Windham World Cup – 2014

August 17, 2014

Camping the Cup

Windham World Cup was amazing this year. Great friends to share the experience with and the whole nine. Citizens’ race was off the hook. More on that later. For now, let’s focus on the world pros. We got some great shots and saw a pretty sick story unfolded with the winners and podiums.

Stayed in Ashland this time. About 10 mins outside of Windham, higher up in the mountains. Trailer park campground. The idea was that we would have power and water to plug into. And showers. Turned out the water stank like rotten eggs (as unfiltered well water sometimes does). Don’t get me wrong, it was fun. We had a good time with the Shacks here. People For Bikes was camped there, as was IMBA and some other XC racers. We just bought bottled water : )

Everyone’s Someone

Kicking the pro stuff off with a dose of real. Meet the 88th ranked rider on the WC DH circuit – Johannes Von Klebelsberg. Wish you could see this entire shot. He’s in the back of his rental car. That was his pit. Yup. Just like you and me. Only this kid has his dad working his pit. And he may have traveled the world to get to Windham on his own dime. I respect this kid as much, if not more, than the guys who get the lime light. He’s not a protected rider. If he doesn’t quali, he doesn’t race. His plane ticket, hotel, the time, the effort, his dad’s lost work time. All gone. Nothing more respectable than hanging your balls out there, eh?. Look at that smile. So stoked we were there talking to him. Said he was happy with quals. We wished him well. His English was rough and our German worse. But we didn’t needs words. We all understood each other perfectly.

Note – See his rig? Crazy chromed. Did some digging. He’s got a ride. Just not sure how much they are covering for him. He finished this race in 53’rd place. When you’re talking about the best 80 riders in the world, 53’rd place means 10 secs back. Yeah, he’s a real ripper and I’m sure he will find that 10 secs in the coming years. Good on ya, Johannes. Hope to see you in the top 20 one day soon.

A Digger in the Pits

Big man was riding his 12″ in the pits for all of 1 min when all of a sudden he crossed up the bars and went straight to his chin. It was the worst wreck he’s had to date and it was all at super slow speed. His helmet didn’t do anything at all cause it was straight to chin. Happened right outside GT’s pit and Santa Cruz’s pit. He just wouldnt stop crying. We took him to first aide to make sure he wasn’t concussed. We think he was, they said he was fine. We kept him off the bike for two days just in case.

Big thanks go to Kathy from Santa Cruz and from Rich from GT. You guys both came out to see if he was OK. GT gave him SWAG and both Atherton’s remembered him when we were walking through later. Really cool you guys. Thanks for the support.

Pro Pits

Cam Cole told me he wasn’t feeling the track. Said he went down a couple times and just couldn’t find his rhythm. He did really well in the Eastern States Cup pre-ride race so I found this feedback from him interesting. Track does evolve, but still…