2008 US Trials Team Qualifier

2008 US Trials Team Qualifier for the
UCI Mountain Bike and Trials World Championships
Tishomingo, Oklahoma
03 May 2008

Before I say anything else about this event, I have to say just two words: EPIC TERRAIN!  Holy cow!  The place is incredbile.  You could ride there for a solid week and not touch the same rock twice.  I think I could have set the sections with my eyes closed!

It was a great event.  We had about twenty riders (three didn’t compete for results) and quite a few newbies.  I had fun putting faces to so many online personas.  The weather was perfect and the rocks were super sticky.  Even more, there was a great, laid-back atmosphere of good times and comradarie throughout the weekend.  You all are the best!

I met up with Jeff, Colin, Pete, Stan and Jon on Friday morning for breakfast at IHOP.  We stuffed ourselves and then headed out for the two hour drive to the venue.  With Stan in the lead, it made for some interesting driving but we all made it there safe and in good time.  Once there, it was quick and easy to size up the terrain to start imagining sections.  I set the Pro/Expert sections with some “input” from the guys and Jeff set the Beginner and Sport sections.  This made the setup go pretty quickly and gave us some time to ride afterward.  For me, it was awesome to get to ride with other people again, though, it’s starting to sink in that my skills are fading away.

For the competition, I decided to run the Beginner and Sport classes in the morning so that they would be able to watch the Experts and Pros ride later.  We got started a little late but they ripped through the sections and seemed to have a ton of fun doing it.  It’s great to see new blood in the sport, riding well and having a great time.  Thanx guys!

I then spent the afternoon judging the Pro group.  Unfortunately, this meant I didn’t get to see too much of the Experts but, when I did see them, they seemed to be riding well and enjoying themselves.  I set pretty difficult Expert and Pro sections, as you can see from the scores, to give everyone a taste of what World sections could be like.  There was a bit of grumbling that the sections might have been too hard but everyone seemed to enjoy pushing themselves.  Since the Experts only had six sections, that left me two sections to be Pro-only.  This allowed me to set some monsters.  Section 8 proved too much for everyone with fives across the board.  However, Section 7 brought out some big skills from Neil, Vaughn and Jon.  Nice work!

I have to offer a huge thanks to everyone who supported and/or helped with this event.  Special thanks go to the Texhoma Trials Club, Jeff Edgington and everyone at the event who lent a helping hand.  The biggest thanx goes to Adrian at UniqueTrials.com and American Bicycle Racing, without whom this event may not have been possible.

Selected from the below results, the 2008 US Trials Team will be as follows:

• Elite 20″ – Jonathan Tollerud
• Elite 26″ – Vaughn Micciche
• Elite 26″ – Mike Schiavone

Results:

Pictures

Beginner Winners

Expert Winners

Pro Winners

Sport Winners

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