News
Trialsworx
John Webster from Mill Bay, BC beat a very competitive international field for a win at the top Biketrials competition in North America. John finished with only 12 points to beat Japanese Elite rider Yasutaka Shibata by 2 points with USA rider Ryan Cecil 3rd with 25 pts and Andorra rider Xavi Casas with 26 pts.
The Biketrials portion of Crankworx began Friday afternoon with the 4th annual Kidsworx Competition. Riders 9 and under were put through their paces on 4 actual Biketrial sections. Each section was manned by one of the top professional Biketrial riders in the world! There were 63 riders registered for the event including many on push bikes and bikes with training wheels. Each competitor received a very cool medal for their efforts. The smiles on the kids (and parents and grandparents) faces lit up Whistler for an hour! Many of the parents say they are forced by their children to come to this every year now!!!
The first part of Trialsworx began right after Kidsworx with riders under 16 and intermediate riders setting off to ride the 6 different "sections". There was one in the Town Plaza, 4 in Rebagliati Park and 1 along the raging Fitzsimmons Creek. This year it was also the North American Biketrials Championships with riders from around the world competing. Kids as young as 5 were out there showing their skills. In the Poussin category Danielito Chernetski from Port Moody was flawless, not getting a single "dab" or point against him for the win, beating out an amzing 7 year old in Felix Pratt and emergin 5 year old star Jackson Goldstone from Squamish. Benjamin winner Mitchell Long from Burnaby is heading to China for the World Championships on Saturday! Minime winner John Goodwin has dominated all year. This competition was close for a while but he eventually wore down his competition by just not making any mistakes the second lap. Chantal Laurie was the Femina winner.
The Master, Senior and Elite riders started out on a beautiful Saturday morning. They were riding 6 sections with 1 in Town Plaza, 1 in Village Common and 4 absolutely crazy sections in the dry Fitzsimmons Creek river bed. The competitors ride them in order doing 2 laps for a total of 12 different sections. Lowest score at the end of the day wins. Ryan Cecil from the states started early and put the pressure on the other Elite riders with some amazingly smooth rides thru some very technical sections.
In the Junior/Senior Category Zak Maeda from Los Angeles took the win not making many errors the entire time. He finished with 10 points to beat local riders Kevin Lui and Chris Hii by 1 and 2 points respectively.
In the Master category, which is riders over 30, Dave Lloyd from Vancouver Island beat out Trials legend Jeff Lenosky by 3 points. It is such a treat for the young guys to see riders such as Lenosky still competing at such a level, and to see the interaction between them.
This was the finest Elite field ever in Canada with Yasutaka Shibata (one of only 20 World Elite riders) coming from Japan, Xavi Casa from Andorra, Ryan Cecil from the US and of course our incredible local riders John Webster, Jeff Anderson, Steve Baia and many more adding to the awesome field. The sections looked incredibly difficult to maneuver through with the village sections having massive logs, rocks and water for the riders to find their way through. The Fitzsimmons Creek sections were strewn with huge boulders and some great spectator areas to watch these world class riders do their stuff. John Webster won for the the second consecutive time in Whistler, getting a little payback for a slim loss to Yasutaka at the CPTA event the Saturday before in Vancouver. Ryan Cecil from North Carolina rode very well for a 3rd place finish with Monster sponsored rider Xavi Casas from Andorra coming in 4th a point back of Cecil.
Biketrials is one of the most spectator friendly sports and the international field of riders put on a great show all day for the thousands of spectators.Thanks to Whistler Arts Council, Tourism Whistler, Kokanee Crankworx and the Canada Pacific Trials Association for supporting a fantastic event!
Also thanks to the Goodwins, Longs, Minato's, Ian, all the checkers, Secret Cycles, MEC, Me and Eds Pizza, Bryan at BetterAwards.com, Tom Lee, Eric and Brad from the Whistler Works yard.....
Results here
Pics here..
posted by Mike and Shirley on Monday, August 17, 2009
