Mountain Biking goes 'Full Tilt in Telluride' this weekend
by D. Dion
The first time Full Tilt came to Mountain Village, I went up to see my friend race on the downhill course. She is a pro downhill mountain biker, but I hadn’t ever watched a race, and even though I sat with her as she put on her padded suit of body armor I still was in disbelief as I hiked up the course. It looked impossible to ride, full of huge drops, severe turns and impenetrable trees and rocks. Could this be the actual course?
It was. This was probably ten years ago, and already mountain biking had progressed far beyond the old hard-tail bikes and slow, smooth rides I started on. Front shocks, rear shocks, beefy wheel hubs and a full-face helmet—and the body armor—pushed the sport to a whole new level. You could have fit a Subaru beneath some of the jumps my friend went off that day, and the wipeouts were so spectacular that I wished I’d brought a video camera. I was hooked.