Call this Lane's confessional. I think it's time for me to come clean on a couple of things.
You know, all of this started innocently enough a few years back. Now it's escalated to a point where I'm just fooling myself and need to get this off my chest.
You see, one of the big jokes around here when we're looking at or showing around some cool photos (or watching videos) of a guy flying through the air on his sled doing some sick trick like a superman or dropping a gazillion feet off some cliff is to say, "That's me," or "I can do that."
Just a harmless joke, right? Well, I think I am taking it to extremes because I find myself saying that a lot lately. You can imagine we get a lot of photos of some pretty trick stuff coming through our office and I'm obsessed. The big air competitions have just made it worse. I'm really worried about what will happen when the new freestyle snocross circuit gets revved up this winter. Oh, man.
The truth is, I can't (or don't want to) do most of those tricks.
Sure I like to jump
Sure I like to hillclimb
-as long as there's a good run out with no trees. One of the last times I was hillclimbing on a tree-infested mountainside, I found myself on the ground looking up at the bumper of my sled; you know-lying lengthwise on my back right in front of the machine. Those riding with me said it was a beautiful 360-degree flip. You see, after I turned out on this mountainside, I noticed all the trees (there didn't seem to be that many when I was climbing) and it wasn't until I turned out that I realized how greasy the snow was: read, no braking. I had visions of myself as the pin ball in a pin ball game, binging and banging off trees as I descended the mountain way too fast. I managed to miss all the trees but I was so busy worrying about the tree thing, I failed to notice the creek bed at the bottom of the hill. I lawn darted the sled into the other side of the creek bed and did a fluid, graceful flip right over the windshield and hood.
Sure I can do a superman
-but it's always by accident, never on purpose. It usually happens after I hit a big whoop and am hanging onto the handlebars for dear life. I don't think I've ever been fully extended but I remember a couple of times I was more perpendicular to the machine than horizontal with it.
Sure I can drop off mountains
-but it's usually only after I've decided I'd rather do that than get left behind and be lost. As bad as I am at math, I think I'm worse at directions (all the trees look alike to me). I'm sure some of you have heard my story about dropping off Yahoo Ridge. I think I've been scarred for life.
Sure I can do a nac nac
-but the conditions have to be just right, like everything has to be perfectly still, including the sled. When I'm doing this trick, it may look like I'm simply getting off the sled, but I'm really doing a nac nac . I think I can, I think I can.
I feel much better now that I've come clean with all you
SnoWest readers. And I've made a goal to try and get back on the straight and narrow . that is until the snow flies.