Another Squamish Test of Metal Mountain Bike Festival Trials Competition is in the record books, and for the first time since the Test became a North American Trials Series (NATS) event in 1999, a Canadian has won pro stock, the main championship category.
Defending NATS champion Jeremy VanSchoonhoven of Williams, Ore., who has won the Test three years in a row, rode very well but was just pipped for second by New Haven, Connecticut's Mike Steidley, who rode strategically in the high wind conditions to score 11 to Jeremy's 12.
Meanwhile, John Webster of Mill Bay, B.C., who has been showing increasing brilliance the last three years, stayed focused, and made only one five and the rest ones to capture the event with a score of eight. Webster will be competing in Japan as well this year, and has a real shot of winning his division.
One other bright spot in pro was fourth place Stephen Dickin. He managed 15 points despite two in-section bike failures, and actually finished on Dylan Korba's bike. Otherwise he might well have come second.
The scores turned out very well distributed, except in expert. John Goodwin managed a win in beginner mod, at all of about age seven. It is believed that the Labonvilles are the first father-son team to compete, and they did pretty well. Kyle Quesnel took sixth in beginner stock, but that's after completing the Teen Test and the Rockstar, making him the Squamish ironman of freeride.
The big story in expert was the return of Lucas Hamilton, who has been out for a couple of years with a nasty pelvic bone injury. It appeared that all the best experts have graduated to pro because the rest of the experts had a terrible time, with eight perfect(ly bad) scores of 60. Stevie Baia won expert mod as expected, and he is expected to do great things at the world finals in Japan this year.
Once again the trials were held at the Triack Resources dryland facility at the south end of Squamish Town Centre. This year, Triack owner Dave McCrae pulled out all the stops to make sure set-up went smoothly and quickly. With the help of his Barko 450 log sorter, and Mountain Building Centre's Mike Mohr with the JCB forklift, and aided by neighbour Ted Prior's little Hitachi excavator - the sections were laid out, flagged and labeled with record speed. Felix Yuen and Richard Belson rendered great assistance in the latter, and of course perennial super site builder Dave Heywood was there to do a million jobs to get the site ready.
For 2004, the organizers' sights were set a little lower with simple sections constructed this time around. That meant more trails around the dirt hills but fewer fiddly pallet problems and no time-consuming water feature.
