Ideride does Thunder
Knight and the Ideride junior race team ventured 3 hrs from their homeland of East Burke, VT to Thunder Mountain in Charlemont, Mass to attend the Vittoria ESC Box showdown. Thunder Mountain is only the second race for the team this season, with the Victory Hill Enduro being the first race on their home track. This race provided longer runs and more challenging terrain then what they're used to.
This year five of the team members made the trip down to Thunder ( Elias Cooper, Daymien Ide, Barrett Hibshman, Aiden Walsh and Forrest Mello.) Day, Barrett, Aiden and Forrest decided to race the Enduro and Elias was the one team member who opted to do the DH race.
(pictured above left-right: Aiden Walsh, Barrett Hibshman, and Elias Cooper)
The team members that raced Enduro had one day of practice to dial in and find all of the ninja lines on the four stages that was in the big race on Sunday. With heavy concentration on pedaling and increasing endurance during the midweek team practices, they were well prepared for the task at hand. Ideride's downhill maniac Elias Cooper raced on the trail called "The Schist" which is a double black diamond world cup style race course.
(pictured above: Barrett Hibshman riding with his signature mouth wide open style.)
The team posted solid times on the day for the Enduro race with Daymien Ide placing the highest position on the team. He placed 5th in the 14 and under category with a combined time of (34:52) being 2 mins off the leading time. Chomping close at his heals was his fellow teammate Barrett Hibshman coming in 7th place with a combined time of (36:30). Also with an impressive race was new guy Aiden Walsh coming in 18th place in his depute season with the race team. Forrest Mello was representing the team in the 15-18 year old category, and he pedaled his way to a 6th place finish with a combined time of (31:01) only 2 min 30 sec off from the leader.
(pictured above: Elias Cooper gaping some rocks in his DH run)
Elias Cooper jumped his way into a second place finish in the cat 2 15-18 year old category. As being the only team member racing DH he was a good representation of local East Burke talent.
(pictured above: Aiden Walsh catching some air time)
The Ideride Junior race team traveled 3 hrs to one of the premiere New England bike parks (Thunder Mountain) and they got to participate in some classic east coast mountain bike racing. This was a great experience for them as Thunder has some expert level terrain which presented a challenging weekend of gnarly mountain bike riding. Everyone had good results but still have room for improvement which they will be focusing on during their midweek practices. As for the upcoming weekend the team will be traveling to Killington Mountain to show people how to whip a bike at the first annual Bike & Brew Event at Killington. The event is being hosted by Mountain Bike Vermont(MTBVT.COM), and you can catch the team at the whip off on Saturday June 10th at 2pm at the base of the snowshed lift.. We hope to see you there!!!!
