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US Open weekend feels like the right time for a 30-year throwback to the classic NORBA National era.
I’ve been slowly digitizing and archiving all our old 90s VHS tapes so this history doesn't get lost. Here’s the 1996 Deer Valley National broadcast on ESPN. My better half, Leigh Donovan, took the double win in Elite Women’s DH and Dual Slalom that weekend!
It was an awesome event, though as the team wrench back then, I vividly remember we went through some wheels and the dust was pretty savage on fork seals.
Thanks for posting this a great trip down memory lane.
How often were you replacing seals? How did the Outland frames hold up that season?
Outland season for us was 1996, we ran outland frames with Mongoose decals, season prior in 1995 when leigh won worlds, we rode handmade Nicolai frames with mongoose decals (And the last 2 seasons on Mongoose, were Intense M1's with mongoose decals....we basically started that whole fad of riding for a bike brand that did not make DH worthy bikes and the moment Leigh and Lopes rode Palmers intense-it was game over "we have to ride that frame")...so that being said, the outland season was insane; we headed to first world cup in panticosa Spain, I brought 2 spare front ends in addition to their built bikes. First day of practice, they cracked the frames-both Leigh and Brian, I built up the spares and those broke on day 2. I called Byron Friday (BMX legend who worked for mongoose) to come fly out with more frames and lots of JB weld, so he arrived 30 hours later...this was back when it was many days of practice. It was a total shit show.
Outland welded up some beefy versions for the next race, and we eventually were going through frames less. The little vpp linkages down below were total garbage too, a dodgy bushing setup with c clips. Being a race tech in the 90's was literally the worst job due to the inferior product and sending your athletes (and in my case, my girlfriend, down a mountain knowing something would fail).
The Rockshox era was pretty damn good actually, on seals, the only place we had severe trouble was mammoth-that pumice ate seals alive, if you notice some mammoth coverage, boxxers had big rubber boots in later years which sacrificed performance but we could make it through a weekend.
Wrenches these days, having luxury time to put oil in hub bearings and solder spokes, pfffff
P.S. added a couple dozen more videos, gonna keep adding them.
I've been doing the same thing with my old VHS tapes! I've gone through about 5 tapes so far, about 50 to go. I made a whole new Youtube channel just for it - Downhill Rewind
1997 Deer Valley
1998 Deer Valley
All this Deer Valley talk- Bart McDaniel’s winning the DS there over Lopes in ‘97 still stands up as one of the most exciting Saturday nights of my life.
It was certainly a heck of a lot cooler than Bender’s huck in the parking lot earlier that afternoon.
With the crowds of kids Utah can turn out to spectate, it’s a real shame that the USOpen crew quit running DS… The worlds simplest grass slalom is still so much cooler than a pyramid of giza sized whip-off jump.
I had heard those frames didn't hold up well. I was at Mont Ste Anne in 96 to see Leigh win the world cup race, and raced there in 97 on a Mongoose that actually held together for the weekend.
Thanks for sharing these stories add more anytime you can! Such a great era of DH racing.
Bender’s huck was way later than ‘97.
It was during the 02-05 era.
It was before 2001. I walked over to the Bender retaining wall in 2001.
Stupidest thing you could ever see in person.
Vertical wall to a massive ditch to pavement. It was impossible then & it would be impossible now.
That had to be the most depressing thing to watch.
I was trying to find a video to see what you guys were talking about and found this article.
https://www.deseret.com/2000/7/31/19521190/stunt-biker-taken-to-hospita…
Okay, I was also wrong. Year 2000.
I was there (and 14 it turns out, the first year I would’ve attended). The rumblings around the pits before the jump was interesting.
If you are between 5'8" to 5'11" it seems like it is still a good enough fit. Sam Hill and other shorter pro riders doing "retro" ride videos don't seem to be too bothered. 6ft and up, probably not. I have an "XL" 2013 V 10 with a ridiculous 445mm reach, I'm 6'2" not so much. I loved the long low and slack while it lasted.
Hah! I raced Deer Valley in 2000 as well! And watched the Bender retaining wall drop. Was very much a SMDH moment.
I've always wanted to hear the view point of someone watching him do it live. I mean...I saw the wall. The ditch.
What was it like looking and knowing you were gonna see him wreck...and knowing it would be gruesome.
@Grave I found it. It's this first one.
Can't explain it without seeing in person how terminal that parking lot is until you're there looking up.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C_Vwl9Iso3d/
More gruesome angle:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DACmoBnRxx1/
hell yes! I am so pumped to throw this crate of tapes out! Ive got about 20 or so in, 30 to go as well!
As BL's mech during that time, he was so pissed, but that is expected, Lopes and Leigh were the king and queen of slalom-without a doubt.
Like others said, not sure of the bender huck year, but I know I was there when he tried and we had zero interest in watching that stunt, we were high octane race vibes 24-7 haha. I do remember I had my XR200 in the trailer that year, no lights and rode it around town sunday night after partying, that was the year Palmer and Voreis climbed street lamps on main street and the cops came, chased us around town-but we had the mini motos and XR to get away....what dipshits and thank god there was no cell phones as we always say.
1/2 the Pro field was at the bottom of that drop waiting for Bender to send it so they could sprint to the chairlift for qualifying. It was a pretty crazy spectacle.
I was just watching my old green VHS tape of Headliners from ‘98 with the Bender huck.
Stik,
At what point during the Outland era did the downtube get bi-ovalized? It must have been right at the end of production, because that tube was in stock at one of the domestic bike tube wholesalers well into this millennium.
As far as I know, Lopes ended up racing that downtube again welded into a couple “GT” hardtails that actually originated in Durango. It was THICC.
Krispy still at GoRide? If this is you? Bet you gave zero thought to hucking that wall. 🤣
Yeah... at the time Bender was getting a lot of attention in magazines and videos. The rumors started about the drop on, maybe Wednesday? I was fully into purist mode, not at all into the freeride scene as I felt that it sullied the sanctity of racing (hah!)
I went to the parking lot with my buddies out of morbid curiosity, not knowing exactly where he was going to drop off the retaining wall. I remember him coming out and standing on the edge, and thinking, "am I going to see someone die today?"
I can remember the CLANK of his suspension bottoming out, and the thud of him hitting the road, and thinking that I had indeed watched someone commit involuntary suicide.
Nah I haven’t worked there in a few years.
I was at the top- I encouraged him to take one pedal crank and I do believe he could have hit the sweet spot- not sure if he would have made it through the ditch and onto the road but he would have slit rather than slapped down. He said he was just gonna ride off it and I knew it was going to go very badly. All I could do was watch exactly what I was afraid would happen.
I was traumatized. He said demons were circling but he would never pull out with a crowd watching. By the end of the summer I was over it.
I did race that day and I was at the Open last weekend- probably a bigger crowd in 2026! Only a fraction of the teams though. Used to be Rock Shox Devo, park neutral support, Fox, Shimano, sram, Maxxis, everyone.
Oh and I raced this one in 1996- I got my first full face the day before. Had my sweet Karpiel VRS with a Manitou EFC.
Oh man, not sure about that especially as it pertains to calling it a outland era tube? I was lopes wrench 95-96-97-98, then we reunited at GT, 2002-2003-2004 and I know I was having his frames made by chris herting and or billy griggs, Billy for sure made his suspension bikes because he had the GT fixtures post bankruptcy and I do remember driving up to easton in van nuys to get tubesets. That post bankruptcy GT era was a complete shit show as all the old product was gone, former employees stole it, kept it, etc...we were running on fumes. I was involved in the schwinn (GT) bankruptcy in 2001, so they owed me about $28k of my salary and when the new owners of GT came to me to come have me work for Lopes, I said "no way, unless you pay me X amount" which they did, and we also got a little bit of cheddar in the buyout settlement, I think of that 28k I got about 8k? the pro riders (Leigh on schwinn, Lopes and Peaty on GT, etc etc, were owed 100s of thousands collectively and they all got a fraction of what they were owed).
Good place to debut a full face hahaha, what a tragic course.
Did Brian or Leigh ever race on Mongoose made frames or were they all custom built?
Thank you for the perspective man. Nobody on this earth I'd trust more to have relay that story. It's funny I always liked your lines in the old videos.
Part huck, part flow.
To those who happen upon this...Krispy is a legend with film segments in the old VHS & DVD days.
And yeah, pretty sure the race teams ignore Deer Valley in terms of support back then & now because it wasn't part of some easy drive from either coast for their trucks. Distinctly remember when I went, Tomac had a solid presence with the Houseman contingent.
Maybe Haro too.
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