Hardline<\/a> last week wasn\u2019t enough, Asa Vermette headed to Idaho. Frameworks team mate Anna Newkirk also joined the fun. And when the weekend was over they both stood on top of the podiums. Neko Mulally must have been stoked.<\/p>\nFour stages, four very different challenges<\/p>\n
The event uses golf-style scoring; riders earn points based on their finishing spots. The lowest overall score wins, with combined time used to break ties.<\/p>\n
The event featured four different stages; Raw Slalom, Tech Rhythm, Downhill\u00a0 Gnar and a Technical Uphill (although for whatever reason the uphill was optional and didn\u2019t count towards final points). Fair to say the event is like no other in MTB.<\/p>\n
Raw Slalom had riders racing through gates, awkward, off camber corners and awkward logs. Tech Rhythm had tightly spaced jumps, whoops and berms, like a tight dual slalom course. It looked really tricky. The downhill stage featured log drops and technical jumps. And for the final event of the day came the uphill challenge. It was a completely different type of challenge.<\/p>\n
Newkirk puts on a clinic<\/p>\n
Newkirk won all the events of the day scoring a perfect three points overall. Maddie Loyd, Kailey Skelton and Bex Baraona put up a good fight but weren\u2019t fast enough in any of the events to top the World Cup racer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really unsure how I was going to do in here because a lot of the girls are really strong,\u201d Newkirk said afterward.<\/p>\n
Vermette battles for every second<\/p>\n
The men\u2019s competition was considerably tighter. And with such short courses, the margins between first and second place were razor thin.<\/p>\n
Nick Nestoroff, Max Clark, Mitch Ropelato and Asa Vermette traded fast times throughout the day, with as little as seven hundredths of a second separating Vermette from Max Clark in the Tech Ryhthm. In fact Clark beat Vermette in that category.<\/p>\n
The downhill stage was obviously Vermett\u2019es to lose and Canadian hero Jacob Jewett did his best to beat Vermette, putting up a 21.18 second run. But Vermette took that by putting in a run of 20.8 seconds.<\/p>\n
Vermette also went on to become the first rider to clean the uphill track on a non-motorized bike.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A different kind of mountain bike race<\/p>\n
While the format doesn\u2019t make for the best armchair viewing, it\u2019s hard to argue that it looks like a fun day on bikes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great event, I had a lot of fun,\u201d said Newkirk. \u201cSo, yeah, I\u2019d love to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was also very cool to see the Frameworks team attending and Jewett making the trip to the event. Stay tuned to the Hard MTB League website for 2027\u2019s schedule.<\/p>\n
Men\u2019s results<\/p>\n
Rank
\nRider
\nSlalom
\nRhythm
\nDownhill
\nPTS
\nTotal<\/p>\n
1
\nAsa Vermette
\n1
\n2
\n1
\n4
\n1:40.05<\/p>\n
2
\nMax Clark
\n3
\n1
\n3
\n7
\n1:40.92<\/p>\n
3
\nNik Nestoroff
\n2
\n4
\n4
\n10
\n1:42.01<\/p>\n
4
\nJakob Jewett
\n4
\n5
\n2
\n11
\n1:41.87<\/p>\n
5
\nKyle Strait
\n5
\n7
\n7
\n19
\n1:44.31<\/p>\n
6
\nMitch Ropelato
\n6
\n3
\n10
\n19
\n2:31.63<\/p>\n
7
\nCody Kelley
\n10
\n6
\n5
\n21
\n1:45.14<\/p>\n
8
\nConnor Casler
\n9
\n8
\n6
\n23
\n1:45.90<\/p>\n
9
\nEddie Reynolds
\n7
\n9
\n9
\n25
\n1:48.11<\/p>\n
10
\nAlex Blanar
\n8
\n10
\n8
\n26
\n1:48.85<\/p>\n
Women\u2019s results<\/p>\n
Rank
\nRider
\nSlalom
\nRhythm
\nDownhill
\nPTS
\nTotal<\/p>\n
1
\nAnna Newkirk
\n1
\n1
\n1
\n3
\n1:56.11<\/p>\n
2
\nKailey Skelton
\n2
\n3
\n2
\n7
\n2:01.95<\/p>\n
3
\nMaddie Lloyd
\n6
\n2
\n3
\n11
\n2:03.53<\/p>\n
4
\nJordy Scott
\n5
\n4
\n4
\n13
\n2:04.81<\/p>\n
5
\nTaylor Ostgaard
\n4
\n8
\n5
\n17
\n2:07.57<\/p>\n
6
\nBex Baraona
\n3
\n9
\n7
\n19
\n2:09.24<\/p>\n
7
\nChloe Taylor
\n7
\n7
\n6
\n20
\n2:09.36<\/p>\n
8
\nAlyana Van Horn
\n9
\n6
\n8
\n23
\n2:12.14<\/p>\n
9
\nSophie Allen
\n10
\n5
\n10
\n25
\n2:12.72<\/p>\n
10
\nFfion Pickstock
\n8
\n11
\n9
\n28
\n2:13.17<\/p>\n
11
\nOlivia Silva
\n12
\n10
\n11
\n33
\n2:47.62<\/p>\n
12
\nMayumi Wakefield
\n11
\n12
\n12
\n35
\n2:17.42<\/p>\n
Scoring note: Final rankings are determined by the lowest combined stage points, not the fastest total time. Ties on points are broken by total time.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Created by Braden Bringhurst, the latest edition of the Hard MTB league happened over the weekend. The event…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,1700,82],"class_list":["post-947086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-mtb-features","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}