Geoff and I raced the Gang Battle (odd name?) at the Dakine Freeride Festival in Saalbach-Hinterglemm. I’ve never done a mass start downhill before, but it was super rad. The format was pretty simple, there was a 30 man qualifying heat, in which some dude took me out in a burm and I got run over (awesome feeling).

I ended up finishing 12/30, so I was pretty disappointed with that after feeling fast in practice. Geoff was 3rd in his heat, and overall he was 43rd fastest and I was 48th. I was relegated to the second row for Sundays final which featured the fastest 120 people of the 300-something that qualified.

In the end I finished up 21st, and Geoff was 23rd. It was super fun, although pretty sketchy as some moments. The tight parts in the woods were pretty frustrating getting stuck behind some slower dudes, and then having to make up the pass on the fireroads. Regardless, I am pretty fired up on the concept, hopefully I will have the opportunity to do some more races like this in the future.

Key moments in the video include the dude getting taken out at the start, and then proceeding to get run over, and then me passing Geoff a minute in. haha.