Did he say "Ukraine is weak" on the wrong thread?
Posted on 04/05/2025 10:36:37 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
When 21-year-old Dallas LeBeau vowed to jump over a highway to win a contest and social media clout, his parents felt helpless to stop him. Now they’re left with regret.
The night before he would try to ski jump over a busy three-lane highway in the Colorado high country, Dallas LeBeau sat down with his parents for dinner in their log cabin home. Valerie and Jason served grilled cheese and soup to their 21-year-old son, and as in the months before, the conversation quickly turned to the jump. Dallas announced that he was going to go for it the next day. His parents stopped eating and stared at him.
“Have you done the math?” Valerie asked him, even though she believed he probably didn’t know how to compute the required speed and lift needed to clear a 40-foot stretch of pavement. He planned to do it on pure instinct.
“Mom, if anything, I’m going to overshoot the landing,” Dallas said.
“Maybe you should wait,” his father said.
Dallas was a thrill-seeker who loved to put himself in danger, but he usually took measured risks. This didn’t feel like a measured risk, especially in April with the snowpack melting, although most people who knew Dallas didn’t doubt he could pull it off. When Valerie and Jason looked into his eyes that night, they saw a free spirit but also the reflection of what the ski industry had become for many young athletes like their son: an expensive, relentless chase to prove themselves in a social-media-driven world, where skiers often were emboldened to push their limits for the sake of views and clout.
Dallas had worked for years to make it to a top professional tour in skiing, only to stall in the standings last winter. He wasn’t getting younger. He had no....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Darwin Award?
Was this last year, April 9?
“When Valerie and Jason looked into his eyes that night, they saw a free spirit but also the reflection of what the ski industry had become for many young athletes like their son: an expensive, relentless chase to prove themselves in a social-media-driven world, where skiers often were emboldened to push their limits for the sake of views and clout.”
Yeah, industry forced their son to do stupid stunts to promote himself, rather than get a boring job. Maybe the parents should blame themselves for raising a shallow thrill-seeker.
Did not find a video of the stunt at the link.
He might not have factored in the weight and bulk of his extra PPE he wore, which was too much and not enough.
Did he say "Ukraine is weak" on the wrong thread?
I know this area very well, I-40 west of Berthoud Pass. I never tried that!
“A man’s got to know his limitations.” -— Dirty Harry
Took me about 4 serious wrecks to give up the dirt bike.
Re m: risk patterns.
As risky as I was with skiing, I knew my limits. I also knew many like ole Dallas here who didn’t know theirs. They all had the same thing in common, an absolute obliviousness to their mortality.
“an absolute obliviousness to their mortality”
Many of us here in our 50s - 80s are very thankful we made it out of our teens or 20s alive.
Having run a google image search on Dallas LeBeau, I have to say, I think that kid was born female. That’s a really female looking face. I don’t suppose it matters now, but if this was the case, this is someone who had never been told, “No.”
I can relate to this statement about morcycling. I loved it for years, but had to consider the risks as well.
They don’t call them “donorcycles” for nothing.
“The night before he would try to ski jump over a busy three-lane highway in the Colorado high country, Dallas LeBeau sat down with his parents for dinner in their log cabin home. Valerie and Jason served grilled cheese and soup to their 21-year-old son,”
Never mind this drivel, is there video?
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"Originally, the path was to begin above a cliff. He practiced coming off those rocks and into the runway of the jump, but his ski kept popping off as he landed. Eli told him to make sure it was fixed before he tried the jump. “If your ski is malfunctioning, this might not be the best thing to do,” Ziggy chimed in as Dallas tried to fix the bindings."
"The conditions were icy. He picked up speed. Within seconds, he made three turns and barreled toward the lip.
But just before he went airborne, the left ski popped off again. He lost speed as he launched into his planned double backflip with the right ski attached. The other ski fell down to the road.
Through their camera lenses, Eli and Ziggy could see Dallas suspended in the air without enough trajectory to make it to the other side. After he completed the first backflip, he aborted the second and appeared to open up his stance to brace for the fall.
He dropped from the sky. “Whoa!” he yelled as he hit the asphalt. He skidded across the road, and his back slammed into the guardrail. The sound cracked through the valley."
The skis came off.
hot take
**I know this area very well, I-40 west of Berthoud Pass.**
I-40 doesn’t go through Colorado. Do you mean US40?
Paging Evil Knievel
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