What an amazing season to look back on with the KHS Pro MTB race team!
KHS Pro MTB riders Luke Whitlock and Dylan Cobem headed out to Prineville, Oregon to compete at the Natural Selection Proving Grounds presented by Pacifico freestyle contest.
“Practice went great all week and was feeling great on my line choice and tricks.” Luke Whitlock said. He continues, “Come Friday morning, in qualifying, I was able to put down a solid safety run which had me sitting in 4th place after my first run. Come the end of run 2 I was bumped out of the qualifying bubble into 6th and was forced to do a second run as the last rider to drop. My run was going great until the second to last jump, where I then overshot a flip nac to flat resulting in a hard crash over the bars. I had to take my first run score which was only good enough for 6th place, 1.5 points off the 5th place rider, and just one spot shy of qualifying for finals the next day. Super bummed to have crashed out but grateful to be competing with the top 28 free riders in the world.”
What a mega weekend of racing for the team this past weekend. We had all factory riders and most of our grassroots athletes all competing in different regions all on the same weekend.
Starting off with factory rider Luke Whitlock and newest member to the grassroots program Dylan Cobern were both in Cedar City, UT at a mountain bike festival throwing down some big tricks and representing our freeride side of things at the highest level. Here’s what Luke Whitlock had to say “A music festival would be the last place you’d expect a mountain bike jam to come about, but that was not the case in Cedar City, UT at the Landslide Music Fest this past weekend.
With expected crowds of upwards of 5000 people Dylan Cobern and I headed up north to Cedar City to put on a show for the people attending the event. While dealing with the crazy weather that Southern Utah has to offer this time of year, we were still able to throw down some solid tricks and whips for the crowd in between rainstorms. This event was unique and special to us because we were able to reach a completely different industry and group of people and introduce them to freeride mountain biking, which is really awesome and rewarding to see, especially since the spectators were very engaged!”
Also, our other grassroots athlete Naish Ulmer was representing the team in the Utah/Idaho regional event coming away with double wins. Here’s what Naish had to say: “I raced the 2nd & 3rd stop of the Utah Gravity series in Pomerelle, ID. There was a double header race happening over the weekend and I was able to take both wins. I was super pumped to stay consistent and get the win for the team!”
While the freeride lads were holding in down for the team it was Steven Walton who was representing the team at the Strait Acres Dual slalom event happening in Big Bear California. This event had some of the best American athletes competing for one of the best Spector races of the year! Qualifying was on Friday evening with Saturday evening being set for the finals. Steven would be going head-to-head to make it to the top spot. At the end of the evening, he would place a respectable top 20th finish.
Sunday would be hosting the Pro men’s downhill race with some tough competition, basically all the top athletes competing in the Slalom race would be switching over to DH for Sunday. Steven would be racing the notorious famous DH track of Miracle Mile. This track has had some of the best DH riders from all the way back from the 80’s. Steven would give it 100% and cross the line in 2nd place!
All the way up in the Montana mountains you would find Nik Nestoroff and Kailey Skelton holding it down at the 3rd round of the Northwest Cup series! Nik and Kailey would be on the 4th consecutive race in a row keeping the focus sharp and race craft even sharper. This event brings some of the fastest racers from all around the West and Central areas. The athletes were really impressed with the track lay out and conditions they would be dealing with over the 3-day event. They would both be qualifying Saturday and racing finals Sunday. Qualifying would bring only the best results with both athletes taking the top spots. It would increase their pressure to lay it back down on Sunday’s finals and maintain the lead. Nik & Kailey would do just that and not let anything stray them from the wins! They would both have dominating race runs with 7-9 seconds leads on the completion.
The team did very well overall this past weekend with getting 3 podium positions and setting themselves up to continue their success on the National round 2 in Vernon, NJ at the famous Mountain Creek bike park. All the racers will be flying out Tuesday and preparing for Sunday’s finals. Kailey is currently sitting in 2nd place overall in the women’s Downhill National series. Steven in 4th and Nik in 5th for the men’s Nationals overall. The team will be reporting soon from New Jersey woods!
What was originally going to be a weekend getaway visiting my good friend (and absolute shredder), Dylan, turned into a few weeks’ stay, heavy sessions, and overall good vibes. Dylan and I had one vision when we decided to put some content out for the public to see. That vision was to capture the raw Utah sessions that go down out in the desert using only my “Dad Cam” and not to make this video a “project” but only to capture what happens when two buddies feed off each other’s riding and progression, head to the zones, and throw down whatever comes to mind that day. Although this time of year is not ideal for filming, digging, and riding here in Virgin, we were able to make the most of the 4:30am wake ups to beat the 110+ degree heat and film some solid lines we were stoked on.
Virgin has a special energy that cannot be described, but only to be experienced, and that’s exactly what we wanted to capture. We wanted to take freeriding back to its roots and create a more raw, big mountain, Utah feel, and that fueled the motivation to hit some of our favorite legendary zones that we had always dreamed of riding. Zones we’ve seen our idols ride in movies and videos.
Dylan and I love riding the big mountain lines that Southern Utah provides, but wanted to incorporate everything that Virgin has to offer, which included some of the legendary jumps that we’ve all seen the top dudes in the sport ride in previous videos and Rampage events.
-LUKE WHITLOCK
