Campionato del Mondo

Teolo, Italy

About an hour outside of Venice is a set of hills. Towards the top of one of the hills lies the small village of Teolo. The town has a square, a couple of churches, and a small convenience store that passes as the local super market. Just above the town is a couple of buildings that makes up Castlenuovo.

Graveyard Call

Argonay, France

Nestled in the foothills of the French Alps sits Lake Annecy, with the Venice of the Alps on its shores. On the outskirts of Annecy is the small town of Argonay, most of which is situated on a hill side. Above Argonay lies a small forest. The course starts in the forest and ends just before the church in Argonay.

Almabtrieb

World Championships

Hungerzell, Germany

Not far from the Czech Republic border, in the Bayer-Wald Nature Preserve lies some rolling hills and some small German villages. At the top of one hill is Hungerzell, a village of a half dozen houses. Neukirchen is a slightly larger town near the bottom of the hill, complete with a bank and several restaurants. There were some sports fields, and a horse farm. In between these two villages was a smooth, fast but technical course.

We had several days between two races with no real idea where to go. Bob was leaving, and the cheapest flight was out of Zurich. Our plan was to go to Zurich for one day, then head of to somewhere else. But about a week before we went we were invited to the European premier of a movie that Marcus played a role in. The premier was two days after Bob’s flight. We decided to stay in Zurich, until we found out how expensive hotels were. At the last minute, Ramone, a fellow rider, offered us to stay at his place.

We went down to Rome for a few days, with the main purpose of visiting Pompeii. Our train arrived about 7PM, but it was dark by the time we got a hotel, and got checked in, and had dinner. But it was a full moon, so we decided to check out some of the ruins by the light of the full moon.

We have two or three days between races, and we generally try to go someplace cool. Someplace on the way to the next race. It splits the train trip up, and gives us some more places to see. Sometimes we plan it out, and sometimes we wing it. Today we wung it (or rather we did yesterday.) Our goal was Lake Constance, a large fresh water lake on the border between Germany and Switzerland. It is a big resort destination, and I figured it would be the perfect place to relax between Almabtrieb and Graveyard Call.

Travelling on trains through Europe is sometimes the easiest way to travel. You can get to about anywhere, and you don’t have to deal with extra baggage fees the airports charge. Of course a single train trip can cost the same amount as a plane flight! Using a rail pass that is good for multiple days makes train travel cost effective.

Maryhill Festival of Speed

Goldendale, WA

For the fourth straight year Maryhill Loops Road will host the Maryhill Festival of Speed. I think this is the eight downhill race held on this hill, by various organizations. The road is the first paced road in the state of Washington, and heads down the hill towards the Columbia River. Once again the campground was 10 miles away in the small town of Goldendale.

Vernon Downhill

North American Championships

Vernon, BC, Canada

Vernon is a small town in the Okanagan Valley. The town sits at the northern tip of Kalamalka lake, and just minutes from Okanagan Lake. As one of the warmest regions of Canada, and sitauated on a beautiful lake, the region sees a lot of tourists activity. Vernon is also home of 2009 IGSA Skateboard Champion, Misho Erban.

January first of 2001 I brought chrismcb.com online. When I first got into street luge I spent months poring over the handful of luge pictures that were online. I decided that I would take lots of pictures at the races and post them online. I also really enjoyed the events, and wanted to share that excitement with others. At the time I wanted the website to be simple, and not have any fancy javascript stuff. But now pretty much every website has some sort of javascript, and with several good browsers to choose from their is no reason not to have a site that runs some javascript.