TGR Photo Saga: Crankworx Innsbruck Recap

Mutters, Austria, a small town nestled in the Austrian Alps, lies just outside of the bustling city of Innsbruck. Mutters boasts a quiet village atmosphere, complete with quaint old buildings, a relaxed vibe, a small ski resort and the views are as breathless as Julie Andrews performance in The Sound of Music. However, around the middle of June for the past three years, this villages’ small roads with tight corners are swamped by mountain bike athletes, their support staff, sponsors and fans for the Crankworx Innsbruck stop. The 2019 Crankworx Innsbruck stop would bring out heavy hitters from all around the world to compete in at least one of the following events: Whip-Off, Dual Slalom, Pump Track, Speed & Style, Downhill and Slopestyle. 

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The first of the Crankworx Innsbruck disciplines kicked off Wednesday night high up in the mountains for the 2019 European Whip-Off Championship, and although the weather looked like it was going to bring enough rain to float an ark at any second, the riders were determined to give the crowd a show. Kaos Seagrave and Casey Brown took the top step for the men's and women’s division, respectively.

Kaos Seagrave showing why he undisputedly won the whip-off comp.

Cam Zink leading Casey Brown into the whip jump - I'm not sure if Casey was tripping out that she got to follow this legend down the hill, but you can't help but tip your hat to everything Zink has done in his illustrious career.

All three ended up on the podium, Kaos Seagrave leading the pack, Kade Edwards as the filling and Casey Brown bringing up the rear for this ridiculously talented group of riders.

Riders were lapping the jump as quickly as possible as the skies were so uncertain - we lost track of how many times Kade Edwards hit the lip.

Not only were the fans treated to a hell of a show, the backdrop wasn't anything to scoff at either.

Here's a beer Kaos, you sure as hell earned it mate.

The next finals took place early Thursday afternoon. Dual Slalom is always a crowd pleaser. With the track being quite short, it allowed spectators to watch the majority of the race from one spot. The top of the podium was snagged by Matthew Sterling and Vaea Verbeeck.

The 17-year-old Californian, Matthew Sterling, was looking strong during the dual slalom, strong enough to beat out Mitch Ropelato in the finals to take the top step of the podium.

As the dual slalom course was quite short all of the riders were pushing themselves, their bikes and the berms as hard as they could. Unfortunately Caroline Washam found the top of one of the berms at the top of the course. She was not the only one.

Insert played-out quote about here "rider with his eye on the prize."

Mitch "Rope-a-dope" and Kyle "Lyle" Strait have been battling on the dual slalom courses for years, but off the course they have a brotherly bond that that is unrivaled.

Downhill legend Leigh Donovan is checking out the step-up, step-down before her race run, "I just want to make sure I don't embarrass myself out here!" she said with the loud-speaker style that we have been accustomed to from Leigh.

The trick in the flat corners at the bottom of the course was to get as close as possible to the flags, gently clip them like a barber giving a child their first haircut, but not hit them so hard that the flag unearths itself - a talent few riders posses.

It was an awesome surprise to see that Enduro World Series racer and all around nice dude, Adrien Dailly made the trek up from the South of France with his mechanic, Craig Miller, to "have some fun" at Crankworx. Miller, with his thick Scottish accent, somehow communicates flawlessly with Dailly, who's English is getting better, but still possesses a very thick French accent. Sometimes, I like to grab a beer, sit back, and try to figure out what on earth is being said.

A staple in the dual slalom community, the Dumpster Fire himself, Mitch Ropelato always has a smile on his face. He made it to finals to go up against Matthew Sterling. In their first of two heats, Mitch overcooked a corner and went down. With the 1.5-second penalty against him in the second heat, Ropelato unleashed everything he had, moving earth on the berms, coming out of them on fire, and you could see it in his eyes, he was pushing just too hard and went down again in the flat corners...we're looking forward to seeing you back out there at Whistler buddy.

Thursday evening saw the pump track finals - by the time we were getting to the final rounds of the competition, the floodlights were turned on and this head-to-head track took a couple victims, but the racing was tight and the crowd was stoked to see Adrien Loron and Kialani Hines take the wins.

Kialina Hines was looking fast in the rounds of 32 and 16, and she just kept that drive to find her way to the top step of the podium by the end of the night.

As with the majority of these events at Crankworx Innsbruck, the backdrop didn't suck.

Adrien Dailly also thought it would be "fun" to have a crack at the pump-track event. After talking with his mechanic, Craig Miller, Miller said, "After Adrien got knocked out of the dual slalom, he jumped on Google maps, found a public pump track, about an hour away, and gave Miller the instruction to take him there to practice." According to Miller, Adrien was relentless on lapping the public pump track, and it showed, this full-time Enduro racer nabbed 18th, which let's be honest, is a hell of a lot better than any of us keyboard warriors could do.

Squid zone.

The fans kept the stoke high all night long. Even after the sun had set, they encouraged the racers to dig deep for the last couple rounds of racing. They also liked to bang on the fence boards, a lot.

Tomas Slavik (L) and Keegan Wright (R) battling it out into the first turn after the straightaway as the sun was setting behind them, adding a special glow to the non-stop excitement of this event.

The living legend, Kyle Strait, was looking great all night, determined, and smooth, but in the second of his two semi final heats he slipped out on the second to last corner and went down hard. After gathering himself, he turned to the crowd to thank them for coming out, stoked them up and threw them his gloves as a thank you. One of the nicest guys you'll ever meet.

Friday was a long day of practice and qualifiers, but the main event for the day happened under a beautiful evening sky. The Speed and Style is a head-to-head race in which the riders are timed and points are awarded for tricks performed on the massive booters throughout the course. Two heats per race, one on the right course, one on the left, times added and divided, points added for the tricks and a winner is crowned - easy, right?

Crankworx Innsbruck does a great job of making the events very accessible, and easy to support. The Speed and Style is no different, fans packed along the fence above the race to cheer on their favorites, drink beer and get loose - it was a great environment to be around.

The "trick" to this event is to perform tricks that don't slow you down too much, but still have a certain level of difficulty to score high. It's a balancing act that the veterans such as Martin Soderstrom (L) have perfected. Martin went onto win the event.

Don't forget, not only do these riders have to trick the massive booters, they also have to keep their composure through tight gates under the ticking hand of the stop watch. Tyler McCaul (L) was thrown a curveball when his bike didn't show up, the bike he's riding? Rachel Strait's. He also said that he hasn't ridden a hardtail in a couple of years - you have to give it to these guys, even when the deck is stacked against them, they're going to make it work and give it all they've got.

Spin, Spin sugar!! The crowds were getting the riders pumped, and the fans were stoked to see what the riders were going to throw down. Local lad, Peter Kaiser (R), came away with third in the whip-off on Wednesday night and made it to top 14 in this stacked event.

The views, don't need to be mentioned again, but I'm going to: Look at those views!

This year saw a new location for the downhill track, it became a lot more accessible for the spectators and provided some variation for the athletes. A new track meant plenty of loam which meant it was only a matter of time until big holes and roots started coming out to play. A heavy rain the night before the finals helped the track immensely, however, it did put a greasy sheen on any tree root that had exposed itself over the training runs. This made it exciting for the riders as with the sunnier weather on race day, the track re-designed itself as practice went on into racing.

Sunday morning brought ominous weather for the downhill race, but fortunately the clouds lifted and provided all in attendance with a beautiful day.

Tracey Hannah was looking fast and in control throughout practice, and after her UCI WorldCup DH win in Leogang the weekend before her confidence must of been high. Hannah won the downhill by eight seconds, ahead of second place finisher Camile Balanche.

Tracey's brother, Mick, laid down a solid run and walked away with 4th place in the downhill race on the Sunday.

Elliot Jackson putting a lot of trust in the loamy berm after "The Wall" drop, fortunately it worked well for him, not all riders were so fortunate.

This awkward feature, a set of three logs which were almost like steps and almost like a triple, had riders trying to hit it both ways, but which was the fastest? Well, Jake Byrne of Australia showed us why we love the Aussies, and just hucked it!

Adrien Dailly showed up again! Except this time in a setting we are more familiar with seeing him in. Adrien showed why he is regarded as one of the fastest racers in the world with a fifth place finish in the downhill, on a single-crown bike.

Jackson Frew threading the needle through the tight trees about halfway down the course, kicking up loam, looking stylish as ever, and working his way towards a 16th place finish.

Brook "The Bulldog" MacDonald must have telepathically known he had to put some pedal strokes in over this section, we didn't see many riders pedaling through this, but because he did, MacDonald walked away with first place, ahead of Ed Masters by .110 of a second.

Saturday evening was originally scheduled to play host to the Slopestyle event, however we got word on Friday that the organizers intended to move the event to Saturday morning as the weather forecast showed rain and wind for Saturday evening. Unfortunately when Saturday morning rolled around, the wind was just too much of a concern for the riders’ safety, so the event was pushed back an hour, and then another hour, and again, and again; the crowds were patient for most of the day, but once 4pm rolled around the organizers pulled the plug on Slopestyle for Saturday and re-scheduled it for Sunday afternoon, after the Pro Men and Women’s Downhill event. The event went off on Sunday and we saw huge runs from Brett Rheeder, Emil Johansson and Tomas Lemoine (current leader for King of Crankworx), unfortunately Matt Jones and Rogatkin pulled out after crashes on their first runs; both riders walked away from the crashes, but with tricks this gnarly, you don’t drop in unless you’re feeling 100%.

We imagine that Brett Rheeder (upside down) was saying, "Hey buddy! Look what I can do!"

The slopestyle boys had a rough go of it this weekend, a lot of waiting around for the wind to die down, trying to sneak practice laps in while other events were going. We can't imagine the collective stress sat on top of this landing.

Emil Johansson from Sweden showing the crowd that Sweden is still one of the best producers of slopestyle athletes.

It's like, "Where's Waldo" but for the athlete. Slopestyle is definitely the crowd favorite at Crankworx. The crowd waited all day Saturday, then once the event was postposed to Sunday, they showed back up in droves to witness the amazing feats of athleticism.

Unfortunately Nicholi Rogatkin fell on the first big double on the slope style course during his first run. He got up, shook the dust off his back, got to the top of the landing, and dropped back in to the boner log (pictured), tried a cork variation and landed hard, on his head. After some medical attention he got up and walked away. His day was done.

We're happy that Nicholi walked away from his crash, but we're even more stoked that he knows when to say his day is done. These guys are risking their lives and if they're anything less than 100% they shouldn't be throwing a leg over their bikes.

Eric Fedko steezing over the city below him.

Brett Rheeder during his unbelievable 95.5-point winning run. He beat out Emil Johansson by .5 of a point.