Team Beaver Creek-Catlin took the lead just outside Congress, Ariz., and never relinquished it, winning the Race Across America’s four-man team division for the second consecutive year Monday.
Alternating riders for more than 3,000 miles from Oceanside, Calif., to Atlantic City, N.J., the bicycle racers spanned the nation in just five days, 18 hours and 22 minutes at an average speed of 21.99 mph.
Comprised of professional mountain bikers Mike Janelle of Avon, Zach Bingham of Vail, Jim Morten- sen of Eagle and Nat Ross of Golden, Team Beaver Creek-Catlin managed a 3-hour, 26-minute advantage over the mostly Massachusetts-based Team Psycho, a rookie team that finished second among the field of 16.
“Nat just blew past Team Psycho up the Yarnell Grade in Arizona,” said Beaver Creek support crew member Alex Yellen of Los Angeles. “These boys like to climb.”
“Janelle was the force in Arizona,” Ross said. “He was picking them off right and left.”
With strong winds and slow riding conditions in the race’s early stages, the obvious team effort concluded shy of the record pace of 23.06 mph that Team Beaver Creek-Catlin had hoped for and slightly slower than its 22.37 mph average in 2006. Set in 2004, the record held by Kerry Ryan, Kerry Classen, Sean Nealy and Nat Faulkner of Team Action Sports was established before the RAAM route moved to the mountains of Colorado. That was also the same year Team Beaver Creek (formerly Team Vail) rider Brett Malin was killed in a collision with a truck in New Mexico during the race, moving the team to dedicate ensuing races to his memory.
With fewer than 100 miles to go late Monday, two-time champion Jure Robic of Slovenia held a solid 100-mile lead over Wolfgang Fasching of Austria and a 150-mile lead over Daniel Wyss of Switzerland as the probable winner of the RAAM men’s solo division.
ADVENTURE RACING: Durango team wins Xstream
Durango’s 4 Corners Adventure Racing won the seventh annual Durango Adventure Xstream race over the weekend, a multisport race featuring a 40-mile trek, a nearly 50-mile mountain bike ride and a 16-mile paddle down the Animas River. The team – Rick Calles, Brett Sublett, Emily Baer and Tom Ober – finished the race in 19 hours, 7 minutes.
The race drew more than 150 competitors who began racing at midnight Friday. The course required teams and solo racers to navigate a trek with nine checkpoints while winding through more than 40 miles of trails. Racers then pedaled singletrack on the Hermosa Creek and Jones Creek trails before paddling the Animas River into Durango.
Charle Nuttelman of Boulder and Renee Kline won the solo male and female races.
MOUNTAIN BIKING: Keystone expands downhill trails
Keystone launched its lift-served downhill mountain biking season last week with the debut of its “Money” trail. Money, one of five new trails this season, offers screaming singletrack, berms and 22 tabletop jumps. Keystone was one of the first resorts to embrace lift-served mountain biking in 1991. Since then, the village-based resort has fostered a reputation as one of the nation’s premier DH playgrounds. Last year Keystone opened the “Drop Zone,” a terrain park-styled area for DH riders, with ramps, ledges and a 14-foot drop.
Silverton Mountain opens its notoriously steep terrain for mountain biking Saturday. The DH season at Silverton rarely lasts more than a few weeks – last year its trails were snow-free for less than one week – but it is a riding experience unlike any other. It costs $15 for a single ride or $27 for all day. Silverton is hosting Freeride Gravity Fest from June 29 to July 1.
