steamboat dual slalom bike race

I was in Steamboat skiing last weekend on a family vacation. The snow was crusty and icy and not a lot of fun. Luckily the Winter Fest was going on that week. I went out to dinner with the family, drank a few beers (sorry dopers suck), and headed back to the condo. Everyone was pretty tired and wanted to just chill out. I wanted to go out and hit the town and check out some of the events.

The Winter Fest has been going on in town for 95 years and still going strong. They have a high school band that plays with cross country skis on, horses towing skiers down the street, and other weird stuff. The best events are going on at Howlson Hill, a small resort right in town with a vert of about 1000'. The biggest event is the ski jumping. This is not the terrain park stuff, I mean the long distance stuff ( the record is 330').

I managed to miss all the jumping events and did not want to miss the next event. This was the dual slalom snow bike race. This was happening right after dinner when the tired family wanted to just hang out. I couldn't stay cooped up while this was going on and decided to try and convince somebody to walk to the race with me. I got no takers and left the condo by myself. I brought 3 cans of Dales and an Ipod. I was walking to the race jamming to some killer old school Public Enemy and Rage Against the Machine when the course came into view. They had the lights on and people were screaming for the racers. The course had about 12 gates and two jumps. Riders were falling all over the place, on about every other turn, and I thought this would be a good race to show up to and easily win. After about 1/2 hour of watching I noticed the skill level was improving. I saw two racers going head to head battling it out when one falls down. The other rider saw this and decided to showboat across the finish line. He stood up on his bike with one foot on the seat and one on the bars, and raised his hands in victory reaching to the sky. This is all while riding on the snow. This got the crowd going. Definitely a great event to go see. I forgot to bring my camera, so the photos here were taken with my phone. These are the only ones that came out. The first is of a tire one of the racers was using. It had 2" screws sticking out every inch. The other photo is of the winner, I never did get his name.