Brad Torchia

A downhill mountain biker races in one of five enduro stages at the Colorado Freeride Festival at Winter Park’s Trestle Bike Park last July. (Special to The Denver Post by Brad Torchia.)

Winter Park’s Trestle Bike Park will host the only U.S. stop of the first-ever Enduro World Series next summer, buttressing its position as the nation’s top bike park.

With enduro riding exploding, the Enduro Mountain Bike Association in October announced the creation of its own, UCI-free World Series, a seven-stop international tour tying together the largest events in enduro racing – France’s Enduro Series, Italy’s Superenduro races and the Whistler-born Crankworx contests. The group released the series’ race stops and dates last week.

Winter Park’s Colorado Freeride Festival – July 27-28 – will be the fourth stop of the international tour. This year’s festival featured a five-stage contest that drew dozens of enduro racers. They raced long downhill courses traversing Trestle’s biggest features and singletrack in contests that required some uphill. Enduro – while popular in Europe – is surging stateside and especially in Colorado, where the Mountain States Cup launched its inaugural enduro races last summer.

2013 Enduro World Series
May 18-19: Superenduro PRO – Punta Ala, Italy
June 29-30: Enduro Series – Val d’Allos, France
July 6-7: Crankworx Les 2 Alpes – Les 2 Alpes, France
July 27-28: Colorado Freeride Festival – Winter Park, United States
August 10-11: Crankworx Whistler – Whistler, Canada
August 24-25: Enduro Des Nations – Val d’Isere, France
October 19-20: Superenduro PRO – Finale Ligure, Italy

The Furniture Row Racing pit crew with Kurt Busch in the cockpit at Charlotte Motor Speedway in October. That crew will be in-house in 2013, headed by Mike “Tiny” Houston. (FRR)

First they hired firebrand Kurt Busch. And on Tuesday, Denver’s Furniture Row Racing added the Minister of Pain.

Mike “Tiny” Houston — a former professional wrestler named Mike Mayhem who went by that nickname — will head the newly-formed pit crew for Busch and NASCAR’s No. 78 Chevy of Furniture Row.

The Denver team in recent seasons had farmed out their pit crew from the Stewart-Haas Racing team. But now, FRR will have its own over-the-wall crew for Busch. The six-man crew will work out of Mooresville, N.C.

Read more…

Mikaela Shiffrin. (Daniel Petty, The Denver Post)

Beaver Creek — Lindsey Vonn didn’t get to race downhill against the men last week because the International Ski Federation denied her request, but Mikaela Shiffrin got to be a forerunner before Sunday’s men’s giant slalom.

There’s nothing against the rules about that. Forerunners are chosen by the ski team of the home country and are used to test the course before a race. Shiffrin, who also foreran here last year, lives just down the road in Eagle-Vail.

“It was sick,” Shiffrin said after skiing the second run course. “So fun. It’s going to be a good course. The hill just really lends itself to making turns, just arcing everything. It’s so fun to get on a hill and turn around a gate and feel like, ‘That was sick.’ I just felt it every single turn.”

Shiffrin, 17, passed her driver’s test last week. She leaves Wednesday for Europe and will spend the rest of the winter racing there.

Beaver Creek — American Ted Ligety will take a significant lead into the second run of today’s World Cup giant slalom at Beaver Creek.

After the first run, Ligety holds a lead of 0.78 seconds over the second man the leaderboard, Marcel Hirscher of Austria. Hirscher won the World Cup GS season title last season and Ligety was second. Ligety won the GS title three of the four seasons preceding last year.

Ligety won the season’s first GS race at Soelden, Austria. The second run today, which starts at 12:45 p.m., will be covered live by NBC Sports Network.

Beaver Creek — Stacey Cook had never been on the World Cup podium before Friday, but Friday and Saturday she finished second behind teammate Lindsey Vonn in downhills at Lake Louise.

Reasons include momentum from some top 10s last season and hard work this summer. But there’s another reason: She got lots of downhill training this month at Copper Mountain.

As I have mentioned before, the US Ski Team Speed Center there, now in its second year, has given the team’s downhillers a chance to get lots of downhill training at a time of year when other teams are hard-pressed to find anything remotely resembling downhill conditions.

This isn’t a very good analogy but imagine if, before a major golf tournament, a player got to play the course several times before the tournament, but the rest of the field could only practice on the par 3 course down the street. Cook and Vonn went to Lake Louise ready to rock, and they came through, going 1-2 two days in a row.

European media outlets have reported rumors that Lindsey Vonn is dating Tiger Woods, but Vonn says there’s nothing to it

“We are just friends,” Vonn told me Saturday after winning her second World Cup downhill in two days at Lake Louise, Alberta. “My brother was the ski instructor for his kids this November in Vail. Guessing that’s where it came from.”

Last year there were rumors in the European media that Vonn was dating Tim Tebow. That was untrue as well.

Beaver Creek –American Ted Ligety finished fourth in a World Cup super-G here Saturday, just 0.04 of a second off the podium. Last week Ligety was 0.01 off the podium in a super-G at Lake Louise, Alberta.

Italian Matteo Marsaglia claimed his first World Cup win. World Cup leader Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway was second and Hannes Reichelt of Austria was third.

Lindsey Vonn is leading in a downhill at Lake Louise after the top 30 have finished. She won there Friday.

It looks like Lindsey Vonn is feeling better.

Through the top 25 racers at Lake Louise, Alberta, Vonn leads a World Cup downhill by an incredible 1.73 seconds. If it holds up, it will be her fifth straight downhill victory there and 12th win at that Canadian resort.

But since the 25th racer came down, there has been a course hold because of fog. Under FIS rules, at least 30 racers must finish in order for a race to be official.

In the past few minutes, forerunners have returned to the course, so Vonn may get her victory.

Teammate Stacey Cook is sitting in second place.

Vonn missed nearly two weeks of training this month with an intestinal illness and finished 21st in a giant slalom at Aspen last weekend, but she crushed the Lake Louise course with flat light and light snow falling.

Beaver Creek — Marco Sullivan’s third-place finish in a downhill at Lake Louise last weekend got a lot of attention going into downhill training this week at Beaver Creek, but one of the team’s young racers has been creating a buzz as well.

Travis Ganong, 24, won Wednesday’s downhill training run and was fourth Thursday. So how does he approach Friday’s race?

“I’m going to do the same exact things I did in the training runs,” said Ganong, who is from Squaw Valley, Calif. “I’ve been fast all summer long in training, and it’s really cool to see on a World Cup hill I can be fast training here, too. The skiing is there, the speed is there, so I’ll just stick with the plan, have fun and enjoy it.”

If Ganong needs any advice, he can turn to Daron Rahlves, the man who was his idol growing up. Rahlves, also from the Squaw Valley area, was one of the team’s most successful downhillers before retiring in 2006. Rahlves won here twice and was on the podium three other times.

“He actually called me (Thursday) morning when I was on the chairlift, going up for inspection,” Ganong said. “We talked a bit about a couple sections on the course. It’s good to have that as a resource.”

John Meyer | The Denver Post

Sunrise Thursday morning from Jay’s Cabin, near Shrine Pass

But there was a full moon. And when I cover the Beaver Creek World Cup, I like to spend one night at Jay’s Cabin, a backcountry hut three miles west of Vail Pass.

I knew my overnight backcountry ski trip Wednesday might well be a backcountry hiking trip, but I was undeterred. And I’m glad I was.

It wound up being two miles of hiking and a mile of cross country skiing, but the moon was beautiful. I had the hut to myself, made myself some hot apple cider, went out on the deck and admired the moonlit landscape, made a nice fire in the fireplace and watched it flicker until I fell asleep. I got to see a nice sunrise Thursday morning and then headed back to Beaver Creek.

It certainly wasn’t like last year when I had plenty of snow to ski upon, and the surrounding hills shone white in the moonlight. But it was a rewarding mountaineering experience, and I’m glad I did it.

Even with limited snow, we need to count our blessings. Our mountains are always beautiful, even when they’re not as white as they’re supposed to be.

Beaver Creek — Even as Beaver Creek hosts men’s World Cup racing this week, many are thinking about the world alpine ski championships coming here Feb. 3-15, 2015.

The trail for a new women’s downhill — visible to the left of the men’s course in the attached photo — was cleared last summer. It figures to be tough and demanding, as it should be. The men’s course is considered one of the most technical tracks in the world.

“Thank God Beaver Creek wanted to do that and develop the hill,” former Canadian downhill great Todd Brooker said. “This will be the premier downhill for women. Like Cortina (Italy) is premier because it’s beautiful, but not because it’s particularly testing. This one will be testing. It will be amazing.”

Vail previously hosted world championships in 1989 and 1999. The world championships have been held in the U.S. only one other time, at Aspen in 1950.

I will have more on Vail 2015 in Thursday’s Denver Post.

Daniel Petty, The Denver Post

Mikaela Shiffrin, 17, of Eagle-Vail, races during the first women's slalom run at the Nature Valley Aspen Winternational Audi FIS Ski World Cup at Aspen Mountain in Aspen on Sunday, Nov. 25, 2012. Shiffrin was the 10th qualifier to make it to Sunday's second run.

ASPEN — Eagle-Vail racer Mikaela Shiffrin sits in 10th place after the first run of Sunday’s World Cup slalom on Aspen Mountain but may be too far back to challenge for the podium in the second run.

Shiffrin is 1.98 seconds behind the morning pacesetter, Kathrin Zettel of Austria.

Shiffrin, 17, was the only American to qualify for the second run. Resi Stiegler was 36th and Julia Mancuso, a three-time Olympic medalist, was 44th. Only 45 racers finished the run.

Read more…

Aspen — Eagle-Vail phenom Mikaela Shiffrin pulled off another eye-opening breakthrough Saturday, cracking the top 10 for the first time in a World Cup giant slalom.

Shiffrin, 17, finished ninth for the top U.S. finish in a race won by Tina Maze of Slovenia. Shiffrin has been on the podium twice in slalom races, but Saturday’s race was her seventh World Cup giant slalom start, the second time she qualified for a second run.

“Very exciting,” Shiffrin said. “In GS, man, that’s a big breakthrough.”

Four-time World Cup overall champion Lindsey Vonn finished 21st, an excellent result given severe fatigue in the aftermath of an intestinal illness that put her in the hospital for two days this month.

Vonn crumpled in the finish area after finishing her second run, looking like a cross country skier at the end of a 50-kilometer race.

“I feel like I did a 100-mile marathon and I’d never run more than five miles in my life,” Vonn said. “It was a struggle. I tried so hard to get energy back up for second run, but I just didn’t have it.”

Julia Mancuso of Squaw Valley, Calif., was 15th.

The Aspen event continues Sunday with a slalom.

Daniel Petty, The Denver Post

Mikaela Shiffrin reacts after qualifying for the second run in giant slalom on Lower Ruthie's Run at the Nature Valley Aspen Winternational Audi FIS Ski World Cup at Aspen Mountain in Aspen on Saturday, Nov. 24, 2012. Shiffrin, 17, lives and trains in Vail.

ASPEN — Vail’s Lindsey Vonn and Eagle-Vail’s Mikaela Shiffrin did very well in the first run of Saturday’s World Cup giant slalom here.

Having lost some cardiovascular fitness this month because of an intestinal illness that put her in the hospital for two nights, Vonn still finished 10th in the first run. Shiffrin was 18th in just her seventh World Cup GS start, qualifying her for the second run for the second time in that discipline.

“I thought I skied really well,” Vonn said. “I came out attacking, especially the top and the flats. There was a compression delay on the bottom and I just stumped out — my legs just gave out on me. I used pretty much every last ounce of energy to pull out of that mistake, and the last 10 gates or so I just struggled to make it down and lost quite a bit of time.

Read more…

My column in Tuesday’s Denver Post about the new Flaming Foliage Relay and bad feelings in Colorado about the Ragnar Relay Colorado drew some good reaction. I wanted to pass along this e-mail regarding Ragnar and how they do business.

Mr. Meyer,

Thanks for your article in today’s paper about the Colorado Relay. My name is Roxane Geisler and I direct the Highlands Ranch Running Club.

We have sent teams to the Colorado Relay for 3 consecutive years since 2010. This year we decided to put a competitive team together and try to average around 7-7:30 pace for all 188 miles. We did it and we won first overall. We were extremely happy to have accomplished this, but found out that Ragnar would not be holding ANY awards ceremony at all after the event. The website even stated that there would be an awards ceremony in an attempt to get people to stay over on Saturday night. That night, I texted back and forth with their question and answer department which I assume was somewhere in Utah, and they finally told me the awards would be mailed (complete with a texted smiley face . We were very disappointed by this and a little upset with Ragnar for tearing down their finish line expo (without) any word about awards.

At the very least, we expected the mailed awards would be a little exciting. Instead, we were mailed relay batons and nothing else!!! We trained very hard for this race all summer long. We were partially motivated by the fact that we won only our division the year before and received really nice jackets and back packs. The overall winning team from 2011 got free entries to another relay.

Thanks for writing your interesting article about the upcoming new relay. The relays have been an important part of our running club, but as of now we are looking at taking a year off after a somewhat disappointing experience.

I would certainly love to discuss the matter further, so please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,
Roxane Geisler
www.highlandranchrunningclub.com

Jason Blevins | The Denver Post

Warren Miller Entertainment athletes Doug Stoup, Ted Ligety, Chris Anthony and Marcus Caston joined Al Gore to celebrate WME’s partnership with Gore’s The Climate Reality Project at Saturday’s showing of “Flow State.”

The lower 48 scenes from Warren Miller’s “Flow State” are telling. The Canyons segment could have been filmed in July. The Northstar footy – all terrain park – works to avoid shots showing swaths of dirt flanking the snow.

While the Alaska and Japan shots are exceptionally snowy, the U.S. shots in WME’s 63rd annual ski film reflect what was one of the driest ski seasons ever recorded. So it makes sense that Boulder’s Warren Miller Entertainment recently joined forces with Al Gore’s The Climate Reality Project.

With “Flow State” footage from Svaldbard, Norway showing shrinking glaciers and receding sea ice, the partnership will harness Warren Miller’s captivating videos and athlete power to grow awareness of climate change.

At Saturday’s showing at Denver’s Paramount Theatre, professional ski racer Ted Ligety spoke of his recent trip to Soelden, Austria for World Cup racing. He noted that he used to ride a T-bar to reach the top of the mountain there, but that chairlift is now dormant, dangling over dirt.

“It’s crazy to see how much that glacier has receded,” said Ligety, whose Flow State footy includes a spectacular, rag-dolling crash down a steep line in Alaska’s Chugachs.

The idea is that the athlete involvement in the “I Am Pro Snow” campaign and a soon-to-launch Warren Miller – Climate Reality Project effort will help galvanize skiers and snowboarders toward thwarting the effects of climate change as they see images of their beloved snow melting away.

Al Gore took the stage Saturday night at the “Flow State” 6 p.m. showing, saying his group was first drawn to Warren Miller’s team as the film crews and athletes began reporting alarming loss of snowpack in mountain ranges around the globe. Gore said the dwindling snowpacks can be connected to rampant wildfires in the West, the country’s lingering drought and Superstorm Sandy’s ravaging of the East Coast.

“It’s happening everywhere and we’ve got to do something about it. A lot of politicians are scared of Big Oil and Big Coal. I would like to think all the skiers and snowboarders together can make up Big Snow and put some counter pressure on this and say we really have to do something,” Gore said.

Converting sometimes abstract climate science into first-hand evidence is easier for mountain lovers, Gore said.
“When you experience is personally in a visceral way and you go back to the mountains and see the change in the snowpack, that’s a way to make a personal connection with it,” Gore said.

Gore said skiers and snowboarders are well equipped to tackle the thorny, divisive issues surrounding climate change.
We look at this challenge that’s ahead of us and a lot of folks say, ‘Can we do this?’” Gore said. “Hell yes we can do this. Let’s do it! I am pro snow!”

Vail — Mikaela Shiffrin is the youngest star of the U.S. Ski Team, but she was a crowd favorite Thursday evening when the team made a public appearance here that attracted about 300 fans to celebrate the start of a new season.

Shiffrin, 17, calls Eagle-Vail home, and last Saturday she captured her second podium appearance in just 12 World Cup slalom starts, finishing third in Levi, Finland. Shiffrin also finished third last season — her first on the World Cup — in a slalom at Lienz, Austria.

Julia Mancuso and Bode Miller also spoke to the crowd, but Shiffrin lit up the stage.

“I was born in Vail,” Shiffrin told the crowd. “I remember going up Chair 6 when I was 5 years old and I couldn’t reach the (safety) bar, but going up Chair 12 was like a two-person chair, it was tiny, you could put the bar down. That was great.”

Shiffrin beamed, and the crowd loved her.

The event also celebrated Vail’s 50th anniversary season. A few members of the 1962 U.S. Ski Team, who had a training camp in Vail that first season, were in attendance. One of them was Bill Marolt, now the team’s chief executive.

“I think the thing that’s really cool about Vail, and the reason it has such tremendous racing heritage and history is because of the guys who founded it –- Peter Seibert, Morrie Shepard -– all of those guys who came here in the early days and believed in ski racing, and believed that ski racing could make a difference in a resort. It’s clear that it has.”

I am writing a feature on Shiffrin that will appear soon in The Denver Post. The women’s World Cup comes to Aspen Nov. 24-25 for giant slalom and slalom races.

Shaun White is on the initial invitee list for X Games Aspen 2013. (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)

The schedule for X Games Aspen 2013 has been set, and the first list of invites has gone out, ESPN announced Thursday.

The X Games hit Buttermilk Mountain Jan. 24-27, and of course tops on initial invite list is master of the superpipe Shaun White.

As well, Denver freeskier Bobby Brown is one of the first invitees as are snowboarder Kelly Clark, snocross racer Tucker Hibbert and snowboarder Mark McMorris, who won gold last year in slopestyle and big air.

This will be the first season without the skiercross event, which was put on hold for a season but could return for 2014. But coming back this season is the snowmobile snocross race.

A look at the complete schedule:

Read more…

Dominic Breazeale at the London Olympics in July. (John Leyba, The Denver Post)

Dominic Breazeale, the former Northern Colorado quarterback who took to boxing as a heavyweight for Team USA at the London Olympics, on Friday made his professional debut in the ring.

Breazeale earned a first-round TKO over Curtis Tate at 1:06 in his heavyweight debut at the Fantasy Springs casino outside Palm Springs in Indio, Calif.

Breazeale started boxing in 2008, after starting two seasons at QB for UNC. He turned down an offer to play pro football for the B.C. Lions of the Canadian Football League.

Read more…

There isn’t much snow in the high country, as the peaks around Loveland ski area show, but the limited skiing on man-made trails there is excellent. (John Meyer, The Denver Post)

I skied Loveland, Arapahoe Basin, Keystone and Copper Mountain on Thursday to get a feel for what kind of ski experience those areas are offering. And I must say, while the terrain they offer is extremely limited, the snow quality is excellent at all four areas.

The surrounding mountains are mostly brown, Loveland Pass is mostly barren and the only trails open are covered with manmade snow. But if you’re itching to make some turns, I think it’s worth going.

Loveland and A-Basin each have one lift open with two fairly short trails and a terrain park. Keystone has one trail open, from top to bottom, and a terrain park. Copper Mountain has one trail open from mid-mountain.

I had a great time at all four areas, especially Keystone and Copper.

And when I was done at Copper, I headed for Vail Pass on my road bike — in light-shirt temperature.

Breckenridge opens Friday, and ski areas are hoping to benefit from a promising storm this weekend.