For those of you who have mourned the loss of the Triple Crown series from the late ’90s through 2001, start getting your DH bikes dusted off.  Ryan Taylor, the man behind the currently-on-hiatus 26 West Mountain Bike park in Asheville is busy building a “fast, technical downhill course similar to World Cup style” downhill trail at Beech Mountain in Banner Elk, NC.  It’ll be a DH series only for ’09, with plans to expand to XC and Dual Slalom next year…just like the good ol’ days.
They’ll be hosting a 3-race series this summer (June 27-28, August 1-2 and Sept 5-6).  The course will be open on the Saturday before for practice and course inspection, and again for an hour on Sunday before the races start.  Course inspection will be mandatory.
According to Taylor, the course will use the full elevation (about 850 ft) of the mountain and be up to 1.5 miles long.  No word on whether the course will change from race to race.  He’ll be sending us some helmet-cam and other footage once the course is complete, and sometime soon more info will be available via Beech Mtn’s website.  Of course, we’ll keep you posted, too.
BTW, the word on 26 West is there is no word.  Taylor said he may hold a few races there this year, but otherwise it’s closed due to the economic climate not really supporting it.
