June 2012 Crest

I have posted about the Wasatch Crest a number of time on this site, and I wont go into great detail on the ride here as far as the specific trail details. What I will relate, once again, is how awesome this trail is.

Let me start by saying that despite the trail parking lots being absolutely mobbed, the trail is big enough to accommodate a large number of riders and we were never held up too long; by riders other than us, that is.

Okay, so I will expound a little on the trail via the My Tracks map

View Crest in a larger map

Click here if you are interesting in the telemetrics of the decent down the, mostly, deserted Millcreek canyon road.

So let me expound the highlights

No bones were broken
No bikes were broken
No tubes were changed
Only 1 person barfed at the top of puke hill

All in All a resounding success.

Also, in case you're wondering why puke hill is so bad? 500 vertical feet in half a mile, yeah its pretty much strait up a mountain side. Click on the end point on the map to display the graph and take a look at the first big hill you see. Yeah.

As for failures? Well, that was mostly in my court. I really have a conflict between wanting to be present for the ride, and stopping to get good footage. The GoPro has been great for cataloging the ride without user operation, but on the flipside, its really only a tool to get cutaway shots or "holy crap you have to be kidding me" shots. Since we don't get the later, we are stuck with a lot of the former.

As an editor, there is only so much I can do with that type of footage. The GH2 takes great "A" material and when I take the time to get it out it really makes the action pop...but I have a hard time doing it since it takes time, and then everyone rides in front of me. I need to either be a much faster or much slower rider to take more "A" material footage.

The other problem is that...well, despite my best intentions I often totally screw up. My plan was to get as many cameras as I could (up to 5) and get multi-angle goodness. It ended up being a disaster of 2 cameras of which only one angle was any good, and because I put the wrong SD card in one and it ran out, I assumed the other camera had run out too and I put it away (filming the whole while in my bag) down the prettiest and most enjoyable part of the ride. So...Sorry for the video thats not so great.

As least it snapped a few good pictures