Santa Cruz Bikes

Jamie Goldman reports from Whitestyle

I've now been to Austria a handful of times and until now I've only visited in the summer months. This past week I got to travel there in the winter for a snow slopestyle. It was amazing. Huge 40+ foot jumps with lips as tall as a house. Riding into them for the first time was simply scary. Once you found yourself on the landing it was the best feeling you could have. Going up the lip you would feel your speed decelerating more and more and you had to wonder if you had too much speed or too little speed. The great thing was that the landings were all a mile long and if you over jumped it was just adding to your amplitude and for the most part was just as smooth as landing at the top. I took a pretty hard case in practice and decided that jumping farther was clearly the best option... and the most fun!! Some of the gaps could be made 10- 15 ft. bigger just by going faster and were still smooth.

Austria is simply beautiful in the winter. You are surrounded with a 360-degree view of snow covered mountains. Snow was plentiful and was perfect for snow ball fights too, which replaced some of the daily activities that we normally do in Leogang during summer, including go karting. I wasn't able to get the chance because the normal track in Leogang is closed for winter, but a few of the riders that went to the event early went to ICE carting. I'm thoroughly jealous.

To ride the course you needed mud tires and a front brake if you wanted to stop at all... although some riders had the same tires as normal and no front brake it was pretty funny to watch them try to stop. I remember seeing Yannick plow through the fencing at the end of his run and into the crowd.

Needless to say it caused some excitement for the spectators and the rest of the riders. I opted to run a front brake as I usually do and Voreis hooked me up with the Maxxis Wet Scream tires that he raced with at X Games in the snowcross race a few years back. They worked amazing. I ride the Santa Cruz Blur LT most days of normal riding at home. It is my favorite bike these days and the one I feel most comfortable on. The Whitestyle had pretty big jumps, so I chose to ride my slope bike ;) it was awesome as usual. Some people brought hardtails to the event, but I wouldn't have changed my bike choice at all.

It was also very cold as you can image. I wore all my snowboard gear and under layers so that I could stay warm. I was also using foot sole warmers, which was the best idea I had. It was hard to stay warm in the snow with normal shoes. Add bandana around my face and I had a dialed setup.

Practice was limited because constant course work was needed to keep the ruts controlled but the contest still went off huge. Sam Pilgrim absolutely killed it for the win and everyone in the finals rode amazing. I tell ya, I wouldn't have wanted to be a judge. My runs were so much fun, blasting my tricks bigger and bigger each time down the hill. I had done some super flips in practice on the last jump on the course, but had never done one in the night practice (the contest started at around 8:00pm). I went for one on the "small" side of the final jump in my first qualifier run and almost nose cased because my speed was all wrong. I rode out of it but it definitely wasn't like anything I had practiced. Haha, I was all planned out on doing one on the big set in finals and I wasn't turning back now because all day that was my goal. I flipped the big set in my first finals run and my second run threw the super flip out on the line. It was a decent superman but nothing like I was hoping and I definitely wanted to go for it some more. It was so much fun to do it on that big of a jump. I slipped my pedals but recovered quickly and it really just left me wanting more, but what can ya do.

With a 7th place finish I was happy with my runs and coming out from a contest with this size obstacles unhurt is always the best feeling ever. I am already looking forward to going back next year. Props to Grant "Chopper" Fielder for designing a great course and to all the park crew who worked with him! See you all next year.

RESULTS:

• 1 Sam Pilgrim - GBR_
• 2 Linus Sjöholm - SWE_
• 3 Yannick Granieri - FRA_
• 4 Amir Kabbani - GER_
• 5 Darren Berrecloth - CAN_
• 6 Cameron McCaul - USA_
• 7 Jamie Goldman - USA_
• 8 Sam Reynolds - GBR_
• 9 Grant Fielder - GBR_
• 10 Niki Leitner - AUT_
• 11 Martin Söderström - SWE_
• 12 Jakub Vencl - CZE