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McGuinnis, Rawley win Super-D state championships in Eagle

Matt Jones catches tail whips a turn during the Eagle Outside Festival Super-D mountain bike race in Eagle on Saturday. Jones placed first in the Men's Masters divion with a final combined time of 13 minutes, 7.966 seconds.
Townsend Bessent | Townsend@vaildaily.com |

State championship Super-D podium

Women

Sarah Rawley

Caitlyn Vestal

Sara Fahrney

Men

Alex McGuinnis

Matt Thompson

Chris Del Bosco

EAGLE — The town’s coolest event fell on the hottest day of the year on Saturday.

Hundreds took to the trails as part of the Eagle Outside Festival, a grassroots event designed to unite the cycling community together and get people on bikes.

Free demos from companies such as Ellsworth, Specialized, Kona, Ibis Cycles and more kept adults occupied all day, while kids enjoyed the new pump track on Bull Pasture Road and the Strider races in downtown Eagle Ranch.



Rocky Mountain Bicycles brought star downhiller Geoff Gulevich into town. The four-time RedBull Rampage competitor handed out autographed posters from his seat at the bar at The Dusty Boot and showed pictures of Eagle’s trails to his more than 50,000 followers on Instagram.

Professional riders Alex McGuinnis and Sarah Rawley were crowned state champions in the LoFi Super-D enduro race. Both enjoyed their first trip to Eagle as a result of the festival.

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“I’d like to come spend time here more often,” said Rawley, a Summit County rider. “There’s all these cool different zones to ride in. I like how you can get to an alpine environment up high, and then it’s hot down below.”

Temperatures neared 90 degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday, making it the warmest day of the year so far in Eagle.

“It was a test of endurance, for sure,” McGuinnis said. “I made a mistake wearing all black. Mitigating exhausting and mitigating dehydration was one of the challenges. It was nice we didn’t have to rush up the hill in the heat to start the race. The promoters were promoting a really casual event, and that’s what it was.”

DEL BOSCO BACK IN TOWN

Second place in the women’s enduro went to Caitlyn Vestal, and third went to Sara Fahrney. Second place in the men’s division went to Matt Thompson, a world champion downhill mountain-biker in the masters division, who recently moved to Eagle. Rounding out the podium was Chris Del Bosco, an Eagle-Vail local, World Champion ski cross racer and World Cup mountain-biker. Del Bosco used the day to spend time with his parents, locals Del and Pam Del Bosco.

“It’s a nice event to spend time with the family,” he said. “I’m always so busy traveling, it’s great to relax down here in Eagle. The trails are great, I’ve really never rode them much before, even though they’re just right down the road.”

COMMUNITY AND KIDS

With the event designed to unite the biking community in Eagle County and the state of Colorado, shops such as High Gear Cyclery in Avon, The Kind Bikes and Moontime Cyclery in Edwards and Mountain Pedaler in Minturn and Eagle had booths set up.

“Today is all about getting out on a demo,” said Paul Previtali, with High Gear Cyclery. “Figure out what you like today, then worry about how you’re going to purchase it later.”

Previtali said he was glad to see dealers such as Ian Harris, with Stampede Bikes, formerly Tykes Bikes, offering free demos to kids as young as 2 years.

“The kids bikes have been our most popular,” he said.

Brett Rosenbauer, with TrailCraft Cycles, had his custom line of kids bikes available for demo use.

“Kids bikes are so heavy, so we came up with a line of higher end kids bikes that are much lighter,” he said.

TrailCraft has a mountain bike for kids with 24-inch wheels that weighs in at fewer than 20 pounds, something Rosenbauer learned there was a need for when his son, Elijah, was getting into mountain-biking.

“The bikes he was using were too heavy, and he couldn’t climb up the hills with them,” Rosenbauer said. “I was changing out the handlebars, stem, seat post, wheels, tires, making it one chain ring instead of three.”

Eagle local Kira Hower, 10, took out TrailCraft’s 26-inch, 21 pound bike on Saturday.

“We did the singletrack sidewalk,” she said.

The Eagle Outside Festival continues today from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.


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