Race Report | Eastern States Cup Enduro: Killington Finals
Like it or not, the riding season is starting to slowly wind down – the leaves are turning, and the days are getting shorter. This also means the close of one of the biggest enduro series on the East Coast. The Vittoria Eastern States Cup headed back up to Vermont for the last round of racing during the first week of September. The largest of the ESC venues, Killington Resort, welcomed over 130 riders for the second time this season, and racers were eager to find out what was in store for them.
The weather was as perfect as it could have been, and conditions were drier than I’ve ever seen at Killington. Plumes of dust and rocks were getting kicked up by tires, and riding behind someone became a difficult task.
The weekend’s course was a stark contrast to typical ESC enduros. The course was very physical, and every stage required massive amounts of pedaling. Practice put a strain on everybody, and many racers chose to only do one practice run on each stage in order to preserve as much energy as possible. In my typical fashion, I chose to do two runs on each stage to assure I remembered all the corners and all my lines. Feeling like I may have gone a little too hard in the pedaling sections, I walked away confident with at least my course memorization.
Saturday night was devoted to catching up on food at one of Killington’s many winter-oriented restaurants and making sure the bikes were ready to go for the 9:30 AM start the following morning. Pizza and beer were the preferred sustenance for the night, and the lobby of our little motel made the perfect shop space to get our bikes dialed in.
Sunday morning it was off to the Fat Italian Deli for some delicious Philly cheesesteaks before heading up to the resort for the riders’ meeting.
Stage #1 was held on a brand-new trail called Blue Magic. This was one of the most fun jump trails I have ever ridden. The tall berms allowed you to stay off the brakes and carry as much speed as you felt comfortable with, limited only by your ability to stay low over the jumps. The times were tight, but everyone finished up with a huge grin on their faces. It was a great warm-up for the much harder, more physical remainder of the day.
Stage #2 was the shortest one, and frankly a bit disappointing since higher up, the same trail is full of technical features that have become a staple of Killington enduro races. A short, twisty wooded section followed by a long, flat sprint was not enough to get riders into the groove. Before you knew it, the stage was over.
In my mind, Stages #3 and #4 rolled into one. There was a lot of variety, from flowy berms and wooden bridges, to technical descents and twisty corners, but the overwhelming feature of both stages was pedaling. No matter what part of the stage you were on, you better have been cranking on those pedals. By the last access road, I had all but exhausted myself and couldn’t do much more than sit and spin, never mind sprinting. With average finishing times around four and a half and eight and a half minutes respectively, there was little left in the tank for the last stage of the day. Even though Stage 4 wasn’t the longest, everyone agreed that it took the most effort.
Stage #5 was no walk in the park. It was the longest and most technical of all. This top-to-bottom run would clock in at over twelve minutes for everyone but first place Pro Seamus Powell. The top featured rocky and root-filled chutes that were the last place you wanted to crash – and yet where many people did. The sections in between the steeps were chunky affairs that seemed to want nothing more than to stop you from going forward if you were being passive on the bike. The farther down the mountain it went, the more physical the stage became, terminating after a series of ski slope intersections. During Saturday’s practice, I was happy to realize that I remembered most of the terrain from my previous races here and on Sunday, this stage was as smooth as I could hope for. I hit all my lines and I pedaled as hard as I could. It was a high note to finish a race on.
After the dust settled, I ended up in 9th overall. I was just hanging onto the top 10, but that was my goal for the race – and with such an impressive field of pedallers, I was happy. Seamus Powell pulled out all the stops and gained a commanding 28-second lead on the rest of the field in the last stage of the day, assuring his win of the race as well as the series. Leland O’Connor came in second on the day and second in the series, with a deficit of only 10 points to Seamus over the course of the season. Third place went to Matt Sebas, his best enduro finish to date and a very impressive performance throughout the day. On the women’s side of things, it was Kimberley Quinlan squeezing in just two seconds ahead of the series winner, Lauren Petersen. Clarissa Finks came in third.
The 2015 Eastern States Cup Enduro Series went out with a bang, and I’m already looking forward to next year. The Northeast racing season is far from done, however, with the second big-hitting series, The Triple Crown, just starting up in a few weeks. There will be the same faces, but different venues and a fresh chance to keep learning and improving!
For more information check: Vittoria Eastern States Cup Enduro Series
Words: Paul Dotsenko Photos: Jamie Lee
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