Thredbo.

I can now officially say that the Thredbo DH course has a big tick beside it. Blackbettysdad and I ducked up their for a days riding yesterday.

First impressions is it's LONG! I think the course is 3km long with 600m decent. It has so much variation between slow highly technical and open fast areas which makes for very exiting DHing. We were surprised to see that the chairlifts had not yet been converted to accommodate for bikes and this meant lots of dead legs when we hopped off after a freezing ride up to the top nursing out bikes. Dad hired a Kona Stinky and found it to be very forgiving in the technical sections with a much slacker head angle than he was used to. Despite being able to roll the entire course, there was plent of opportunity to send it. (Especially that last drop out of the trees before the end). We did 6 runs and decided that another one would have spelt disaster and called it quits.

We were also trying out some of the new protective kit we decided to get for the trip. Its a big confidence booster to know that the spine and chest is reasonably protected whilst your hurtling down at rapid rate of knots. It was also the first time we'd worn full faces. I found it very comfortable and snug but Dad found his spacial awareness a bit off compared to a norma (half face??) helmet. Not sure I have anymore excuses for trying that north-shore drop at Ourimbah left.

On a completely different note, we went down to bike addiction to kit ourselves out and a young Frenchman by the name of Nicco was kind enough to let me have a crack on his $10k+ Nicolai Ion ST with yet to be introduced to Australia BOS fork and shocks. All I can say is I wish I had a spare $10k lying around because that thing was just mint! It lurched forwards like a XC hardtail and it just felt like you could send it off anything. A lot of people say that anything above $5-6k is a waste of money but after sitting on that I beg to differ. Im continuing on my quest to sit on every DH bike in creation before I buy. Hopefully by the time I've done that I'll have enough saved up! Better start saving...

P.S sorry but we didn't get a chance to take any picys for the site.