Hey Tony,

How are things with you? Since you gave me your admin address, I figured I could just post a news on here instead of emailing you.

I'm still in France with Julien, Elina, Fabien and Phil Benjamin. The snow is really bad over here but we had to stick around because Cedric put together a rail demo for his store in La Plagne, last night. We were all supposed to do it but a rail took both Fabien and I out two days ago... I think you're familiar with that one..

As you can see, we put a lot of effort building the in-run. We made it all dope because we wanted to spin onto the rail (that's the whole reason why we went back to it) and we didn't want the in-run to be an issue.

Hitting it straight on wasn't to scary because we had the "luxury" of speed. We went a bit too big at first and then we hit it with less and less speed to land closer to the start of the rail. By the end of the session, we didn't even have to use our poles, we were able to just slide in. It was nice to have one less thing to think about. The extra 2 feet of in-run we had, made a huge difference, I'm sure. I can't remember who went first between you and Pep in 2003 but it must have been scary as hell with the in-run you guys had!!

After a few tries, I got a couple solid shots of hitting it straight-on, I should have felt happy at that point but instead, I started getting scared because I knew it was time to spin onto it. Either that or pack up and go home.

Ending the session there was out of the question though. I had been eyeing that rail for over a year and we had to go through too much trouble to get it going. It was our second day there, the day before, we had the whole set up almost ready when we got busted by the cops. The in-run was still holding up, the light was going to be good for another 15-20 minutes and nobody had came to tell us to leave yet. It was now or never.

I got to watch Fabien try first. He wanted to do a fakie left-side 2-in, which I think is completely crazy but he felt much more comfortable landing on the rail with his right foot forward. He said: "I don't know if I can do it, but I know how to find out!"

If you have the slightest understanding of how retarded it was to head down this short and narrow snow strip going fakie (and I know you do), then you'll probably think it's acceptable that he missed the rail entirely and crashed into the stairs. He bruised his stomach, knee, hip and elbow. He'll be fine but I think he's going to take it easy for a couple days..

I stood at the top of the in-run for a good 5 minutes and it felt like an eternity. You know, when you wait until you get the "good feeling" before you drop in? Sometimes it can take a while. It was very quiet. Elina, Julien and Phil were ready to roll at any time. They know that when the athlete yells: "ready?", they only have a short window to yell back: "ready!" The good feeling comes in waves and if you don't catch the first couple ones, you might miss the whole set...

Julien had a digi on a tripod, rolling the whole time. So I might put the whole thing, without cuts or music as a bonus for UP1.2.1, kind of like the "Seth Raw" thing we did this year.

Went I dropped in, I felt good but I was still very nervous. I went a bit too fast and I didn't lean forward quite enough -typical mistakes when you're hesitant. And as you probably know, that rail doesn't allow small mistakes...

My feet washed from underneath me, I fell to the bottom and hit my head on the last stair.

I passed out just for a few seconds and when I came to, I made a funny noise.. I felt like I woke up from a long, deep sleep in which I was dreaming about sessioning a scary rail. As if the past few hours didn't really happen. It was very confusing, I knew who I was and where I was but that's about it. Julien took me to the hospital where things started coming back to me. Diagnosis: concussion, my first and hopefully my last one.

I'm lucky, the only bummer is that I got crazy whiplash and now I have to wear one of those silly looking neck brace things and chill for a week. And I feel a bit stupid, not because of the neck brace but because I had been riding with my helmet most of the time so far this year and I forgot to bring it to the rail on that day. I didn't let it bother me because at that point, I was only focussing on things that would help me get the trick and I was blocking out all the rest.

It made me think a lot about how we often put our health on the line, without regards, just to "get the trick". It's kind of hard to rationalize so I don't like thinking about it. The explanation is not a logical one and it goes a lot further than just getting a shot for a movie. It's more of a personal thing..

If I would hit that rail again, I don't think I would put as much lip on the take off. It was nice to have the extra hang time to spin on, but we were coming down on the rail really hard and it made it very unforgiving. I won't go back though, I'm getting too old for that s%*t!

Later Tony,
Hope you are enjoying Utah.
JP