BICYCLING -- Mountain bikers were ripping down Beacon Hill courses -- flying high with soft and sometimes hard landings -- last weekend during the annual Hub-A-Palooza downhill and enduro races based out of Camp Sekani.

The event includes the rough and hopefully no-tumble Double Down Hoe Down downhill event, which has kicked off the bicycle racing season around Spokane for nine years.

Nearly 400 riders were involved in this year's three events over Saturday and Sunday, said Josh Tofsrud, organizer with Velo Northwest. The races included mens and womens divisions with categories ranging from novice to pros who competed for more than $10,000 in cash and prizes, he said.

The Hub-A-Palooza  is part of the All Gravity Series with another three-day festival of dirt scheduled for June 9-11 at Mount Spokane.

In some years, the Huba has included dual slalom and jumping competitions. This year, the fourth year in which the weekend has been called Hub_A_Palooza, feature events were pared to a downhill race on both days and The People's Enduro on Sunday.

The enduro involves 3-4 timed stages, each ranging 3-10 minutes and including downhill sections and 2,000-2,500 feet of climbing.

The downhill events, as they say, are all gravity.

The courses flow down the rugged Beacon Hill terrain with jumps and technical riding over natural granite outcroppings as well as man-made jumps, ramps and banked curves. The urban riding area has been developed over years by various mountain bikers and groups, Tofsrud said.

Courses lined by cheering family and fans included sections with names such as Bomber, Sidewinder and Hollywood.

 "The feedback from riders?," Tofsrud said, repeating the question: "They love it. It keeps growing."

Although some cyclists crashed on the gnarly courses each day, no significant injuries were reported, he said.

The event is sponsored by The Bike Hub, Shimano and others.

This video is an overall view of Hub-a-Palooza's normal two days of events, including Double Down Hoe Down downhill, The People's Enduro, Gravity Jump Jam and Dual Slalom. This year, the organizers had to cancel the jumping and slalam.

Get the racer's view of the Beacon Hill downhill course in this 2016 Go-Pro video by expert ricer Sergii Semenov. Note: This perspective does not fully explain to the unacquainted how much skill is required to race down such a gnarly Bomber Course.  Explains Semenov:

"Finished with time of 1:50 (place 13th) in Expert 19-29 category - did a lot of mistakes because had a change to practice the trail twice only before the race. The trail features 12-foot drop from a rock with a gap (Gerfmore), and a couple of tricky steep drops at the very end.

Tour the Enduro course with this rider's perspective:

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