Killington Resort Hosts The POC Eastern States Cup DH MTB Race Series

Killington Resort, VT is hosting two POC Eastern States Cup Series races in 2012, both races are part of the USA Cycling Vermont State and Eastern Regional Championships. The first event is the POC ESC Series Race #7 being held Saturday and Sunday July 28-29. This weekend’s event will be the second of four Vermont State Championship races. Killington Resort will host the Vermont State Championship finals at POC ESC Race #10 on August 18-19, 2012. Mount Snow, VT will host the other two Vermont ESC Vermont Championship rounds. Men, women and junior mountain bike riders of all abilities are welcome to come and race
 
The race will be contested on a new version of last years ESC race course, it starts at top of Skye Peak and finishes at the K-1 Bse Lodge.The ESC Race Trail has been freshened up with new trail sections added during the last few weeks by the Killington trail crew. The trail crew is led by ESC Racer Jay (Rosey) Rosenbaum and he’s been doing a great job at Killington for a few years. The course consists of a variety of the east coast’s classic terrain including, high speed ski slopes; steep rock faces; open woods with fast turns; technical roots and rock gardens; and more.

If you’re not racing come watch the Mountain Bike racers challenge the course then at 4pm on Saturday, Rusted Root will be taking the stage for a FREE outdoor show as the "Cooler in the Mountains" summer concert series returns to Killington Resort. Grab a lawn chair, a beach blanket, the whole family and head slope side at K-1 Lodge for this family-friendly event produced by the Town of Killington and presented by Long Trail Brewing Company.

Rusted Root was formed in Pittsburgh in the early ‘90s, Rusted Root’s worldly style quickly charmed fans of roots music and world rock. After debuting in 1992 with the self-released album Cruel Sun, Rusted Root signed with Mercury Records and released the 1994 platinum selling breakthrough album When I Woke, which featured the hit songs "Send Me On My Way," "Ecstasy" and "Martyr." Not long after, the band scored on tours with Toad the Wet Sprocket, Santana, The Grateful Dead, Dave Matthews Band, The Allman Brothers Band, HORDE Festival and the landmark Jimmy Page/Robert Plant reunion tour.

Killington’s Bike Park offers the ultimate summer lift-served mountain biking experience. Killington Resort features 45 miles and a 1,700-foot vertical drop spread across five mountain areas, all served by the K-1 Gondola, offering everything from classic cross-country singletrack to challenging big-bike downhill and freeriding trails.Rental bikes and equiptment are available

The Eastern States Cup Series is a USA Cycling Regional Championship Series and features five USA Cycling State Championships through the summer.
 
The K-1 Express Gondola will be closed on Thursday, July 26 due to construction activity at the Peak Lodge. The K-1 Express Gondola will reopen at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, July 27.
 
Saturday, July 28, 2012

• 9:00 a.m-2:00 p.m. Registration, 2nd floor, K-1 Lodge
• 10:00 a.m-4:30 p.m. Racer practice
• 4:00-6:00 p.m. Rusted Root performs at the Cooler in the Mountains Summer Concert Series, Roaring Brook Umbrella Bars & Deck

 
Sunday, July 29, 2012

• 8:00 a.m.-9:30 a.m. Registration, 2nd floor, K-1 Lodge
• 9:00 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Racer practice
• 11:00 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Race
• 3:00 p.m. Awards

 
2012 EASTERN STATES CUP SCHEDULE

• May 20    Mountain Creek, NJ
• May 27    Plattekill, NY
• June 3     Attitash, NH
• June 10    Pat’s Peak, NH
• June 24    Mount Snow, VT
• July 15    Windham, NY
• July 29    Killington, VT
• Aug 5     Mount Snow, VT
• Aug 12    Plattekill, NY
• Aug 19    Killington, VT
• Sept 2    Plattekill, NY
• Sept 16   Attitash, NH
• Sept 23   Jiminy Peak, MA
• Oct 7      Plattekill, NY

 
Race Entry

• Pro Men & Women $ 75.00
• Categories 1,2 & 3  $ 65.00
• Includes Lift Tickets for Both Saturday and Sunday.

 
Camping - Overnight parking / camping will be allowed in the designated area in the K-1 parking lot Bay 1 (near the race finish area). The site gravel and will have a few portable restrooms. There is no charge.
Hotel Deals - contact Killington Central Reservations: 800-621-MTNS (6867) or email bookit@killington.com
For course map and more information, please visit http://www.killington.com/  or         www./easternstatescup.com/

Former Marzocchi USA Founder To Launch VDO Suspension

The competition in the high-end suspension is about to heat up with the launch of DVO Suspension!

DVO is short for “Developed Suspension” and represents the mindset we have to engineer, design, and deliver fully developed suspension products that are 100%.

30 Years plus industry veteran Bryson Martin owner of Bryson Martin Racing along with Tom Rogers, John Pelino, Josh Baltaxe and Bryson Martin Jr will launch DVO Developed Suspension during the Taiwan Bike Week held in Taichung Taiwan November 2012. We will have a booth at the Splendor Hotel in Taichung during Bike Week.

Bryson and his team were long time Marzocchi employees; they left in May 2012 amid struggles with Tenneco upper management and the direction of the mountain bike suspension business. Bryson Martin was the founder of Marzocchi USA and was the inspiration for the successful Bomber line as well as many other iconic models over the past 23 years.

“After losing our supplier SR Suntour and not having a back up plan, I felt that the future with Marzocchi will be extremely difficult and going my own direction with my own suspension program is the way” said Bryson Martin”.

The new DVO Suspension Team consists of Tom Rogers who is a long time industry veteran and former World Cup racer. Tom worked at Manitou for ten years during their glory days and then nearly ten years at Marzocchi focusing on damper designs. John Pelino was at Marzocchi for 16 years handling operations, after market sales and distribution support. Josh Baltaxe has a graduate degree in Engineering and is a passionate bike rider; he brings the brains and science to all our designs. Bryson Martin Jr is a pro DH racer and business student and will help in tuning, marketing and race support.

Bryson along with his USA based engineering team brings over 80 years of suspension building experiencing and will launch some very cool and innovative suspension products purely focused on the long travel market. “We started with a clean sheet of paper but didn’t look to re-invent the wheel, we addressed some critical areas of current suspension design to enhance performance while making it easier for the consumer to tune or service their own fork if desired”

“We will also launch a very informative web site helping riders better understand the dynamics of suspension in general while providing extensive information on tuning and setting up all of the DVO products”. “Providing detailed and informative information on our web site and backing up our products with excellent customer service and support is key!”

Regarding the competition, it has been a long time since a new company has entered the high-end suspension business of this magnitude, both Rock Shox and Fox the industry leaders have been doing a great job for years. “We feel that the dominance of Fox and Rock Shox has been because there hasn’t been enough good competitors to give them a run for their money and DVO Suspension will be gunning for the top”.

In order to become a player in the suspension business you need to have a solid manufacturing base and SR Suntour the worlds largest suspension maker will install a dedicated production line to assemble the complete line of DVO products (forks and shocks). “SR Suntour is an amazing company with a rich history in the bicycle business, although they are currently known for making low to mid priced suspension, they also produced a lot of great high end products and were once a main player in the early days of mountain bike components” “I’ve worked with SR Suntour for decades, they are passionate about building high end products and have dedicated themselves to making sure DVO Suspension will be a success” says Bryson”. Furthermore, the President of SR Suntour Daisuke Kobayashi rides thousands of kilometers each year, not too many company presidents have the passion like he does for bikes.

For 2013 DVO Suspension will be working with DH Teams and individual riders while heading to as many races and events we can get to and our goal is to support some top World Cup DH Teams in the near future. “We will also work on other market segments within the suspension business and focus purely on the performance aspect” says Bryson.

DVO Suspension is located in Valencia California and is a rider owned company.

2012 US Gravity National Championships Day 3 By Dirt Passion

Well, day there is the in the books….. just one more day left and we’ll determine who will wear the stars andstripes on his or her left arm into 2013. The big news of the day (not to many people surprise) was, Aaron Gwinqualified on top of the Men’s field +5.45 secs in front of Luke Strobel. For the ladies it was Jackie Harmony takingthe top seeding position over Melissa Buhl by a blistering 12.54 sec. Of local SE region interest (hey, Dirt Passion isbased out of the Carolinas, we can be proud and let everybody know) local DHer Ethan Quehl of Grayson, GA andwas also the 2010 Junior National Champion, qualified fourth out of a field of 64. Congrats all round! Note: Thefinal qualified list has not yet been posted to the USAC website)

On to the details…. Day Three started out pretty much just like Day Two. Overnight there was a steady rain on thetop of the mountain which lead to what we believe was thicker fog than previously. Riding the lift to the top wecould not see the lift house until, what felt like 50 feet. First up was the Cat 1 group practice which started in thefog and ended in the sunlight as the fog burned off very quickly. By the time the Pros made the way to the coursefor their two hour practice session the sun was a shining. As with Day Two, lots of time was spent dialing in thoselines one last time through the Rock Garden from HELL! Spending any amount of time there, one could tell thatriders did their homework the day before, smoothness and speed where definitely showing their faces today.

12:45 p.m. rolled around and the current USAC recognized National Champion Logan Binggeli of KHS FactoryRacing was the first down the course, followed by the two TWR riders….. the current fastest man in the WorldAaron Gwin and his young team mate Neko Mullaly. After the field of 64 put in their best efforts, it would be AaronGwin over the field. Ladies followed suite and it was Melissa Buhl smashing the field ahead nearly 13 seconds.

With the DH runs done for the day, all attention turned to the old Beech tubing slope and the new/revised/longerDual Slalom course. With almost 6 hours of track time, kicking off with practice, running through amateur raceruns, and proceeding to the Pro’s race runs, in the end it would be Neko Mullaly of Trek World Racing edging outBlake Carney for the “Best in the US” title for Dual Slalom. Congrats Neko!

Tomorrow is the BIG SHOW! First off will be the Juniors, Cat 1 50+ and Ladies 40+ at 10:15a.m., followed by the fullCat 1 field at 11:15a.m., then the main event kicks off at 2:30p.m. Who’s it gonna be? Place your bets!

Last minute addition…… the rain has again started to fall on the mountain (9:45 p.m.). Once again Beech hasdelivered. Should make things interesting on race day.

2012 US Gravity National Championships Day 2 By Dirt Passion

Day one remained unscathed in terms of moisture, well at least up until the sun went down. About 8:00 p.m. theThunderstorms rolled in. Not sure of the total amount that actually fell, but about 0.5 miles away where the DirtPassion crew crashed, it rained for a good solid hour and for the next few hours it drizzled. 

That meant the next morning would be wet, not a repeat of race day in 2011, but still it would make the morningpretty interesting. At the top of the mountain visibility was about 0.25 miles….. the fog was THICK! The spikes wereout, tape was getting taken out left and right, spectators were slipping on the wet grass, and mud pellets weregetting thrown in every direction.

A chilly morning with the blanket of fog started to make its way out just after the first Amateur rider made theirway down for the first race run of the 2012 Nationals. With clearer skies (not sunny), the temps went up as did thespeeds as the Cat 2 folks started their race runs. Full results for the Cat2 and Cat3 folks can be found on USACycling at the following link. Congrats to All!http://www.usacycling.org/results/index.php?permit=2012-23 

With the weekend “Signed, Sealed, and Delivered” for the Amateurs, all attention will be directed at the Cat 1 andPro riders for the rest of the weekend. The Pro course being newly groomed for this specific event it wasguaranteed to be Greasy, Greasy, Greasy from top to bottom with no sign of things drying out soon, especially withthe threat of rain for the rest of the weekend.

With about four hours of practice split to between both the Cat 1 riders and the Pros, most of the time on course,reviewing lines, watching others, pushing up and doing it again and again was at the “Rock Garden” Definitely acrowd favorite, the attrition rate, those that either went down or those that had every ounce of speed sucked out  of them, was about 70%. Rightfully so, riders spent lots of minutes trying to figure how to successfully get throughthe twenty yard stretch of rock hell!

of them, was about 70%. Rightfully so, riders spent lots of minutes trying to figure how to successfully get through the twenty yard stretch of rock hell! Pro seeding start tomorrow just after the noon hour, then those that have entered the Dual Slalom will get theirchance to be named the best in the US for Dual Slalom. The night will be topped off with the “Brews and Views”,beer tasting, live music, and bicycles! What more could you ask for?

2012 US Gravity National Championships Day 1 By Dirt Passion

July 19, 2012 – Dirt Passion Press Release Day One of the Best in the U.S. – US Gravity National Championships Well, it’s finally here… the battle for the best in the US started today for the second and final round to be Beech in the Southeast for the first time in more than 10 years. Arguably, the biggest thing on the minds of most was the stars and stripes decorated that coveted annual sleeve. What would we see this year? Who has what to prove to who? Maybe nothing, either way I think it’s safe to assume it will be interesting.

The morning started early, with USAC trailers, Gear Vendors, Food Vendors and each of the team with their madscramble to get set up before the mountain flipped that switch for the lift at high noon. Trailers here, trailers over there, bikes, bike parts, tents, buckets full of gravel, rope, stakes, work-stands, bike racks, you name it was there…. Looked like a mound of workers ants.

With all of the moisture that has been plaguing the SE region on the past month, and it’s typically a reoccurring question in the “High Country”, how would the weather cooperate? Search the weather, all you see is those little clouds with droplets of precip and the word on the mountain is spikes, spikes, spikes……. Fast Forward 6 hours after the start of practice and would you believe, a little humid, but nothing but sun, sun, sun.

Overnight that did change with thunder-boomers in the distance which brought about 2 hours of rain. From Dirt Passion’s perspective based on what all the talk was on the Pro course, BRING THE RAIN!...... pointed toward,please wash those greasy rocks off.

Day two is the day for the Amateur’s to show what skills they got in store for us. First rider down in the race run forCat2/3 is at 9:15a.m. Yeah, they are Amateurs, but Grassroots is where it’s at. We’ve all been there! Rip it Guys