2011 Teva Mountain Games

Report and photos by Eddie Clark. Video by Jordan Carr.

Teva Mountain Games celebrates its tenth year with top competition and excellent racing. 

(June 3, 4, and 5, 2011) VAIL, Colo.—Teva Mountain Games once again took the mountain town of Vail to bring some of the world’s top athletes together to compete in contest and races of every mountain variety.  In its tenth year running, there was even more to take in, and the competition level was once again raised.  In particular the slopestyle competition drew a record number of Canadians seeking fame, cash, and a good time like only Vail can offer.

Early in the week, slopestyle riders from all over North America started showing up in Vail to practice on the new for 2011 course.  Unlike last year’s course, there was only one line which started with a roll-in to a thin feature called the roller coaster which riders Like Mike Montgomery chose to saddle surf onto and off of.  Most just threw a barspin or 360 off it before lining up to hit the much larger Launch Box ramp to a funky dirt step-down. 

In the qualifiers, riders on the cusp would dead sailor the large drop to have a shot at the lower dirt jumps.  However, with a field of packed talent, there wasn’t much room for dead sailors, so it was a definite gamble not to trick the second jump, which proved to be a major course feature to a high scoring run.  Of the 35 riders in qualifying, only 16 made the cut to proceed to the finals held on Friday evening.

After landing the Launch Box, riders made a hard right turn into a large berm to prepare for the Double Dip, two standard dirt jumps, where riders threw even more wild tricks to impress the judges and crowd who were right in front of the second set.  Next was a smaller jump through the Teva banner with one last big jump over the Big Booter for the run ending finale.  With serious cash in the thousands of dollars on the line, the slopestyle riders used up every trick in their quiver to impress. 

One rider particularly stood out, and that was Mike Montgomery riding for Banshee Bikes.  Not only did mike impress with the complexity of his tricks, but his amplitude was a level above his competitors, and aptly rewarded with a first place score for his first of two finals runs.  Riding after Montgomery was Paul Basagoitia who nailed a perfect run and huge front flip at the end of his first run to score a close second behind Montgomery. 

For his second run, Montgomery went even bigger and landed a huge 720 to cap off his run and further up the ante on his top score.  Not to be out done, previous Teva Games winner Basagoita went every bit as huge and technical, and on the last jump he opted for a crazy double back flip, but just cased the landing with his front tire and was sent to the ground like a sack of potatoes.  Basagoita was out cold for 5 minutes before coming to while being strapped to a back board for safety and a trip to the hospital for a CT scan.  Luckily he’s a tough kid, and should recover just fine for the rest of the summer’s slopestyle events. 

In the end, Montgomery took first, Basagoitia second, and 15 year old Anthony Messere took third place and also the awards for best trick and big air in the 15 minute jam that followed the slopestyle event.

On Saturday several slopestyle riders competed in the Freeride Urban Dual event which was contested like a dual slalom race with a man on man timed format, but over man-made obstacles in Vail Village.  Dave Smutok from GT Bikes narrowly edged out course designed Jeff Lenosky of Giant Bikes for the win.  Third and fourth went respectively to Eric Porter from Diamondback, and Mike Kent.

In the endurance department, the cross country mountain bike race packed a whole lot of punch in a little package due to large amounts of snow on the upper mountain.  To everyone’s amazement, the course was incredibly dry thanks to the diligent work of the Teva Mountain Games crew.  The only mud encountered was in a couple drainage crossing and the under-ground tunnel, which was perfect for making this a well rounded, albeit difficult race. 

With a shortened course, racers were on the gas much harder going up the numerous shorter climbs to make for an incredibly more demanding race than most remembered in previous years.  As race announcer Larry Grossman commented, “It’s a great place to ride your mountain bike, but it’s a really hard place to race your mountain bike.”

In the pro men’s race, Mitch Hoke (Tokyo Joes), Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski (Trek/Subaru), and Howard Grotts (Durango Devo) wasted no time in stringing out the field during the first lap.  By the second lap, Hoke lost some ground as JHK settled into his rhythm at the head of the race.  

“I just got back from Europe on Tuesday, so I just eased into the race.  It is harder because you’re fully on the gas the whole time since it’s a shorter course.  I’ve been around the world, but Colorado is by far my favorite place to race still, I just love it here, real mountains and singletrack, this is why I do it”, said JHK of the race and his love for ColoRADo mountain bike racing. 

Hoke held onto his second place while Tad Elliot (Durango Devo) worked his way up to third, Grotts faded to fourth, and Colin Cares (Kenda/Felt) rounded out the top five in fifth place.

In the pro women’s race, Georgia Gould (Luna Team) went straight to the front and rode a relatively clean race to finish in first place.  “I tried not to go out too hard because you can really blow up out here towards the end.  It was fun in retrospect, but while I was doing it I was like wow this is hard!” recalled Gould on her victory. 

Kellie Emmett (Giant) finished in a well earned second after taking a hard fall and going over the bars on the singletrack.  “I had Georgia in sight until the crash and then she was gone.  I told myself I’m in second place and there’s a lot of money in this race, so I better keep going”, which is exactly what Emmet did.

Sage Wilderman riding for Durango Devo had a break-through race to claim third place ahead of Heather Irmiger (Trek/Subaru).  Irmiger was riding with a soft cast to protect a torn ligament in her hand and some bruised ribs that were the result of a crash she suffered while racing in the UK.  Fifth place went to Jen Gersbach of team Honey Stinger who was happy as can be to be racing on her new Trek Supercaliber 29’er.

For the final cycling event, racers switch to road time trial gear to contest the uphill time trial course held on Sunday Morning.  The course started in Vail Village, and went uphill towards Vail pass for a length of 10 grueling miles.  Erin Huck (Tokyo Joes) took the pro women’s victory over Georgia Gould and third placed Kelli Emmett.  LeRoy Popowski took the pro men’s victory with a time of 26:29.32, Greg Krause (Juwi Solar/First Solar) was second, and Greg Ruckman was third.

Teva Games results here.