Season Updates

Once again, I’ve fallen a bit behind on these, so I’ll do my best to hit some highlights.

We’ve near the end of a massive block of racing. Two BME’s, US and Canadian Nationals, two World Cups, the Leadville 100, and three EWS events is a LOT of racing. The team has taken it all in stride and produced some stellar results as well!

Let’s start with the XC crew. Haley and Lespy have both been racing their butts off, with something like 7 weeks in a row of racing. Both performed well at Canadian Nationals, both placing 5th. They were both hoping for better finishes, but they both raced extremely well. After race the World Cups in Snowshoe and Mont Ste Anne, Lespy and Haley headed to Leadville, Colorado for the legendary Leadville 100. The race is a brutal one, and both riders left everything out on the racecourse. Haley managed to climb back from a small deficit early in the race to take 3rd overall and move into the overall lead in the Life Time GP. Only two more Life Time events left for the year, but the momentum is good!

The enduro pair has also been doing a lot of racing and producing excellent results. Cole has been racing extremely well and seems to get better every week. He started off the race block with a 2nd place finish at the BME in Durango. He followed that up by improving each EWS finish, with a breakthrough ride at Sugarloaf to finish 9th! Sophie has been really consistent, regularly finishing in the top ten at the BME’s and finishing as 4th American in Sugarloaf.

I’ll leave you with that for now. We’ve got a few races left in this race block before a small break and a final push through the end of the season. See you at the races!

Photos courtesy @wilmatthewsphoto @jamesstokoephoto @maddogboris

Catching up

Boy, I’ve really gotten behind on writing these. So much has happened since the last one, our official team launch at Sea Otter, two Lifetime GP events, our first BME of the year, oh, and quite a few podiums.

It’s certainly been a busy start to the year. I’ll try to do a better job on the updates, but for now let me try to catch up a bit.

How can you not have fin with this crew?

Sea Otter was a great trip, we had a team launch party, did a bunch of racing, and got to see all of our incredible partners.

On the racing side, things went great. The Fuego was the first Lifetime GP event, in which Lespy got 5th, and Haley 6th. Lespy also decided to jump in to the gravel race the following day, which he won; our first win of the year!

The enduro crew stayed super busy, racing both DH and enduro, and Sophie event jumped into the Dual Slalom. Lots of practice runs, and some very pedal-y courses, but a great way to ease into the year.

After Sea Otter, we had a couple of XC races in quick succession, the US Cup in Fayetteville, and the Whiskey Off-road. Both were outstanding events.

The US Cup was fast and furious, with what was supposed to be 3 races over 5 days. Instead, we saw some nasty weather and schedule changes that had us racing three days in-a-row.

Lespy and Haley were great about taking everything in stride, and were super consistent on the weekend. Lespy was on the podium in every race and Haley was looking strong and in contention.

Our next stop was the Whiskey Off-road in Prescott, AZ. Always a great event, this year was no different. Todd and the crew put together a killer event, with the Fat Tire Crit Friday evening and the 50-mile backcountry race on Saturday. Lespy and Haley both looked super strong in both races, working on the front of the crit, Haley grabbing a podium spot in the crit, and both bringing home a podium in the 50-mile main event!

Right after the Whiskey Off-road, Lespy and Haley hopped across the pond for some World Cup racing. I’ll let them fill you in on that.

Our next domestic event was the first BME of the year in Ironton, MO. Ironton is a really unique spot, a bit out of the way, and not what you might call “mountainous”, but a great event nonetheless. The town is super stoked to have the BME and the trails are really physical and challenging.

Both Cole and Sophie looked good throughout the weekend. Sophie stayed within a few seconds of the leaders in almost every stage and grabbed 8th place overall. Cole looked strong as well, racing near the top, to eventually take 4th place.

The story of the weekend however, has to be Cole’s stage 3, it was talked about by all the racers all weekend. As mentioned Cole had been racing fast, and stage 3 was more of the same. However, about halfway down Cole managed to lose one of his shoes. Yes, that’s right, LOST A SHOE. Now instead of stopping to find this show, Cole keeps charing down the hill and finishes the stage with one shoe. We did manage to find it (thanks to that photographer!) and get it to him before he dropped in on stage 4.

Cole still can’t explain how the shoe came off, the thing was still tied when we found it! If you seem him at a race, make sure you ask him if his shoes are tied tight!

4th by only 5 seconds!

Unbound… a lot can be said about this one. Certainly one of the most challenging events we’ll do all year. 200 punishing miles of gravel, mud, rain, and whatever else the flint hills of Kansas decide to throw at you.

I’m super proud of both of our endurance racers. This was, after all, their first real gravel race. I guess sometimes you just need to jump in head first.

Lespy and Haley both raced incredibly well, ending up 24th and 6th respectively in their fields.

While the results are great, its impressive to see these athletes put their minds to something and get after it. This was a quick turnaround after racing two World Cups in Europe, but that didn’t stop them.

They’ve both talked about the experience on Instagram and Haley’s blog, you should check them out if you haven’t already.

https://www.haleyhuntersmith.com/blog.htm

I feel like I’ve glossed over a lot of what we’ve done so far this year. I apologize for that, but I wanted to try to catch everyone up on at least a little bit of what we’ve accomplished.

I promise I’ll try to do a better job of keeping this updated more regularly.

Until next time!

-Drew

Photos courtesy of Bill Schieken @cxhairs

Twelve Days in Paradise

Our first trip as a team took us down to Puerto Rico for two weekends of racing. It was the first time to the island for all three of us, and we were all excited to be able to make the trip. Two weekends of racing, and some great completion made, plus some fantastic weather made the trip the perfect spot to start our year.

Race number one!

Our first week was spent in Salinas, on the Southeastern part of Puerto Rico. We had a great rental just outside of Salinas, and some pretty stellar views.

Racing took place at the Albergue Olímpico, a really neat athletics facility for al types of sports. Short Track on Friday, followed by XCO on Sunday. Both races were HOT; ice socks, dump bottles, and hydration were all big factors in the racing. Haley and Andrew both did well, having strong, top-ten results in both.

The completion was great, drawing athletes from the US, Canada, and South America. The local racers had an amazing following, the crowd went wild any time a Puerto Rican athlete through.

Following the racing, we had a few days to relax, and get some training in. We were lucky enough to also have fellow Ibis athlete, Kelsey Urban staying with us. Kelsey was great to have around, share meals with, and join Andrew and Haley for course pre-rides and training.

Our second week took us across the island to Rincon, a renown surf destination, in the Northwest corner. Haley, Andrew, and Kelsey chose to make most of the transfer by bike while I drove the rest of our bags to our new house. The ended up riding 116km in total, a big day in the sun.

The gang knocked out some more training during the week, and a few days checking out the race course before the big event on Sunday. Haley and Andrew scored or first-ever podiums, with Haley taking 5th and Lespy in 4th. Both looked great despite the heat and are on-track for a great season.

All of our equipment was great; frames, suspension, wheels, and tires all worked flawlessly and will only get better as we dial everything in and our race spec arrives.

We spent our final night of the trip in San Juan before flying out the following day. Couldn’t have asked for a better send off; one last swim in the ocean followed by walking around Old San Juan, and some pizza to celebrate!

I’ll leave you with just a couple more images in case you hadn’t booked that flight to Puerto Rico yet…

See you next year PR!

-Drew

The Beginning

In the beginning, there were boxes… Actually, that isn’t true at all, there wasn’t anything, this team was just an idea. I’m really proud of what we were able to pull together in a relatively short time, and I can’t wait to get out to the races.

There’s some bikes in here somewhere

I was approached about this opportunity by Duncan at Maxxis and Dave Mac from the Clif program; with the Clif team dissolving, they were discussing some ideas to channel some of that team’s legacy, experience, and connections into a new program. I was immediately interested in being a part of it. Working with Duncan and Dave, we were able to gather some incredible team partners, and some exceptional athletes to make this team a reality. I owe both of them a lot of thanks. Duncan was a driving force at Maxxis to be our title sponsor and helped tie in a number of other great partners. Dave used his years building relationships at Clif/Luna to help find partners and make connections for this new program. From the bottom of my heart, thank you to both of you.

In addition to those great partners and sponsors, we have an outstanding group of athletes. On the Endurance side, Andrew L’Esperance and Haley Smith are stepping outside of their comfort zone to take on some of the largest and longest events in the country. They both have many years of competing against the world’s best on the World Cup circuit, but both were searching for a change. We’ll still be doing some World Cup racing, but both Haley and Andrew were accepted into the LifeTime Grand Prix and are excited for that challenge. We also have two young rising racers in the enduro scene, Cole Peterson and Sophie Allen. Cole and Sophie have both been racing well and make regular appearances in the top-10. They will be focused on the Big Mountain Enduro series, with a few other events sprinkled into their schedules, including the domestic EWS stops. I look forward to both of them growing as athletes and hunting podiums.

Team

Haley Smith and her new Exie

It’s difficult for me to express how excited I am for this team to hit the ground running. I will admit, it hasn’t been without its challenges; the bicycle industry is still struggling to overcome a strained supply chain and parts are hard to come by. With that, I’ll sign off and go back to crossing my fingers and hoping for deliveries.

-Drew