A nice no-hander off the big Boneyard step-up

I’m rolling day 3 and 4 of the Crankworx festival together into one report, mainly because yesterday was somewhat of a washout, literally. For the third day in a row, the heavens opened. The two days were the sole domain of brand new competition “Womenzworx” – terrible name, nice idea. Womenzworx seeks to bring the marginalised women’s demographic back into the event, turning the attention away from pit bunnies and pro groupies and on to girls that can actually handle a bike.

Monday was “training day” – I was hoping to go take pictures of women sessioning fun parts of trails, hitting jumps and so on, but it turns out they were actually running women’s clinics and lessons, covering everything from the basics like braking and weight distribution to drops and jumps. I’ll be honest, though – it was grey, wet and didn’t really make great pictures.

The next day was one I anticipated with much excitement – word on the streets was the weather was about to break, and we’d be guaranteed a bluebird sunny day tomorrow. I woke early, greeted by streams of sunlight through the curtain – it was true! I quickly formed plans to get a lap in on the bike park before work began, catching first lift and finally getting some quality time in on the bike. Once again, my dreams were cruelly shattered when Chris, my room-mate for the week and Trek’s Women’s Demo Tour rep, received a rather alarming phone call – her trailer had been broken into, could she come take a look at it immediately? So, that’ll be the trailer with all the bikes in, then? The trailer that we’d just put five brand new, never touched dirt, Session 10s in? The trailer I’d put my own bike in? Ahh, dammit. Sure enough, when we arrived on the hill, we were greeted with the sight of a broken-into trailer, freebie schwag strewn across the gravel and no bikes. They’d taken the lot, including mine. Scumbags. The police did their thing, took away a suspect axe for CSI-style investigation and acted mildly interested despite the fact that all of us knew there was no real chance of ever seeing the bikes again. Ah well, I can take consolation in the fact that the thief that rode mine probably went over the bars when he pulled the brakes – they’re set up UK style, the opposite of the standard way over here. Ha, serves him right.

CSI: Whistler

If it’s free, they will come.

Gotta hand it to ’em: I’ve seen lots of macho guys chicken out of this drop. Me, I’ve never chicken out of it, mainly because you’ll never actually get me up there in the first place.

But anyway, I disgress, back to the riding. Tuesday saw the event begin proper, and the format was… interesting. Rather than have a set course or area in which to test the riders, the organisers chose to test the girls on four different areas of the bike park – technical trail riding on double-black-diamond Goat’s Gully, drops on the infamous Schleyer, jumps on Crab Apple and finally slopestyle in the Boneyard. While it’s a great idea in principle, it made for a very spectator-unfriendly event – the course was closed to the public, so watching the action unfold was impossible for everything other than the Boneyard section. Not to mention it was a pain to cover from a media perspective, what with being spread over the whole mountain. It’s something they definitely need to work on if the event is to run in the future – there’s no point having it on if no-one can see it, right?

The event almost certainly had winners and losers, but as is the continuing trend this week they kept us waiting for over two hours for the results to be announced, and with no sign of a podium presentation on the horizon I skipped out early for sushi and beer, desperately trying to drown the pain of my stolen bike.

Geoff Gulevich marked riders on style, speed and saggy jean height.

Flowers… women… ok, it’s obvious, but hey, it works.

This is either the brand new Specialized Demo 1, or a really bad way to hit a tranny.

Nice bongo, beardy man.

What’s behind the trees? Ugly things.

The first hundred women who signed up got a free lift ticket.

Bike lessons in the rain: not actually much fun.

The Bring Your Own Hula party was sadly under attended.

Lift queues verging on the biblical.

All pics: Dan Barham