What do the top five gravity point leaders have in common? They all ride WTB Wheels, Saddles and Tires and are looking strong as the season has officially kicked off. Check out the excerpt from the latest e-newsletter from USA Cycling below.
WTB enjoyed a successful weekend in California’s Inland Empire at the official NMBS season kickoff in sunny Fontana. Starting two weeks before the Sea Otter Classic, this early-season national created an interesting vibe as dozens of international, world cup-level athletes showed up and new bikes were still being built. WTB racers Ryan Condrashoff, Brad Benedict and Amado Stachenfeld had been racing the Southridge Winter Series in Fontana prior to the event and were ready for a little extra competition.
Saturday’s mountain cross went well for Stachenfeld who took 5th in his first Semi-Pro race. Condrashoff, who had been racing a similar track throughout the winter, made it to the second round of 16 where he was in a stacked heat with the legendary Eric Carter.
Sunday was action packed. With rain coming down as we left the hotel, it was more reminiscent of a pro finals at any other national, but the track was unaltered, still dry and duffy. With a technical issue in his qualifying run, Benedict qualified in dead last, making him the first rider down the track in finals. He put up a blistering time of 2:27.85 and was in the hot seat for several minutes. Benedict’s teammate, Condrashoff, came in with 2:27.24 just in front of Benedict and putting them in 11th and 12th. Condrashoff says, “I’m stoked! Being just behind the guys that race the World Cups is great, not to mention me and Brad were the 3rd and 4th Americans. I couldn’t be more excited”
Condrashoff and Benedict both utilized WTB’s light and durable LaserDisc FR wheelset, Devo SLT saddles and a combination of Prowler MX Team DH and Prowler XT Race tires. Running the single-ply Prowler XT tire was an unorthodox, bold choice on the rocky course. But the weight savings allowed the two riders to speed along the relatively flat second half of the course known as the “wall”.
Not to be left out, WTB’s marketing manager Dain Zaffke took the win in the expert/open class in the Super D in convincing style. Check out the linked video above and pinnedmtb.com for the day-by-day break down of the weekend.
photos: Ron Sawicki
WTB sponsored rider Monique “Pua” Sawicki just took 7th at the first World Cup Marathon of the season in Manavgat, Turkey. With a time of 3:45.37, she was just over 17 minutes behind the leader Pia Sundstedt of Finland. Sawicki has been a dominant force in domestic mountain bike racing, but this was her first time racing on the other side of the pond. Sawicki rides WTB Devo saddles and, depending on conditions, WTB Nano Raptor, Vulpine, Prowler MX or Raijin tires.
WTB-sponsored riders Max Plaxton and Kris Sneddon dropped by the office yesterday. The two Canadian XC racers got a full tour of WTB headquarters as well as a history lesson of our sport’s earlier days and a ripping lunch ride on some of Marin’s finest trails. Plaxton, who rides for Rocky Mountain’s pro XC team, and Sneddon, who rides for Kona’s factory XC team have been spending the winter enjoying California’s mild climate. The two riders are logging big miles right now, in preparation for a full race season of chasing UCI points. If all goes well, both Plaxton and Sneddon will be representing Canada at the Beijing Olympics. In case you’re wondering, Sneddon rides a Shadow V SLT while Plaxton prefers a Rocket V SLT.
WTB is proud to once again support Pinkbike.com’s DH team. We expect the team to tear it up this season in Canada, the U.S. and abroad. Stay posted to Pinkbike.com and WTB.com for updates throughout the season. Click the image above to read the report on Pinkbike.com.
Poison Oak Productions, the two-person crew that put out the film Singletrack Minds, is finishing up a powerful documentary about mountain bike racer Bobby McMullen. Jason Watkins and Wendy Todd of Poison Oak invited a few of us to a private screening at Pixar Animation Studios last week and we were simply blown away.
The film documents Bobby’s 2007 race season—including injuries and break-ups—with the climax at the Downieville Classic. Bobby is one of the most colorful personalities that WTB sponsors, a damn good bike racer and he can talk trash with the best of them. Another notable point is that Bobby is blind. This film does an excellent job capturing his incredible spirit. Although his vision is impaired, Bobby has more focus and determination than any other athlete we know.
We’re confident that this film will not only be a smashing success among cyclists, but a hit among non-riders as well. Click the picture above to watch the trailer.
Mark Weir placed second on Saturday at the Brake Burner, a six-hour downhill race in Queenstown, New Zealand. The event was held at the Coronet Peak ski area where riders complete as many runs of the downhill course as possible in six hours. The event’s winner, Geoff Small, managed 19 runs in 5:58. Weir finished 19 laps in 6:02. Because his last lap was after the six-hour cut-off, it did not count. Team WTB rider Jiro Nakamura placed third in the event, right behind Weir.
While some athletes would head straight home pouting, Weir and Nakamura will spend another week on the South Island. The two riders will undoubtedly ride miles of epic New Zealand singletrack with Mark Dickson from KRD Imports and Caleb Smith from Spoke Magazine as their guides.
With heavy storms hitting California, the Southridge “Winter Series” was staying true to its name. As we approached the Grapevine on I-5, the reasoning for closing it the previous night was quite evident due to the amount of snow still on the road. Without a hitch we made it down to Fontana and met up with the X-Fusion-WTB riders Ryan Condrashoff and Brad Benedict who had headed out a day early to ride down in Ventura with the guys from Decline.
MOUNTAIN CROSS
Saturday afternoon WTB rider Ryan Condrashoff took part in the Mountain Cross in a stacked field including former world champ Eric Carter. During the semi-finals Ryan and former National 4X Overall Champion Rich “Big House” Houseman collided exiting a berm, with only one spot left to be filled in the finals, Ryan took the opportunity aboard his Prowler SS in the front and Nano Raptor on the rear and ended up taking 4th in the finals.
DOWNHILL
With furious storms on Saturday night, the skies cleared once again just in time for the Downhill finals. Although the pits were filled with small lakes, the DH track held up surprisingly well. WTB rider Brad Benedict looked great on the track all weekend but with a bobble in the gate resulting in a time penalty, he took a respectable 10th place.
To complete an already successful weekend Ryan Condrashoff put up a blistering time just under 3 seconds off the leader Chris Kovarik putting him in third place. “The conditions were great,” Condrashoff said. “I was running the Prowler MX up front and the Prowler SS in the back and they suited the track great! My run felt good, I wasn’t as tired as I thought I’d be and knew if I kept it smooth I could put up a good time.”
Stay tuned for updates on the up coming Round 3.
Here are a couple of shots from the drive down,
January 25, 2008, Fairbanks, Alaska, -15 to -30F, 66 miles, 5,000 feet climbing: Camping trip in the White Mountains
Temperature is -15 as I head out on the snow and ice covered road to the trail head in the White Mtns, where my friends Tom and Malcolm will park and ride the 12-mile sled dog and snow machine trail into a USBLM cabin I’ve rented for Friday night. North winds wail, air temperature is sinking and the January bloodless sun is scraping across the top of the Alaska Range, 100 miles to the south, providing only psychological warmth. The road part of this 9 hour freeze fest is one of snow packed or ice covered surfaces, but after 5-plus hours of crossing snow choked Tanana Uplands hills, Boreal forest, the ice-locked Chatanika River and climbing the Eliot Highway to Wickersham Dome I pull into the trailhead. Two mushers with their sleds and 20 or so dogs are returning from a romp on the trail.
The spell of darkness is upon me, along with an oppressive -20 F or less as I deflate my WTB Weirwolf LT 2.55s. These fat badboys are the super in dicey conditions. Unless you want to go for a fatbike, Weirwolf 2.55s are the best 26 or 29er tire: it’s directionally stable, floats well, and has strong, supple sidewalls. I’m going to need all the float I can get on these trails. The next 12 miles takes 3 plus hours, but to my thrill: I’m ridin’ it!
The red moon is slowly rising and the temperature is slowly dropping. Hoar frost glistens in my headlight as I alternate in awe between the absolute desolate, white indifference and the deafening silence of this black spruce-covered permafrost country. Tires crackle out a report that tells me that this snow is COLD.
I make the cutoff to the cabin, pushing the steep, barely broken trial to Eliazar’s cabin. I haven’t seen any sign of people for nearly 4 hours, only two sets of bike tracks laid down on the Wickersham Trail on sled tracks.
Tom and Malcolm have a fine fire crackling, invite me in for a hot drink and we while away the night telling trail lies and watch the scarlet moon carve a path.
Riding the 12 miles out in the morning light is an entirely different world from the dark eerie isolation of 12 hours earlier. Rolling is tough at -25 to -30 F, but because of these frigid conditions we see not a soul.
Once at the trailhead I have enough sense to ride home in the truck. My brain isn’t completely frozen.
Note: Rocky Reifenstuhl is preparing to race the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Invitational. The event, which starts on February 25, will be Rocky’s 21st year competing in the Iditarod Trail bike race. He has won the prestigious event eight times.
On September 01, 2007 America’s most prominent female mountain bike racer suffered a horrific crash and soon realized she was paralyzed from the waist down. The WTB-sponsored rider and 2006 downhill national champion was airlifted to Denver’s Health Hospital where she underwent a seven-hour back surgery. Although Tara’s doctors reported that she might never walk again, she has been attacking her physical therapy with the same enthusiasm and positive attitude that made her such a popular—and successful—bike racer.
It has been four short months since her life-changing crash and Tara is already proving the doctors wrong by moving her legs. After spending months as an inpatient at Denver’s Craig Facility, Llanes is finally back at home, but she still has a long way to go. The medical costs attributed to this sort of tragedy are almost as crippling as the injury itself. Our support means a lot to Llanes. If you would like to contribute emotional or financial support please visit Tara Llanes Road to Recovery.
