Trackside carnage from Rotorua
Getting loose at the Larches
Crankworx is the world’s largest freeride mountain bike festival, held each summer at Whistler, Canada, and also, since 2012, in the French village of Les 2 Alpes. The inaugural slopestyle event was staged in 2004, when freestyle BMXer Paul Basagoitia used a borrowed bike to win the competition. Overall, the festival was a huge success, and is now seen as a catalyst for the evolution of freeride mountain biking as a whole.
Other highlights from the history of the competition include action from the slopestyle competition in 2005, when Darren ‘Bearclaw’ Berrecloth wowed the crowds by spinning 360 over a massive 60-foot road gap. In 2009, the Deep Summer Photo Challenge was introduced, and Olympic BMX champion Anne-Caroline Chausson returned to mountain biking action, winning the Garbanzo DH, Air DH and Enduro DH.
After struggling through a number of injury-plagued years, Cam Zink reclaimed the first place podium in the slopestyle event in 2010, the same year that Brian Lopes won the Air DH event for the fifth year in a row. In 2012, Stevie Smith won the Whistler Triple Crown of Garbanzo DH, Air DH and Canadian Open DH, and he remains the only athlete to have ever achieved this feat.
Crankworx Les 2 Alpes 2014 takes place from 3th to 6th July – action includes the Official European Whip Off Championships, Polygon Air DH, GT Dual Speed & Style and the Rock Shox Ultimate Pump Track Challenge, as well as the slopestyle competition. It will be followed on 8th August by the 10-day Whistler extravaganza.
