Close to 30 people representing 12 Trips for Kids chapters attended, and two attendees even came from as far away as Israel and New Zealand. Both of them want to open Trips for Kids chapters in their respective countries, which would be the first international chapters in the organizations 20 year history. Trips for Kids provides mountain bike rides for at-risk youth.

During the Trips for Kids conference topics such as how to start a chapter, how to find and work with volunteers, and how to effectively fundraise were discussed. Along with Jen Nibley, director of Trips for Kids Utah Valley, and Rick McFerrin of Two Wheel View/Trips for Kids Calgary, Canada, I spoke to the group about how to approach and work with a public relations agency on a pro-bono basis.

IMBA, which stands for the International Mountain Bicycling Association, is a non-profit association whose mission is to “create, enhance and preserve great trail experiences for mountain bikers worldwide.” Every two years, IMBA holds a world-wide conference bringing mountain biking advocates, land managers, ski resort professionals, trailbuilders, park and urban planners, tourism officials and the bike industry together for collaboration, planning, and celebration. This year’s Summit runs from Wednesday, June 18 through Saturday, June 21 at the Marriott-Park City.

During the opening ceremonies held at the Utah Olympic Park, Utah Governor and avid mountain biker, Jon M. Huntsman, Jr. welcomed the crowd. He joked that he was “whizzed” that he had to show up in a suit, instead of casual clothes like everyone else. He’s a big supporter of mountain biking and shared use trails in Utah.

Another highlight of the opening ceremonies was a freestyle arials show at the Utah Olympic Park aerials splash pool performed by “The Flying Aces.” The Flying Aces consists of some of the world’s top freestyle skiers and they flew off the parks artificial turf ski jumps into a huge pool.

IMBA’s Executive Director Mike Van Abel was an honorary Flying Aces team member and started off the show with the first jump. His form wasn’t so hot, but I think he made us all jealous by being the one chosen to get some big air. That’s Mike in the photo above, upside down and wearing a dry suit for the 60 degree water.

As I’m writing this post, it’s Thursday night. I attended some of the seminars during the day, got caught up with some emails in the afternoon, and tonight attended the Mountain Bike Film Festival at the Park City Library. The event was produced by FeedTheHabit.com as a fundraiser for Park City’s Mountain Trails Foundation. The film festival featured a great freeride/downhill movie by The Collective called “Seasons.” You have to see it.

On a side note, at the film festival they raffled off a bunch of prizes (i.e. sunglasses, forks, cranksets, gloves, etc.). The grand prize was a GT Marathon mountain bike. My wife and I were dreaming of winning the bike (Since we hadn’t won anything during the raffle up to that point). But, no such luck. Guess who won it, Melanie Muranaka, Lester Muranaka of Delta 7 Sports’ wife. It’s a small world in the mountain bike community/Utah/PR world (Delta 7 is also one of our clients).

I’ll be up at the IMBA Summit again tomorrow (Friday) for more seminars.

When the Olympics were in town (Salt Lake City 2002), the only event I went to was the skeleton. I had always been a fan of the sliding sports (luge, skeleton, bobsled) and I wanted to attend one of these events when the Olympics rolled into town. So we went to the skeleton.

Last week, I had the opportunity of a lifetime. It was the first time I had been back to the Olympic Park since the day that Jimmy Shea took the gold for the United States. It was a Father’s Day present from my parents to take a ride in the bobsled. And what an experience.

Leading up to the ride, I read all of the information about how fast you go (up to 70 mph), how many Gs you pull (4 Gs), how far you drop (the equivalent of a 40-story building), how banged up you may become, etc. They even had me sign a waiver in case you die. So naturally, my anticipation and anxiety were at peak capacity.

They give you a whole bunch of instructions, ensure you’re equipped with a helmet and load you into the sled one-by-one. They buckle you in and give you straps to hang onto during the ride. It’s a very tight fit. The sled itself is equipped with a roll cage in case you crash at those high speeds.

So, as we loaded ourselves into the sled, I’m thinking two thoughts: 1- Please let us live, and 2 – please let us beat my brothers (who were in the next sled). As soon as we were situated, we were cleared to go, and off we went.

It’s hard to explain what happens on the ride. There are a bunch of turns, a lot of speed and some incredible G-forces. But it was awesome! We finished with the top time of the day at 101.97 and the fastest speed of the day at 68.3 mph to that point.

What an adrenaline rush it was! It had to be one of my favorite rides of all time, rivaling some of the roller coasters or ziplines I’ve been on.

So, if you’re ever in Park City, and you’re in good health, stop by the Olympic Park to check out the fun adventures. It was sweet!

This weekend was the 2008 Sprint U.S. Freestyle Championships at Deer Valley and Shelly was back in town. David and I were lucky to have met Shelly several months ago on a flight back from a client meeting. A couple months later, Shelly came to Utah for the Visa Freestyle International and I had chance to go to breakfast with her the Friday before competition.

The next day my wife, Debbie and I went to Deer Valley to watch Shelly compete, but an ill-timed exit from the chairlift made it so we missed watching Shelly win! (Deb and I were riding the chair down from the race course to get warm, didn’t have skis on and had to sprint out of the way of the chair and Deb didn’t quite make it. The chair hit her, knocking her to the ground. She felt a little loopy, so we went home.) David was there for Shelly’s win and has been meaning to blog about it for awhile.

This time Shelly was in Utah to compete for the national title in individual and dual moguls. She’s been the Duals National Champion for the last three years straight. Deer Valley’s Champion run, where the course was set, is one of Shelly’s favorites. It’s one of the steepest on the circuit, which makes it a very technical course with lots of speed.

At Saturday’s individual mogul competition Shelly did great. It was a U.S. Ski Team sweep with teammate, Emiko Torito winning the gold, Shelly captured Silver and Hannah Kearney took bronze.

Sunday I had a chance to watch Shelly in the dual moguls competition. I missed the morning’s qualifications, but when I arrived at the mountain I found out Shelly was the number one seed out of 16 competitors and was slated to ski first in the next round. Shelly would ski against the 16th seeded racer, Kristi Waring of Centennial, Colorado, and as the top seed, would get to choose which side of the course to ski, either the blue course on the left or the red course on the right. Both courses had rock hard bumps with about 2 to 3 inches of snow in the troughs (the course received a light dusting the night before and on and off during the day). Shelly chose the blue course.

I climbed up the left side of the course about 50 feet above the last jump with my camera. I was there during the final practice session before Shelly’s run. During practice, Shelly came slowly down the course memorizing each mogul. She was focused on winning this event.

At around 2:00 it was time for Shelly’s run. She looked very smooth and fast at the top, landed her first jump easily and was about 30 to 4o feet ahead of Waring. I got some good shots of Shelly as she went by. I stopped taking pictures just as she was about to go off the last jump.

Shelly did a beautiful iron cross backflip, got her skis back under her, but landed a little bit short. Less than a second later, her tips caught some loose snow, crossed just a little and she went down. The speed Shelly was carrying into the bottom section allowed her to pop right back up, like nothing happened, and cross the finish line – still about 30 to 40 feet ahead of Waring. It was up to the judges whether or not Shelly went on to the next round.

The judges assign points on how well the athletes do allocated between 50 percent turns and 25 percent jumps. They really wanted to give the win to Shelly. She is a crowd favorite, had improved a lot this year and this would be her fourth straight Duals National Championship, if she won.

It took a little longer than normal for the judges to tally up their points, but since Shelly landed a little short and fell in the last few moguls, she took a big hit in points and lost the round. Shelly couldn’t move on to the next round to defend her title.

I ran down the hill to see Shelly. When I got to the bottom, she was talking with her mom behind the announcers’ stage. She was upset about losing the run on such a simple mistake, but wasn’t overly angry or depressed. She was very gracious when I went up to speak with her.

Shelly’s a great athlete with a great heart and she loves skiing – all forms of skiing – not just moguls. Now that the mogul season is over, she wants to do some freeskiing with family and friends, and after that she’s off to compete in the 2008 Subaru Freeskiing World Championships in Alyeska, Alaska (It’s is not a mogul event. Shelly is a great all mountain skier as well).

The next day, Shelly and I had a chance to have lunch together. We talked about her skiing career, sponsorship issues, the Olympics (That’s her next big goal), her post U.S. Ski team career (possibly start a freeskiing clinic or become a guide for a couple years), and finally, her goal to be an elementary school teacher (besides being a competitor, she is also a student. All she has left to earn her teaching credential is her student teaching, which she will finish partially this year and next).

Shelly works hard. Ski industry sponsorship outside the team is difficult to come by (Industry sponsors pay into the U.S. Ski Team’s sponsorship pool and they often don’t have much left for the athletes individually. The U.S. Ski Team covers team members’ airfare and lodging). In the non-winter months and between races, team members need to cover their own living expenses, which can be tough if you’re trying to train, go to school and work at the same time.

If you are looking to or know of someone who wants to sponsor an Olympic athlete, a great woman who will have some great stories to tell her future elementary students, then Shelly’s the perfect person.

We look forward to helping Shelly in anyway we can and cheering her on.