Another 5-day festival of two-wheeled mayhem draws to a close and what week it was. We were graced with perfect weather, incredible action and a chance for us at Mons Royale to welcome everyone to our new European home in Innsbruck.
A lot of people were claiming best Crankworx ever and certainly it made a good case. Twenty thousand people flocked to Mutters over the course of the week to see Nicholi Rogatkin and Brett Rheeder, the bulldozer and 911 go toe to toe in the slope style. On this occasion it was Rogatkin who took the spoils with a quite frankly ridiculous run that was crowned with a physics-defying front flip tail whip on the last jump. Elsewhere the Pump Track party raged long into the night and Mons very own Peter Kaiser took the spoils in the brilliant and impromptu bunny hop contest (OK he was beaten by a kid on a race BMX, but he had 20 inch wheels so it didn’t count in my book).
The Whip Off is a crowd favourite, arguably it’s because this has to be one of the most stunning venues in the world of sport. A huge kicker perched on a crystal clear lake that overlooks Innsbruck. And the contest format is wonderfully simple: Invite the world best riders to a great jump and see who can contort body and bike the most stylishly in the air. There were some winners announced, but no one really cared. The spectacle combined with some cheeky radler’s (Austrian shandy) made it a bike fans dream; especially those who had thought to bring inflatable unicorns and flamingos and absorb proceedings from the lake.
The highlight however, and yes we may be a little biased was undoubtedly the Dual Speed and Style. In this event you race over house sized jumps that weave under and over each other, but it’s not a simple case of first person over the line wins. In DSS riders can throw trick to get their time reduced, the better the trick the more time gets deducted and so you can watch the mind blowing spectacle of someone throwing double backflips in the middle of a race! Not only that we were serving fresh tacos and beer at the Mons Tent as the sun set over the course, does life get any better? In the end it was not Tom Isted and his monstrous double backflips that won the day, it was the French slopestyle king Thomas Lemoine whose BMX racing background made him the best all rounder.
Around all of this Mons invited friends and family, media and riders to come up and test our 2018 bike specific pieces. In the hottest temperatures there was obviously some trepidation about donning wool for a ride. But upon their return there wasn’t a single person who didn’t ask whether they could keep the tops. If you want to find out for yourself how light, breathable and odour resistant our bike range is go and check out the www.monsroyale.com
As for Crankworx, well it’s a tough call but the Taco’s swing it, definitely best one yet.
See you on the mountain.
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