The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Local athletes to defend home track
By Than Acuff
As many as 150 downhill bike racers are coming to town as Crested Butte Mountain Resort and the Crested Butte Mountain Sports Team (CBMST) are hosting two days of downhill bike racing at Crested Butte Mountain Saturday and Sunday, August 3-4.
It’s the fourth stop of the Downhill Rockies Series and the CBMST athletes have made two trips on the series to Angel Fire back in June and then headed to the third stop at Winter Park July 20-21 with plenty of racing and training right here at home.
“The season is progressing incredibly,” says CBMST manager Eddy Cohn. “Lola Wais is back from injury, and it’s great to have her energy and attitude around practices and races. The team is now in full-on race mode. Over the past few weeks the athletes have done four races including three local CBMR Summer Race Series events and one Downhill Rockies event at Winter Park.”
“We are seeing progression every day,” adds coach Dylan Brown. “The athletes are gaining speed every lap and continue to dial in their race craft with each event we attend.”
Cohn and the coaches have noticed a significant progression among their athletes this season. While last summer was the first year for the program, they are gaining serious ground in the team’s second season of training and competing.
“Not only are the athletes going faster on their bikes than they ever have before, but they are also developing their style,” says Brown. “Cal (Hill) and I are seeing fat whips, tweaked out tabletops, one-footers, no-handers and steazy t-bogs. In the last week, the younger athletes hit the Avery rock drop for their first time, and they started clearing some of the bigger jumps on Timeline. Our athletes are very smart with how they approach training and hitting new features to make sure they stay safe, and it is very cool to see it all come together.”
“I think a sense of familiarity is definitely helping the athletes this season,” says Cohn. “Last season there were so many new things for the athletes to wrap their minds around. This year they are all coming in with a much better understanding of the sport and solid tangible goals.”
Amongst all the training as the coaches continue to work on the athletes’ race craft, they still make sure to keep it light, especially now during the meat of the season.
“Race season is pretty demanding on these athletes, and while we still work on our technical skills with drills, we like to keep it fun,” says Brown. “Going fast, hitting new features, finding new lines and doing new tricks happens to be lot of fun and so that’s what we have been focused on recently.”
While the team had a great start to their season at the first race in Angel Fire, they stepped it up another notch at the event at the Trestle Bike Park in Winter Park with several CBMST riders stepping onto the podium.
“The event at Trestle Bike Park was great for the team,” says Cohn. “Not that results are my favorite metric for evaluating a race, but the team walked away with six podiums including first and second for Cooper Oeflein and Alpine Leonard respectively, second and fourth for Geranimo Stephenson and Harkin Santurbane, third for Nolan Gardiner and first for Shyla Field. It’s worth mentioning that Shyla had the fastest time of the weekend on the Cat 2 course. She beat everyone including some 13-year-old boys and she’s just 10 years old.”
The CBMST athletes get to show how far they’ve come in front of the hometown crowd Saturday and Sunday with the racing held on Avery with the more experienced and older athletes riding through Boulder Mason as well. The home race venue offers familiarity but also adds in some nerves for the young athletes.
“I think they will do well,” says Cohn. “It’s definitely a bit of a gift/curse to race at home. Sure, you are on a track you are familiar with, but also there is a bit of added pressure to perform at home. Some athletes rise to the occasion while some athletes struggle with the extra pressure.”
Training begins Saturday morning with the seeding races from 2:30–4 p.m. The kids will then have more practice runs Sunday morning with the race action starting at noon.
“Our athletes love going fast on Avery, and with everyone now hitting the rock drop, they are chomping at the bit to get out there this weekend and show what they can do on their home track,” says Brown.
