By WENDY BOOHER Kyle Strait exiting the satellite dish
photo: brightroom.com
 A mix of 15 trials riders, free riders,
dirt jumpers and other skilled bike handlers advanced to the Dual Stunt
finals after proving their skills at bunny hopping, reverse bunny
hopping, dirt jumping, and trials in yesterday's qualifying rounds.
World Cup downhill racers, trials supernovas and a former nordic ski
champ went head-to-head in a power-sapping struggle over the "fish
pond," through the "liberty bells," into a pair of bunny hops before
getting propelled into a satellite dish to reverse direction.
"The key is to pump
and to keep speed up," said Kyle Strait (Oakley/Specialized). "The
course definitely required a lot of legs and lungs, it was definitely a
tiring course."
Trouble
spots emerged as riders bobbled or even crashed over the first and
second rollers. Key to riding a clean, fluid race was to know where to
gain speed and where to scrub it. Riders who overpowered the run-up,
like Cameron Zink (Felt/SRAM), overshot the landing and either slowed
to a stop or wiped out completely. They were either penalized with the
maximum 1.5 second differential going into the second run or they were
out of contention for the win.
The
first surprise upset came early when Aaron Chase (Cannondale/Cut)
failed to advance to the quarterfinals, instead allowing Jordie Lund to
go up against Strait. A bobble by course designer, Jeff Lenosky, in the
quarterfinals cost him .818 seconds and, unable to make up the time,
Lenosky yielded to Wayne Goss (Cannondale/Cut), who advanced to the
semifinals. Goss matched skills with Chris Akrigg (Mongoose) while
Strait went up against Jamie Goldman (Santa Cruz/Syndicate). Akrigg and
Strait punched out wins in the semis to take aim at victory. Akrigg,
who had the second fastest qualifying time, admitted that he thought he
might be able to take it easy during the first few runs but every run
turned into a sufferfest and left him tapped by the end.
"I
knew I was one of the fastest and I thought I could just cruise in the
beginning but every single round was flat out," Akrigg said. "My legs
just died."
Each
made a few mistakes in the finals but it was Strait, who rode smooth,
consistent - almost conservative - runs to sweep all eight rounds and
take the win.
"The first run [in the finals] got a little awkward," Strait said. "A little wind cut me off but it came together in the end."
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