Bryon Friedman
Photography: R. Nelson Parrish
Park City-raised Bryon Friedman has been stretching out athletically and artistically, not to mention geographically. The seemingly self-contained Friedman is pretty much digging life. Not that he hasn’t had a bump or two along the road, but what a road!
The vibe with Bryon is that it’s all one — whether it’s bagging a degree in History from Dartmouth, ski racing at its highest level, hitting tree-shots with his buddies on powder days in Park City, performing onstage with his band, or riding waves with just a slight offshore breeze. The road goes on forever and the party never ends.
Back in 2005, as a member of the U.S. Alpine Ski Team, Friedman had a couple of World Cup Downhill top-ten finishes on his resumé when a training run in Chamonix, France, went awry. Seven surgeries and uncounted hours of physical therapy later, the fractures to his right leg and left hand have mended.
Bryon’s been back on skis a while, and his training with the U.S. Alpine Ski Team is going well enough that he was recently named to the Men’s 2008 A-team. He’s “back on the horse,” as they say, and when he gazes through his racing goggles, he can’t help but notice, perched seductively on the rapidly approaching horizon, the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada.
But not so fast. This multi-talented guy is excelling in other arenas as well. He’s a singer-songwriter-recording artist, who uses the laid-back environs of Santa Barbara, California, as both a muse for his music and as a center for his ongoing practice of the healing art of surfing. His debut CD “Road Sodas” is garnering attention, and a new composition, “How Can I Get Back,” can be heard in regular rotation on Sirius Satellite Radio.
Whether he’s onstage strumming his Gibson J-45 “sunburst” acoustic guitar, clicked into his Atomic racing skis in a starting gate of a World Cup Downhill, or carving a frontside-cutback turn on his Drakonis surfboard off a Santa Barbara beach, Bryon Friedman continues to approach Nirvana and make Park City proud.
Your comments may be edited for brevity and foul language.