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Ever since I have been mountain biking I have heard people rave about the downhill at Deer Valley. My last experience of riding the lifts and biking down was not a good one, so I was a little hesitant to try it again. Our friend Alex has been trying to get us to come with him for a while now. He called this week and said he was going with a bunch of guys. I decided I was ready to try it. I got Lindsey to come with us, so I wouldn’t be the only girl! 
I have gotten so much better at mountain biking. The uphill is still my strength, but I have gotten better at the downhill too. I am not nearly as timid and scared as I used to be. I have gotten better at taking more risks. But, I was still nervous about what the trails would be like, and how I would do
I had so much fun! We started out on Nail Driver, which was an intermediate trail. It had a lot of roots and rocks to ride over, and quite a few banking switchbacks. The switchback were great for me because the were designed for speed, so they were not very tight, but some of them were pretty technical. They were great practice for me, and did just about all of them on every run.
There was a really fun section in the middle with some fun stunts. There was an elevated path that I did a few times. There was also a teeter totter, which I was a total chicken on I did the teeter totter a bunch of times at the Dirt Series camp, but today I just didn’t do it.
I was really happy with how I did. It was great practice for me, since downhill is still my weakness. But, it was fun to see how much I have progressed. I rode so many things today that I never would have done last year. And I had fun while doing them!
Jenni says:
Kerry–
Good for you for sticking in there and working on conquering your fears! I was really into mtn. biking for a long time but had one really bad accident (took a pretty big jump and landed it wrong). I did a serious endo and ended up with a head/neck injury. It was too hard to get back on the bike. I switched to road biking and raced for a few years. That was pure adrenaline too, but in different ways. This summer in Israel I really had the urge to get back on the mountain bike. Maybe I’ll get enough courage to do it again some day. Beautiful pictures! Makes me miss the mountains so much!
(we used to picnic in Deer Valley when I was a kid. There was absolutely nothing there back in the 70’s).
July 27th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Manda says:
Oh, I love Deer Valley. We’ve only done it once and it was quite the experience. I remember showing up and seeing all the guys in their full body gear. It was quite intimidating but we had such a blast. Some of those stunts are supper crazy.
July 27th, 2008 at 6:31 pm