Purgatory Resort

#followcamfriday revisiting Purgatory Resort after 16 years with Joey Schusler and Carston Oliver.

I raced DH in Purgatory in 2005. This was my first trip back to ride the resort since then. Back in the day, the DH track here was regarded as the best in the states. This was the track that everyone wanted to race when downhill was still figuring itself out in Colorado. The perfect blend of raw speed, drops, jumps and steeps to keep racers engaged. World Cup was truly an amazing track. I broke my back a little bit on that track. 

The tracks have always been there, whether the chair was running or not, occasionally ridden and maintained by locals. In recent years, Purgatory has been maintaining the original trails and making drastic improvements to the existing tracks. It was quite a pleasure to revisit this place and see trail work being done and the scene starting to grow again. 

,Joey Schusler, Carston Oliver, myself and 450 other Yeti freaks were in town for the event now known as The Gathering. After missing last year due to the pandemic, everyone was in great spirits and rightfully so. It was truly enjoyable to drink beer, ride bikes, and eat good food together after the last year of chaos. There was definitely a collective feeling of relief at the party, people just being content hanging out with other people. How refreshing. 

I had the pleasure of racing the Big Mountain Enduro event last week on these tracks. This was my first race, post-covid. I definitely have missed the scene and the people, the things that have always made bike racing so special to me. It was great to catch up with people I had not seen in a couple of years. It is worth noting that BME did an amazing job with the race. The tracks were proper scary, as they should be. There was enough pedaling on the transfers to keep people honest and make for well-rounded racing. Kudos. 

What a legend Carston Oliver is. We had not ridden together since we spent 10 days bikepacking in the Bolivian Andes in 2016. An experience like that makes people life long friends, and it was great to ride with Carston again after 5 years. Carston is a pro skier and basically rides for "fun", but is one of the strongest and most skilled athletes I have ever known. Joey Schusler "hasn't been riding much" but still somehow seems to be able to ride faster than everyone, despite spending most of his time holding a camera or editing in a cave. 

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So there you have it. To summarize, bikes are fun, Purg is rad, racing is cool, and most of all, being able to hang out with people I have not seen in many years is very special. I spend a ton of time staring at my computer and real human interaction is increasingly important to me. This place and the people involved will always be a special one for me. History shouldn't be a mystery.