LamaCycles Distribution / NS Bikes rider Glenn King took part for a second year in a row in the Silver Star Bike Park Freeride Fest. Here's his story.

"What a crazy weekend of riding, just like that Silver Star Freeride Fest is done for another year and I am happy to have been a part of such a wicked slope style event for the second year now. This years course was the same as last year with a few minor tweaks to a few lips and landings that definitely made the course even more fun then before. After a few car problems on the drive down we finally arrived in Silver star wednesday night just before midnight. We quickly got to sleep and awoke the next morning to a bluebird day! 
 

Photo: Kayleb Funk

Day 1 consisted of riding big bikes on the wicked lift accessed trails that silver star has to offer, couldn't have asked for a better day of laps! 
 

Photo: Nick Van Berkel

Day 2 was the first day of practice for slope style. I got fairly comfortable with the course early on as it was so similar to last year, I took it pretty easy and just flowed through the course a bunch having a good time with friends. I was stoked to get my first 360 on a real drop later on in the day, and decided to end the day on that note.
 

Photo: Simon Karrer

Day 3 was contest day with more practice on course, followed by qualifiers and then finals. Practice went well again and I took the time to continue to get comfortable with all my tricks on the course. Qualifiers was a jam format with 3 hours to try and put a run together to impress the judges. A 3 hour jam form at seemed like a lot of time to get some runs in, but with so many people hoping to qualify everyone quickly realized that they were only going to get a few chances to put a run together. I blew my first run by overshooting the first feature and then slipping a pedal on a tail whip. Was a bit nervous at this point as I had not messed up my run at all yet, and this was definitely not the time to start. After some waiting up top I was able to drop again and got a pretty solid run in. Near the end of the jam the judges allowed you to see if you had qualified, they were taking 12 Amateurs and 14 Pro's. I was signed up for Pro so i knew it wasn't going to be easy to claim one of those 14 spots. I spoke with the judges and I was just outside of the top 14. Soon after they announced that they would be adding 10 more minutes to qualifiers, giving me one more chance to stomp a run that would get me into finals. I dropped in and got my tricks big and clean, adding a backflip tuck no hander to the jump I was previously only backflipping. I got my run and could not have been more stoked, whether I qualified or not I did a run with solid tricks on every feature that I was more then stoked on. After some impatient waiting the judges announced the qualifiers for the two categories. I managed to make top 14 in Pro which meant I was going to the finals! 
 

Photo: Simon Karrer

Finals format was two runs, best run counts. I wanted to get the same run from qualifiers for my first run to make sure I could get a full run down. I got to the bottom and got my full run clean again, way too stoked! For my second run I wanted to step it up a bit. the first feature was a fair sized boner log that i was previously doing no foot cans on. I wanted to tail whip the boner log and then oppo tailwhip the jump after that I was doing regular tailwhips on in my previous run. Unfortunately I blew a pedal and got a bit sketchy on the tailwhip on the boner and rode off course a bit and wasn't able to get a full run, but thats the way she goes and I couldn't have asked for a better weekend riding with homies. My first runs score got me 11th which I was stoked on with the insane level of riding from everyone! Overall a great contest and can't wait to go back next year!"

- Glenn