Andrew I

My 14^th Birthday at Bryce Mountain Bike Park

I was sliding down a dusty dirt trail on my side with clouds of dirt spilling through my full face helmet. My dad had already left me in the dust and was hundreds of feet ahead of me. This was my first crash at the Bryce Resort downhill mountain bike park.

But before I get into that story let me give a little bit of background on my life. I started mountain biking when I was very young. In fact my mother crashed and went over her handlebars while I was still in the womb, and when I was born my father put a picture of I guy downhill mountain biking next to me when they put me in that plastic capsule they put babies in at the hospital. Then later in life I participated in my first ever mountain bike race at the age of three. Ever since then I’ve been riding and racing mountain bikes.

Now back to the story. I first got the inspiration to go Downhill Mountain biking from YouTube videos, and I really wanted a long travel full suspension mountain bike called a Slash for my birthday. The Slash is an extremely expensive bike,  and I knew most likely that I wasn’t going to get one, so instead I asked if I could go to the Bryce Resort downhill mountain bike park for a day because they had the bike I wanted as one of their rental options.

The day of my 14^th birthday had finally come and my dad had agreed to take me to Bryce as my birthday present. I had woken up at 6:00 that morning so we would get there as soon as the park opened. That’s when one of the greatest days of my life started. I first had to get through with the most antagonizing parts of the day which was filling out paperwork saying I wouldn’t sue them if I crashed or some nonsense like that and waiting for them to set up my rental bike for my weight and height. It took like 30 minutes before they gave my bike to me. Then I was finally ready to start down hilling.

One of the most interesting parts of the day was riding the lift up to the top of the mountain. What made it so interesting were the people I rode up with to the top. For example I met this kid who was a few years younger than me who was riding alone at the park while his parents hung out at a nearby pool. Another interesting person that I didn’t meet but found funny was this guy who put his bike on the same rack your bike was on, but would then he would not want to socialize with you so he would sit a lift behind you.

Another cool part about my day was listening to all the stories about the wrecks that had happened that day. The day I went there were three big wrecks that everyone was talking about. I even saw one of them. The first one that happened and also the one I saw was a guy came off a big ramp and landed on his side and broke his hip. He then just laid on the ground silent for about 45 minutes. The second wreck that happened was an older man who was going too fast lost control and smashed his face into a tree. The third and final wreck I heard about was probably the most gruesome. A guy crashed broke his arm and his bone stuck through his elbow and it was a bloody mess.

The best part of the day was the down hilling. The great thing about it was the adrenaline rush I got from the wind whipping at my face as I weaved through trees at breakneck speeds. Another thing that was great about the down hilling was going over massive jumps and soaring through the air.

My time at the bike park greatly affected how I see mountain biking today and how I ride mountain bikes. It also helped motivate me to work and save for 5 months to finally get my own awesome full suspension mountain bike. It’s not the crazy expensive Slash that I had dreamed of getting but I still love it.