Doctor's Orders

So for those who were tuning in last weekend, some of you may have noticed my absence.While I was in Aspen, and registered for X Games, I spent most of the weekend on an I.V. rather than snow. After battling with a bout of flu/food-poisoning (after a while the symptoms were pretty similar) for a couple days, I realized it was a far smarter move to take care of my health and head to a hospital than try and race. The above photo is actually from my discharge papers as Aspen Hospital. Orders that specific are tough to ignore…

While I was bummed not to compete, it was great seeing some new blood winning some medals. However – I do have a little bit of ski footage to show you. ESPN filmed a feature on some of the new things that I was working on. Unfortunately, I can’t find a way to embed the video. So if you’re feeling motivated – click anywhere in this sentence and scroll about halfway down. Can’t miss my bearded mug.

I’m currently sitting inside the Athlete Lounge tent where the atmosphere is akin to a circus tent if it was filled by beautiful people in brightly colored clothing. Actually – that is a circus – the only difference maybe being the amount of Gore-Tex contained in each outfit.

So after breaking my back last year (T-10 Compression fracture that left me off snow for the majority of the season), I was really hesitating if I should give this another shot. And while I doubt the move is fully approved by my parents, I’ve decided to give the Mono X another go. One major advantage I have this year is that I’m automatically qualified for the semi-finals as a result of my bronze medal last year. So while I’m still pretty nervous, at least I know I can avoid most of the nasty abuse leading up to the event.

ESPN came up to Montana to film a feature on me last week, so it should be airing sometime prior to my competition, which will on Sunday, January 30th, on ESPN. The semi-final will take place from 3pm to 3.15 pm and the finals will be from 3.45pm-4pm.

Oh! And here’s an article ESPN put out last month about the event. Fleshes out the competition and event a bit better.

Kevin Connolly: Back for More Medals

I’ll be tweeting during the week, so if you have any questions or well-wishes, hit me up at KevinConnolly on twitter.

For those who missed the article when it came out in print in this November’s issue of Outside, the article has just been posted online.

The full article can be found right here.

Here’s a small excerpt:

Daybreak cracks like a runny egg against Montana’s Spanish Peaks as the Cyborg steers his rig toward the slopes.

The Cyborg is thrilled. When his truck rounds a bend obscuring Big Sky’s Lone Peak, he leans toward the windshield. He wants to ski, sure, but by now you’ve spent enough time with the Cyborg to know there’s something else in that eagerness. He is looking forward to crushing you on the mountain today. This isn’t strictly because he has something to prove, though perhaps he does just a bit, the way any guy born without legs could reasonably be expected to have something to prove. What’s more true is that the Cyborg is all guy, and—let’s face it—the favorite pastime of twenty-something guys is gutting the confidence of the other members of the pack. Today the rest of the pack is you.

Go check it out!

Ever since I took my first few turns on a ski hill, I dreamed of getting into Outside Magazine. While I’ve been incredibly happy and grateful for all of the press that has been sent my way in the past few years, Outside was always my own sort of “holy grail” for publicity. I would’ve been happy with a little blurb in a page margin – so to be the feature of a 2800 profile has thrown me onto my proverbial heels a bit.

I’d love to post the whole article online, but I’m sure that’d get me in hot water with the Outside powers-that-be. However, if you’re keen to pick up a physical copy – here’s the cover that you’ll be looking for (it’s the November issue) -

A few high points:

1.) I get a nickname that I truly hope sticks (The Cyborg)

2.) The title for the next photo project is revealed (Low Lifes)

3.) The article discusses the Cheetah Legs – excuse me, Connollegs - at length.

4.) I get quoted as saying (for better or worse): “Now’s a pretty rad time not to have legs.”

Injuries and Housekeeping

First off, I should apologize for not getting to back to my sooner following my third place finish at X Games. I don’t even have a good excuse, as I’ve spent the past three weeks grounded at home due to a fracture T-10 vertebra. To give you an idea about how abusive the Mono X can be on someone’s body – it took eight days for the general body-pain to subside enough to the point where I could actually tell something was wrong with my back.

For those concerned – the fracture is pretty mild and I was told that I could resume skiing on the 15th of March.

It’s been a weird couple of weeks, sitting here with a broken back and being forced to evaluate some of the consequences of my lifestyle. I guess it’s good to be reminded of your mortality every once and a while – especially when you’re allowed to leave (mostly) intact.

So what’s on the docket for the rest of the season, then? Well, more blogging for one. I’m officially putting myself on the Monday-Wednesday-Friday docket and will try to keep to it.

A couple housekeeping items -

1.) I’m going to be giving a reading of Double Take at the Des Moines Public Library next week! Program starts at 7:00 PM on March 2nd. I’ll be mixing dialogue and reading for an hour, with a book signing to follow. I’ll be tweeting from the event, so if you’re in the area – head on over.

2.) Diane, from Picture Soup Blog just posted a massive interview/article about my photographic work on the Rolling Exhibition. Honestly, it was one of the best interviews I’ve gotten to do and focused a ton on the nuts-and-bolts photo geekery that doesn’t often get talked about. Head on over – http://picture-soup.com/2010/02/24/double-take/ .

3.) Next week I will also be at the University of Akron to give a presentation on The Rolling Exhibition. This one kicks off at 7:30 in E.J. Thomas Hall on March 3rd.

Anyone in Akron or Des Moines out there? I’d love to meet some readers!

A quick look at the base of X Games 14 – held last week in Aspen, CO. Hit the jump for a HUGE post about what it’s like to be in the Mono X.

Ahhhhh – it feels so nice to be sedentary right now.  I feel like I’ve been in a barfight for the past week. From walking up a flight of stairs to sneezing – every muscle in my back and midsection aches with the abuse I’ve given it over the past seven days.

For those that don’t know, I’ve been down in Aspen, Colorado for the past ten days competing at Winter X Games 14 in the “Mono X” – which is just a tough sounding name for a skier cross with an all-monoski field.

What does an all monoski field look like? Here ya go.

The four monoski competitors that made it to the finals.

As you can see, the type of disability someone has doesn’t make much of a difference in a competition like this. Paralysis level and limb count vary across the board – the only thing that matters is a willingness to go fast and commit to whatever abuse the skier cross course dishes out. We use the same course as the able-bodied men and women, with the only exception of a slightly smaller road gap and a longer run-in to the final jump, which requires that you travel at least 85 ft. just to clear the flat space under the ramp. And this year’s course was definitely the gnarliest course I’d yet seen at the X Games. Here’s a short video of some of the skier cross guys breaking down the course a bit more.

The first inspection started on Wednesday in which the entire monoski field inspected the course together. All told, there were about fifteen guys including last minute additions and replacements. It only took one inspection to knock two out just due to the sheer size and burliness of the course. I recount the course from memory as best I can:

Start off with three woopity-woos (think of washboards on a dirt road except each little ridge is the size of a Volkswagon) that lead into a 20 ft. step down (a jump that has a landing spot significantly lower in elevation than the takeoff ramp) into a banked “Zogg turn” (the banked turns that were described above as a “big, bowled out halfpipe” that you turn in). After that it’s a hip jump (15ft straight up) into 8 woopity woos, three Zogg turns, a 25 ft. step down, a 30 ft. road gap, 3 more woopity woos, some more zoggs, a step up, a step down, and a big, big final hit. I skipped quite a few things in the middle, but I kinda ran out of words to describe some of the more ridiculous features.

One of the things that is most difficult to get across to someone who has only seen the X Games on TV is just how big some of these features seem in person. Here’s the approach into the final jump as seen from my point of view.

Steve, a good friend and my local host in Aspen, was able to make it onto the course and inspect with me. After taking the photo, he had this to say: “I’m not even skiing this and I’m still getting butterflies. Ugh.”

We were given Thursday and Friday to practice before the first stage of the competition began. Even in that short time, we had seven guys drop out. Jim Martinson, one of the toughest guys on the course and unfortunately the first to go, broke his collarbone on the second-to-last feature the day before qualifiers. The other six quietly drifted away as we got closer to timed competition – presumably due to how intimidating the course was. I can’t speak for all of the competitors, obviously, but I definitely had a hard time keeping food down the morning before our first full run of the course. That final jump was arguably the largest any of us had ever hit, and that wasn’t even the most dangerous part of the course. Able bodies skier/boarder crossers were getting knocked out as well. A couple people went in for head trauma, one guy cracked some ribs, and one of the monoskiers in our field even bowed out due to an anxiety attack the night before the competition. One of the injuries I actually saw in person was Daron Rhalves getting ruined in a long woopity-woo section. Maybe this better explains the danger these cute-sounding features can pose…

Furthering the mind game that the course was playing on us, was the actual event of X Games itself. Straddling a weird line between a prestigious athletic event and a temporary transplant of Las Vegas, the X Games has a vibe unlike any other competition I’ve ever seen. All of the main features – from skier cross to half pipe to big air – are situated right next to each other, and at any given moment during the day, you’ll see some of the world’s best athletes using these jumps, pipes, and rails as their playground. Just riding up the lift is a spectacle unto itself.

Once you got away from the X Games Show and made it onto the course, the abuse began. One of the primary differences between monoskiing and regular, biped skiing is that we have suspension. That’s really nice for 90% of your time on the hill. Unlike a knee, suspension is replaceable and doesn’t require any rehab time if you destroy it. However, on the skier cross course, that means that your shock is going to have the occasional bottom-out – which is very, very painful. Here’s a short shot of me on the final third of the course. Make sure to listen for the sounds of impact and pain in the final few seconds.

And I know this is all show, but for a better idea of the suspension, check out this footage taken from the front of my ski…

When the comp day actually did arrive, we only had seven guys left out of the original field, which might’ve said something about the sanity amongst those who stuck around. After qualifiers, all we had left on the final day of competition was semi-finals and finals. After a hairy finish in semifinals that involved skiing the final third of the course with a broken outrigger, I swapped out the busted gear and headed back up to the top of the course for finals. The competitors who had made it to the finals were some of the best monoskiers in the world. Tyler Walker and Chris Devlin-Young were the expected favorites going in, but the second the gates dropped, it become fairly clear that everyone was putting it out on the line. Here are a couple screenshots from the first part of the race when we were all together.

Tyler Walker and I expressing our affection for each other in the air.

I could actually feel Tyler behind me in the air as we went off the jump together. As his ski went beside me, it actually changed my direction in the air and I landed with my ski at a forty-five degree angle. Losing some speed, I got thrown back into third place. After going around the banked turn and over a few woopity-woos, we hit the “hip jump” which was an air that landed you on the side of the hill so that you were already on edge upon touching down. Your visibility is pretty limited on the take off – so I didn’t see what was going on in front of me until I was already fifteen feet in the air. Chris Devlin-Young had ejected out of his ski in front of me.

Devlin in the green, Tyler in the yellow, and me in the black.

I was pretty certain that I was going to come down on top of him, and tried to throw my ski away from him as much as I could in the air. When I landed, I changed my trajectory so much at the ski loaded up and threw me over. I saw Chris at the bottom after our run and he showed me his helmet. Even after trying to dodge him, the tip of my ski had carved a long divot into the side of his helmet. An inch right or left and things could’ve been much worse. Lucky.

After I picked myself up at the bottom of the jump, I could see that Chris was still trying to get himself sorted out and so I took off. By the time I crossed the finish line, my back was screaming from the week’s worth of hits, but the knowledge that there was a bronze waiting for me past the finish line eased the pain a bit. Overall – I’m just happy that everybody survived, despite the injuries, anxiety, and air that followed us for the week.

I forget who told me this for the first time, but the quote has stuck with me ever since I started competing in the this event almost six years ago. “The two best days of every season is the day you arrive at X Games, and the day you leave.” After witnessing the novelty, speed, and scope of the event along with all of its stresses, aches, and pains – I couldn’t say that I agree more.

That said, I can’t wait for next year.

Rolling down through Wyoming to X Games. Hit the jump for a schedule of the week's events...

Howdy everyone -

Just made it down to Aspen after a long haul through the dead backroads of Wyoming. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks trying to get all of my gear ready to go for this year’s Mono X at the 14th Winter X Games. For those who haven’t seen or heard about the Mono X – let me give you a quick rundown:

First, imagine an alpine racecourse with a collection of little gates that you turn around in order to make it to the bottom of the hill. Now take those little gates, and stick some massive jumps between them (sitting comfortably between 20 and 80 feet, depending on the launch). With me so far. Okay – so once you have your jumpy, yet gated course built – now you introduce the competitors. In most skier-cross competitions, it’s a bunch of bipeds racing down the course at the same time trying to be the first one through the finish line. With the Mono X, you have competitors still racing down the course at the same time – but these competitors are half-robot. When a biped blows up on the course, we worry for his safety. When a monoskier blows up on the course, we worry about shrapnel. Jumps, speed, traffic, and lots of machined aluminum – looks like it could be a fun week!

I’ll be throwing up some video and photos this week – so check back. Alternatively, you can follow me on twitter for competition updates or click right HERE for a competition schedule from EXPN.

Photos of the new rig after the jump

So it’s finally done. After starting work on this monoski back in August, it’s  amazing to finally see the finished product. I gotta admit, I was going to post these yesterday, but was a little nervous about how well it would work on the snow and didn’t want to count my chickens too early. Below are some photos I took comparing this new rig to the old one so you can see the difference in terms of design and durability.

And as a bit of a key – every little band of silver that you see around the top part of my old frame is from having to weld old breaks.

And here’s the new one. Can you say upgrade?

Here’s a dead-on comparison of the frame.

Old one

New one

Old one

New one

I had my first ride on this machine yesterday, and I gotta say… it’s pretty incredible. The balance and response of the machine is such a dramatic improvement over the old rig that was left almost speechless for the first few runs. There’s still work to do – we want to recalibrate the shock and lighten the frame a little – but this is a hell of a first step.

I’m going to be working on a photo shoot for Outside Magazine over the next couple of days, and so hopefully I’ll have some shots of this thing in action before too long. Check back!

Hit the jump for news on a new monoski and X Games!

No – that’s not a snapshot from some movie involving the predator, but the results from the most recent stress test performed on a new monoski prototype that I’ve been working on since August. Almost my entire skiing career has been plagued by monoski breakages. Whether it was a weld breaking on my frame during X Games (and many other times, as well) or a shock spewing oil after being pushed too far – I’ve always been pretty hard on gear. Even the X Games race that netted me the silver medal in 2007 (and I also wrote about in Double Take) was run on a frame that had been hastily re-welded only a couple nights before.

So that said, when I got the final part of my book advance after finishing my manuscript, I decided to go out and design a monoski that was specifically designed for the abuse I give it. I’ve been working with two cool companies out of Bozeman called Spark R&D and Twenty6 Products who have been helping me with work on the design as well as fabricating the thing. I’ll be posting some video this weekend as we assemble the machine, but till then, here are a few more screen shots to wet your appetite.

New mono on the left, old on the right.

The above shot gives a decent impression of where we’re headed with design (reducing weight, lowering center of gravity, tweaking bucket angles) the really cool stuff is the material that we’re making this new frame with. Gone are heavy old metal carriage bolts and aluminum tubing! Now we’re working with titanium linkage pieces and specially machined pieces! I’m nerding out here, but considering this thing is what keeps me on the hill, I get a little excited about all the new details.

Working on the max angle of carving. Hopefully I never reach 68.5 degrees...

This shot hopefully gives a better dead-on idea of what the new suspension is like. Of course, these are all rough renderings compared to what the real thing will look like.

The real test for all of this will be at this year’s Winter X Games, where I’m officially a lock to compete in the 2010 Mono X. So over the next few weeks expect to see more video of me trying to stress test this thing out for real…

]]> http://kevinmichaelconnolly.com/2009/12/mono-x-tech/feed/ 4