The weather forecast is calling for 70-80 degrees and sunshine all weekend at Mt Hood Ski Bowl in Government Camp for the Fluidride Cup Technical DH Round #3, presented by Fat Tire Farm in Portland. The top of the track is now open after hours of shoveling snow banks courtesy of Todd Olsen, Eric Loney, and a number of other northwest rippers, effectively doubling the vertical drop from the last race. The dirt is rumored to be in perfect condition after last weekend’s rain, and the last bit of snow melt…things are shaping up for an epic weekend!

The FAT TIRE FARM is kicking down big time for this event, with extra cash for the Pro Class. The Evil Men’s DH will boast a $1,000 1st place purse, while the Loeka Women’s Pro DH will offer a $500 1st place purse.

MAXXIS is hooking it up for amateur riders, with a Maxxis Minion 3c for the winner of every class! This is an $80.00 prize – and there is one for every amateur category.

There is a NEW CATEGORY 2/3 woods section which has been added to the bottom part of the course, making the CAT 2/3 track, long and challenging. The most technical  woods portions of the track will now offer line options for riders of varying abilities. There have also been a few changes to the Pro Track for 2010, with the re-introduction of the log step down at the bottom of the woods.

REGISTRATION:

Online registration closes Wednesday 7.08 at midnight. On site registration is also available at the following times:

FRIDAY: 10:30am-6pm

SATURDAY: 7:30am-6pm

SUNDAY: 7:30am-8:30am

Race Registration is $49.00. Lifts are $34 for 3 days (Friday-Sunday), $24 for 2 days (Saturday-Sunday) or $10 for race day only.

PRACTICE TIMES:

FRIDAY: 11am-4pm. All Categories.

SATURDAY: CAT 2/3 8am-12pm. CAT 1/PRO 2pm-6pm.

SUNDAY: 8am-9:15 with racing beginning at 10am.

All categories will take one race run. Pro and Cat 1 Juniors will have a qualifier Sunday morning to decide starting order for the final.

We couldn’t make this happen without our sponsors, so be sure to support these great companies: FAT TIRE FARM, BIG TREE BIKES, CLIF BAR, LOEKA, BRASHER’S AUTO AUCTION, DAKINE, ALPINESTARS, EVIL BIKES, ARROW RACING, PINKBIKE, MAXXIS and BETTER LIFE HEALTH AND FITNESS.

Blue Bird Skies and perfect dirt made for some great riding at Fluidride Cup Round 2 at Mt Hood’s Ski Bowl. Congratulations go out to Keith Thompson on his big win in the Evil Men’s Pro Division. As one of the hardest training NW riders, Keith’s win was long overdue. In the two run format, Keith had the fastest time on BOTH runs, taking what was still a narrow win over Project 529’s Eric Loney. Alexander Mc Guiness took third, with Jim Johnston and Nick Coutour rounding out the top five in a very competitive field of ten Pro riders. Jamie Rees took the win in the Loeka Pro Women’s Downhill while Brian Mullen scored a win in the super fast Cat 1 Junior Division with a run fast enough for tenth overall and a small share of the race purse. Chris Bentley took the win in the Cat 1 40- 49 Division.

We were a bit short handed at the last event because of Hurricane’s Greg Aldrich’s absence due to a Gall Bladder removal and the birth of his newest family member Jonah. Congratulations go out to Greg and his family. We are looking forward to having you back at the races in September!

Here are the full race results: fluidride cup 2 dh @ skibowl

NEXT RACE: Mt Hood Ski Bowl July 9-11. Look for big purses courtesy of FAT TIRE FARM. $1,000 1st place Pro Men and $500 1st Place Pro Women.

Thanks go out to Evil Bikes, Big Tree Bikes, Fat Tire Farm, Shiloh Cyclery, Arrow Racing, Maxxis, Clif Bar, Loeka, Brasher’s, Dakine, Alpinestars, Better Life Health and Fitness and Pink Bike for their support of the Fluidride Cup.

For now, here is a video by Syndrome Racing’s Andy Tran – check it out!

Our follow up to our first instructional film Fluidride: Like a Pro is now in post production. We finished up our last day of filming on TURN yesterday with Awesome Land’s Mark Brent and Miles Sullivan. TURN gives riders an in depth breakdown of how top riders use footwork to elevate their riding to amazing levels. “I’ve had great success with students recently using some new ways of teaching I’ve discovered over the last year, and am really excited to bring my ideas to riders around the world” said Fluidride founder and head coach Simon Lawton. TURN is about more than just cornering well says Lawton. “What we’ve really discovered is that there really is a way to teach riders to flow, and it comes from the way they use their feet”. Even seasoned riders and Pro’s who have benefited from Lawton’s coaching recently have been blown away by the changes they have been able to make to their riding with their new understanding of footwork. TURN is for riders of all levels in all disciplines of cycling. Expect to see TURN available for purchase at the beginning of August.

Round 2 of the Fluidride Cup Technical DH Series is coming up this weekend! There is still plenty of room at the starting line, so come on down and register on site if you haven’t already registered online. Lots of local riders have been up at Ski Bowl helping the Hurricane Crew prep the track for this weekend. Between everyone, we’ve decided to hold off on using the top half of the mountain until our July race due to rapidly melting snow pack. For this race, all riders will ride the lower more technical portion of the track twice, with times being combined. We have a new section for Category 2 riders which ventures into the lower woods parallel to the Pro Course. Category 3 riders will compete on the old Cat 2 track. The Pro/Cat 1 Track also has a few changes awaiting riders with the reintroduction of the log step down double in the lower woods.  Winning times are expected to be around 5 minutes. We are using a new practice schedule so be sure to read the following closely in order to be there at the right time.

PRACTICE TIMES:

Friday: 11am-4pm All Categories

Saturday: 8am-12pm Cat 2/3  -  2pm-6pm Cat 1/Pro

Sunday: One hour of practice prior to racing. Times to be posted at event.

LIFT PRICES:

Friday-Sunday $34

Saturday & Sunday $22

Sunday Only $10

Racers will be required to purchase lift passes after registering. All passes will be purchased at the ticket window. We will no longer issue tickets at registration. All racers must have a lift pass in order to practice – Lift passes are not included in the registration price. Big thanks go out to Kirk at Ski Bowl for the special lift pricing.

Additional Info:

Mt Hood is a big track, with more than 1400 vertical feet of drop. The tracks at Ski Bowl start at the tree line with lots of rock, and descend into some great NW style woods at the bottom. Pro Purses in the Men’s DH will go ten deep, with the winner taking away $500.00. The Loeka Women’s DH will pay 3 deep, with the fastest woman taking home $250.00. As usual, we’ll have prizes for category winners, and lots of drinks and snacks to keep riders charging. The series is decided by the rider with the most points in their best three races, including the final at Mt Hood, so if this is your first Fluidride Cup of the year, you are still in contention for the overall series. See you there!

The first ever international round of the Evil Bikes/Fluidride Cup has come and gone, and by all measures it was a great success. 187 riders showed up to do battle on the slippery and technical courses featured for Round 1.

Pink Bike/CBR rider Tyler Gorz ended up taking the overall in a blazing fast Pro Men’s Division with a time of 3:03.94. Second place went to Evil/SRAM/Dakine rider Kenny Smith. Third place went to the top US Rider at the event – Luciano Worl (Corsair/Atomlab/Marzocchi). Nice work Looch!! Kevin Bartowski and Ken Faubert (Dunbar) rounded out the top five. It was great to see such a large (27 riders) and competitive Pro Men’s field at Whistler.

The Loeka Pro Women’s Division saw Danice Uyesugi (CCN/Velocity Cycles/Intense Canada) take the win over Whistler Icon Katrina Strand (TLD/Oakley) and Seana Wright (Rocky Mountain/Ozzie Cycles).

While there was a lot of competition in every category, one of the stand out stories of the weekend was with the younger riders, and the amazing speed shown by Canada’s Junior riders. There were 26 riders in the Junior Cat 1 Class alone, only one less than the Pro Class. Even more impressive were the times being turned out by these young riders. Nicholas Geddes of the Norco Factory Team turned a very impressive 3:04.21, good enough for the win and the 2nd fastest overall time of the day. Tyler Allison (Trek/Nike 6.0) took the second spot on the podium with Chase Marshall (Knolly/Full Boar/Sun Peaks) rounding out the top three. Canadian junior riders took the top 7 spots, with US rider Brian Guse (Evil/Smith) taking 8th.

On the women’s side, 14 year old Holly Feniak is showing signs of some serious speed and World Cup potential. Unfortunately Holly just missed her start and was given a DNS for the race. The BCC officials at the start were nice enough to give Holly a chance to do an exhibition run which would not officially count as a result. On her run Holly posted the fastest time of any woman with a crazy fast 3:34.32 on the Pro/Cat 1 track. Her times put her in the mix with the Pro Men. This girl is super fast and very driven – you are going to hear a lot about Holly in the years ahead. We’ll hope to see Holly at future FRC rounds.

Racing is alive and well in the NW. In addition to the Evil Bikes/Fluidride Cup, there was a BC Cup happening as well as a Super D race in Oregon. A total of almost 600 NW racers raced gravity events over the weekend…incredible!

Thanks go out Greg Aldrich, Petr Kakes and the rest of the Hurricane Racing crew for putting on such a great event. Big thanks go out to Whistler – we couldn’t have done any of this without the help of Whistler’s Jeremy Roche and Sebastian Freemont and the rest of the Whistler team. Thanks also go out to Mike Wilson and the whole crew at the GLC for making us feel so welcome in Whistler. Big props to Lindsey Harper and Integrated Projects Group for keeping our web sites up and running and for generally helping us keep organized. A debt of gratitude is also owed to superhero Greg Norman for his efforts to make this event go off smoothly and with flair…for those who know Greg, you know he’s the hardest working guy at the races – thanks Greg!

The Fluidride Cup is made possible by our sponsors, without whom, we would not be able to continue our racing efforts. Evil Bikes, Clif Bar, Seattle’s Big Tree Bikes, Portland Oregon’s Fat Tire Farm, Whistler’s Bike and Bean,  Arrow Racing, Maxxis, Loeka, Brasher’s Auto Auction’s, Pinkbike, Dakine, Alpinestars and Better Life Health and Fitness made this series possible, so be sure to support these excellent companies.

I’d also like to thank Claire and Kevin from British Columbia Cycling (BCC) for officiating the event – great job guys.

We’ll hope to see you all on Mt Hood for round 2 of the Fluidride Cup Technical DH series in June 25-27th for some more ripping! Remember that only 3 of the five races in the series are counted toward the overall (must include the final at Mt Hood), so if you couldn’t make it to Whistler you are still able to compete in and win the series in your category.
Full Results here:
Fluidride Cup 1 whistler