time of 3.31.69 and i was sitting in 2nd place. I was just hoping now that I could improve my 2nd run time and that no one would improve on my time. Little did I know that someone would end up getting the exact same time on their 2ndrun as me. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? So I ended up tied for second place. This wasn’t how I envisioned it. It turns out that we got our overall points for the race andI was a mere 1 point from taking Silver in the state. Thus if I was only one one hundredth of a second faster it would have put me second, Landon 3rd, and Kade Salisbury (aka myself) In 2nd place behind the National Champion Spencer Mehr. But I’m happy to say the body survived, and my bike the Widows Peak did awesome, as for my brain, it is hangin in there. But I’m looking forward to a few more races this season and doing some late summer/Fall biking. Peace out.

So this is my 3rd annual Whistler trip and it seems to get better each year. And I’m starting to get used to the 17 hour drive. But  there’s definitly nothing quite like spending 4 days straight aboard a downhill bike with the buddies. Can’t go wrong with that. 

 It started out being the perfect riding weather for us pretty much the whole trip, which in the years past we’ve been plagued with rain and alot of it. So this was the year for riding the nice wood skinnies and not just sliding off em. So the first day we

pretty much went all out, i mean how can you not. There is just way too many trails, and jumps, and drops, and wood feature’s to hit, and try to hit good, so that first day is trying to just hit everything with that perfect speed, and figuring out the trails. Pretty much we spent majority of the day riding the enchanted A-line, Dirt Merchant, and Freight Train. So much fun! But Day 1 went down without any problems. We all survived.

Day 2 was an action packed day for sure. This is when we started seeing the bears. It’s crazy you’ll be bombing down some trails and stop in an opening and look over and see a mama black bear with her two little cubs. Pretty nuts that put’s you edge. The scariest was when we were going down a trail called Clown Shoes in a thicker wooded area when i came across a good sized black bear that was only probably 20-30 feet in front of us. Luckily it was scarred of us and ran away, But still…

Day 3 the body was feeling it. More or less the hands. It was a battle of what trails you rode to which body part would feel it. There’s the fast and flowy trails with all the breaking bumps that would reek havoc on your palms and braking fingers. And then there’s the super technical, double back diamond trails that would put your elbow’s, shoulders, hands and pretty much everything through the paces. I ended up getting some pretty bad tennis elbow going.

Day 4 was spent in the air dome aka foam pit. And I’m thinking that a backflip to dirt on the widows peak will be coming soon(after race season though). If only that foam pit was 1,100 miles closer. But we spent 3 hours in the morning at the air dome and then it was off to the mountain again to finish off the trip.

So all in all it was a trip to remember, i highly recommend it going on the list.

Round two of the Utah DH series landed me my second win of the season.  Another beautiful weekend of weather after such a wet spring was a welcomed sight for everyone at Wolf Mountain Resort in Eden, UT.

The Wolf Creek Mountain Mayhem was the second stop in the Utah series and it was a great one.  The race course went down the famous Fezzari trail up top to the lower mountain cross course.  This is a course that is easy to ride but hard to ride fast.  The top is all about tight, twisty turns and maintaining momentum.  The mid section consisted of set of very tricky table top jumps that lead to some fast berms in the 4X style course.  From there, it was an all out sprint across a relatively flat fire road and a smoking fast downhill finish.  The tight turns were a blast on Saturday when the dirt was moist and tacky but as Sunday wore on, the course dried out and a few of the turns got blown out bad.  To win you needed to maintain good speed through the upper turns and pedal your guts out at the finish.  The jumps were really tricky.  I tried several times in practice to hit them at full speed with poor results but thankfully no injuries.  I decided to just grab a handful of brakes for the race run and just get through them smoothly rather than risk catastrophe.  I watched a few racers through that section and a high percentage of them crashed so I think I made a wise choice.

I had a good run the first time down the hill with two bobbles in the turns but no complete stops which set me up in first place after run 1.  The second run, as with Sundance, the wind kicked in and most riders posted slower times.  Mine was one second slower than the first but good enough for the win.