stage racing comes to the usa
 

so, this weekend was the first race of it's kind in the states.

http://www.winterparkresort.com/todo...ntain-0819.htm

stage racing. about time. it makes sense. for one price you get to race in a bunch of stages, which means for one price you get multiple chances to win something.

they do it in europe, they do it in canada, why the hell has it taken so long to do it in the states?

They've done it at Silver Mountain, ID for a few years now. Not as many stages, but still fun. I like them because what I may get skooled on in the shorter stages, I get the chance to make up in the longer races.

cool, i didn't know about Silver Mountain, my bad.

and yeah, that's just one of the cool things, you get to try something you might not be strong at and then do what you do well...you might not be great at the chainless downhill, but you make up for it on the enduro... just like a sprinter wins the sprints and a climber wins the climbs...

No worries. You might have heard about them by now, if they'd ever had a cohesive marketing strategy over the years. Unfortunately their marketing dept. is basically a revolving door for fresh-out-of-college types. And the potential for the bike park has never been grasped or taken full advantage of by the corporate brass who run the resort.

here is more about the race if anyone is interested.

http://www.vitalmtb.com/photos/featu...aign=spotlight

There are quite a few 3-7 day stage races in the US already. I've never seen one with that exact stage set-up, but I doubt it's the first of it's kind here. The first of its kind with a huge marketing budget, perhaps, but without enough digging, you can probably find some small-scale events like this.

I think this type of racing will grow and we'll keep seeing more and more, which is awesome!