Have you watched the World Cup Downhill course previews with Claudio? They are Gopro/Redbull footage with a microphone inside his full face. INTENSE and hilarious! I started watching them last year and now I’m hooked! Here is his course preview from Windham, Leolang, Val di Sole and Carins. Just google Claudio Down Hill Course Preview and you can get all of them. I'm telling you, you'll be entertained and get your blood pumping!

Next, have you watched the Red Bull Rampage? If you haven’t stop reading and click HERE NOW! Last fall I was pondering many things, reading a great book and watching the Red Bull Rampage. That’s when it all fell into place for me. The book asked the question, “What would you do if you had 7 days left to live”? I have a list with a few things that would surprise you but I decided at the end of day 7 I would ride the Rampage course. I’d put it all out there, open up the brakes, ride that gap. I probably wouldn’t make the gap, and that is how I want to die. My friend posted this Hunter S. Thompson quote on Instagram the other day "Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thouroghly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a ride!"

---- I want to ride that course, I want to know what it feels like to go off stuff that big. I want to get MASSIVE, UNREASONABLE amounts of air. I suppose I was meant to be a downhiller but got into too late, I have the reasonable part of my brain too enact. I’m also a mother to a beautiful child that I wouldn’t trade for anything (not even that gap jump!). So I probably won’t ever ride that course. But a girl can dream right?

Now you have the background…these are those guys. I had dinner with them (and the rest of the Gstaad-Scott team) Sunday night. Before I realized who they were it was just a regular fun conversation about racing DH and XC and world cups. Then Brendan started talking about racing a 3/4 road crit in the UK and how he was cutting the inside corners and hopping curbs (on a road bike). Then at some point he asked me to open youtube on my phone…this is the link he brought up; Brendan Fairclough launching over a canyon gap. I about fell off my chair. This kid that doesn’t look far out of his teenage years was one of those riders. And I was talking to him. Then I was told who Claudio was. I was officially star struck. They are just regular people that are crazy talented on the bike.

So my weekend was made. All the other minor disappointments from the weekend melted away, that is what being start stuck does to you!

Brendan, Erica, Claudio