July 4/07 8:10 am - Alberta MTB Championships

Posted by Editoress on 07/4/07
 

2007 Alberta Provincial MTB XC Championships June 30th Edmonton
Courtesy Brys Francis

The 2007 Alberta Provincial Championship featured a new twist to a tried and true venue. The goal was to provide a more spectator friendly event that still highlights the technical climbs and descents that the park has to offer. The shortened course utilized most of the technical single-track available, including the dreaded fireman's descent, culminating in 180m of climbing for each of the 6km laps. This event would not happen if it weren't for the course crew of Bruce Penner, Stew Hutchings, Clayton Stafford and Marc Bailey trimming the substantial overgrowth. The timing was expertly run by Tara Lee Stilwell and Blaine Sherman and the course was controlled by the first class team of volunteers, Wayne Douglas, Michelle Ellis, Deb Whitten, Dave Forgan, Gary Piller, Debby Heemskerk, Lauri Wischoff, Shauna Richard, and Christina Herbers.

Despite the biblical down pour Friday night, Terwillegar Park proved to drain exceptionally well, and provided racers a real chance to test themselves. Due to the amount of water on the course, the morning start was altered for the Novice and Sport events to exclude the fireman's trail, and still provided ample challenge over the slippery roots and clay descents. The Novice Men's race was a battle between Jon Benskin (United Cycle), Darcy Kuss (Pedalhead), Antonio Bilotta (Pedalhead), and Shannon Hein (United Cycle). As the laps ticked by Antonio held a slight lead over Shannon heading into the third lap. An slight bobble on the rooty climb, saw Hein make the winning pass. Hein's strength allowed him to power away over the remaining two laps to a 6 minute advantage over Bilotta in 2nd, closely followed by Kuss in 3rd and Killick in 4th and Benskin in 5th.

The Sport Men's race was another thrilling race with Peter Knight and Trevor Pombert (United Cycle) riding together in 3rd and 4th for 3 of the 5 laps chasing the eventual winning duo of Eckehart Marenholtz 1st (Pedalhead) and Mathew Dahl 2nd (Bow Cycle). This back and forth race saw Kevin McMahon (Pedalhead) sneak in for 3rd just ahead of Peter Knight (United Cycle) in 4th, and Trevor succumb to his cramps and crashes. His teammates picked up the slack and Roger Clemens moved up from a slow start to finish 5th followed closely by Simon Richard (United Cycle) hot on his heals.

The second start of the day saw the course shortened for the Youth (10-16) Novice and Sport categories, allowing them to race on a multilap course, with all of the spectators there to cheer them on. The Sport Youth Men's event saw the Bow Cycle quartet of Kris Dahl, Kurt Defreitas, Ty Andrews, and Felix Wilberg power away from the start to sweep the first 4 spots respectively. The Novice Youth Men's event saw Alex Steneker (Edmonton BMX) bring home the hardware for his family winning over Adam Todd (Bicisport) and paralympian J.P. Veress (Bow Cycle) in 3rd. The closest race of this group was for the Sport Youth Women's event. Samantha Grover edged out team mate Kendra Middleton (Juventus) to win the Provincial title.

The afternoon's start saw the course dry up enough to include the fireman's trail. All told, only three of the afternoons riders were able to ride this section each of the laps throughout the race. The expert men did not disappoint and provided the most entertaining 6 laps of racing. Bruce Penner (United Cycle) took the holes hot through the feed zone and was one of those riders to cleanly ride through fireman's trail. This lead to a huge 45 second lead after the end of the first lap over hard charging Aaron Schooler (ERTC), Anthony Steenbergen (HR Block), Jeff Bolstad (HR Block, Tracey Shearer (Juventus), and Mike Blennerhassett (Hardcore). Lap after lap the lead see-sawed between Bruce and Aaron. Their back and forth battle allowed Jeff Bolstad to come from behind and sprint past Aaron at the line taking the win 3 seconds, with Schooler holding off Penner by 27s for 2nd

The men's and women's Elite races saw new Provincial Champions crowned for the first time. In the women's race Loni Klettl (Freeskook) and Pepper Harlton (Juventus) battled back and forth for the 6 laps of the course. Loni's technical skills proved too much as she edged Pepper by 15seconds to win her first Provincial Championship title. The men's race saw 2004 Provincial Champion Marc Bomhoff (United Cycle) return to action, but right from the start of the 7 lap race 2004 runner up, Evan Sherman (United Cycle) pressed the pace opening a 15s advantage over Mike Sarnecki (ING) after a half lap. Shawn Bunnin (Bicisport), Marc Bomhoff, Jon Nutbaum (Ridley's), Steve Martins (Hardcore) and Corey Wallace (Bicisport) worked hard and chased together lap after lap. Jon fell out of the running after a brake failure, Marc pulled out after 4 laps as the rough course took it's toll and left Shawn, Steve and Corey to chase down Evan. In the end, Evan held his advantage from start to finish taking a 1 minute advantage to the line winning his first Provincial Championship title. Shawn Bunnin held on to a 30 s advantage over Corey Wallace and Steve Martins succumbed to cramping to finish a strong 7th.