The bobsled ride at Utah Olympic Park seats three thrill-seekers behind an expert pilot. Photo / Derek Cheng
This is how it actually feels to hurtle down Utah’s Olympic bobsled track at 100km/h, Derek Cheng writes.
It’s about halfway down the track when the increasingly heavier gravitational forces start to bite.
It isn’t just the speed of the bobsled making my insides start to unravel. It’s also being thrown sideways as it rides the wall, howling around corners at more than 100km/h.
It’s around this time, I suspect, that the odd tourist used to wet themselves.
When the ride was first opened to the public - at Utah Olympic Park, Park City, United States - it started at the top, taking in all of the track’s 1.3km and sending you to speeds of up to 135km/h.
The park’s commitment to visitor dignity - that is, keeping undies dry - now sees the ride start from the fifth curve. A top speed of only 105-110km/h is apparently all you need to keep the sled pee-free.
The ice track was used for the Winter Olympics in 2002, is now a training ground and tourist attraction, and will again host the track events for the 2034 Olympics.
The most likely way to get injured for bobsledders is during the maximum-exertion sprint start. We’ll be doing no such thing, we’re told in our safety briefing. Exertion will be minimal as we sit in the bobsled, while a staffer gently pushes the sled forward until gravity takes hold.
How to sit is an important matter. It’s like sitting in a bathtub with a cushioned bottom. Unless you have a body that slots perfectly into a tub - in which case, you’re probably liquid - there’ll be empty spaces where parts of you can rattle violently. Push out elbows and knees, we’re told.
There are also no restraints, only rubber handles on the sides to cling to. This makes it far more unhinged than a roller coaster, which is fixed to a railroad track, while a restraint over your shoulders locks you to your seat.
A bobsled is fixed to nothing. The only thing between us and a Darwin Award is a competent driver. The brakes - usually at the back - have been moved to the front next to said competency, rather than relying on someone who might wet themselves.
Not that Jack, our driver, ever uses the brakes. This would damage the ice on the track, he tells us, inadvertently revealing his priorities.
I take some comfort in the coincidental height order. As the second tallest in our quartet - driver plus three customers - I sit in front of the group’s tallest, and behind the shortest: maximum human-flesh cushioning.
The gentle push-off is very tame. We go from a complete standstill to barely moving to cruising.
We’re soon at a fun, zippy pace, and then, suddenly, we’re ricocheting around corners at four to five Gs. This potential urination zone brings a hint of panic.
I tuck my head under my stomach, squeeze my ribs together, and close my eyes. The experience can’t hurt me if it can’t see me.
This is the last thing you want to do, however. As the g-forces hit, the front of your chest feels like it’s being squashed into a space a metre behind your spine. The best way to avoid this is to sit as tall as possible.
It’s not easy to do, however. It takes a conscious effort to untuck and push my face higher - into what feels like the headwind of a raging storm.
I’m not in harm’s way, I tell myself (and even if I’m wrong, it’s out of my control). Jack has done this countless times. Inhale the experience.
The bobsled hits a curve and climbs the wall, vibrating energetically before careening back to centre and into another corner. It’s raw and wild and exhilarating. Corner into corner into corner. Adrenaline erupts in involuntary whooping.
And then it’s over, not suddenly, but incrementally, as we slide uphill and slow to a stop. A 48-second ride in all.
I’m beaming as I exit, and not just because of the ride.
A quick check confirms that no urination has taken place.
Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the press gallery team, and written travel articles from all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Americas.
The bobsled ride is at Utah Olympic Park, Park City, USA. You must be at least 13 years old and weigh 45kg. The cost is US$225 ($385).
GETTING THERE
Fly from Auckland to Salt Lake City International Airport with one stopover in LAX (Los Angeles) with Air New Zealand, partnering with United Airlines on the Star Alliance for the LAX-SLC leg. Round trips are available from $2000 to $2500.
Park City is a 40-minute drive from Salt Lake City. It also offers facility tours, a ski jump simulator, and two museums: one on the 2002 Olympic Games, and one on the history of skiing in Utah.
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The journalist travelled to Utah courtesy of Utah Office of Tourism.