14 Bikes That Have Won in Val di Sole

There are World Cup tracks and then there are World Cup tracks. Sure, venues like Leogang, Cairns, and Pietermaritzburg deserve to be on the calendar just as much as any other name, but there's only a handful of tracks that are worthy of italics, and the fearsome Val di Sole, in Trentino, northern Italy, has to be near the top of that list.

Yes, comparative punters like you and I could ride down Italy's most intimidating course without too much trouble, but watching the best racers in the world take the straightest, fastest lines down what is essentially a fall line motocross track is a surefire way to remind yourself that no matter how skilled and ballsy you might be, there are levels to this game.




Val di Sole has been a staple on the World Cup circuit for many years now, and it has not only seen its fair share of literal white-knuckle drama, but it's also been witness to the ever-evolving riding technique and bike development that's paralleled it. Below are the bikes and racers who've posted the fastest times over the last decade of Sundays in the Valley of the Sun.



2008 World Championships - Gee Atherton and Rachel Atherton

Let's get in the way-back machine and go to 2008, a decade of World Cup racing ago and the year that Val di Sole hosted the World Championships. It was also the year of that crash that saw a prime Sam Hill tear the track, and his competitors, a new a*shole on an Iron Horse Sunday... Until that fateful sweeper just above the finish line that had the Aussie lose the front-end after sending it deeeeep off the jump just above.

Sam got up to finish just over 3-seconds back of winner Gee Atherton, but I think a lot of us will remember the defending champ sliding through that corner while 8-seconds up on the field before we remember who actually won that day.




But you need to stay up to win, and that's exactly what Gee managed to do, besting another Brit, Steve Peat, by 2.6-seconds. Rachel Atherton did far more than just "stay up" to win the women's rainbow jersey, though, with a time that was a whopping 11.9-seconds quicker than legendary French racer, Sabrina Jonnier. That's a whooping if I've ever seen one.




Both Gee and Rachel were on the Animal/Commencal team at the time, and they raced aboard the (yet to be released at the time) new Supreme DH that featured a single pivot, linkage activated rear-suspension layout that delivered 200mm of travel. It also sported adjustable geometry via an insert at the headtube that allowed for a head angle of 63, 64, or 65-degrees, but I'd bet my last maple glazed donut that the Atherton's bike never saw the latter number.





2011 World Cup - Aaron Gwin and Myriam Nicole

With a 1st, 5th, 1st, 1st, 1st, 3rd, and finally another 1st in Val di Sole by 1.2-seconds over Danny Hart, this was a hell of a year for Gwin, and it was probably the season that cemented the 'Gwinning' meme more than any other. In fact, he had secured the World Cup overall at the previous round in France, something that only Greg Minnaar had managed before (back in 2005) and it was also the first time an American male took the overall. Gwin was on the Trek World Racing squad at the time, racing aboard a then-prototype, carbon fiber Session 9.9 that replaced the aluminum Session 88 platform that the team had been on the previous season.

He won the Mont Sainte Anne World Cup, too, which was the 9.9's debut, and word was that the frame was around 800-grams lighter than the 88, had revised geometry, and Trek-developed proprietary Fox suspension, including the Fox hybrid air fork that used an air-assist spring and a custom shock tune out back.




Myriam Nicole, who was on Commencal's new Supreme DH Mk3, took the win by just under 1-second from Floriane Pugin. The blue bike had the same 203mm of travel that the previous version had, but its single pivot design ditched the moto-esque linkage in favor of a larger rocker that compressed the shock from above while the chainstays compressed it from below. The floating shock layout wasn't new, even back then, but the same reasons were cited: More tuning options, and better small bump sensitivity. The shock was also offset by 7mm towards the non-drive-side of the bike to provide more drivetrain clearance, and geometry was adjustable by way of inserts at the rear axle and a sleeve in the headtube.



2012 World Cup - Aaron Gwin and Rachel Atherton

One for the ages by Gwin, with a massive 7.8-second win over Greg Minnaar, and he was already up by 6-seconds at the second split. The American had qualified fastest, too, so he was the last man down the hill... Does anyone handle the pressure better than Gwin? Maybe not. Again, he was on his Trek World Racing Session 9.9.




GT Factory Racing's Rachel Atherton dominated in Italy back in 2012, and while the 4.4-second gap back to Myriam Nicole wasn't the insane winning margin that Gwin managed to throw down, it's still a huge chunk of time at this level. The team employed a slightly shorter than stock shock, as well as offset bushings and an FSA Orbit Option headset, that dropped the head angle to 63 degrees and the bottom bracket height close to 13.6". Atherton was on GT's original Fury shortly before it was replaced by the new aluminum version, but the single-pivot, i-Drive machine certainly wasn't holding the British racer back.





2013 World Cup - Gee Atherton and Rachel Atherton

This was a World Cup weekend to remember for both GT and the Atherton's, with Gee and Rachel standing on the top step of the podium. Both Atherton's were on GT's new Fury, an aluminum bike with much longer and slacker geometry than its predecessor, and also an extra 20mm of rear-wheel travel to boot. This machine was one of the earlier production downhill sleds to adopt the geometry that we now expect to see from every big-travel sled, and it was also relatively light: My test rig weighed under 37lb and pedaled like a demon.




Suspension was still single-pivot and with a revised i-Drive system below it all, but it was all-new besides that, including a much lower main pivot and a pint-sized stiffening linkage that joined the swingarm to the front triangle.

And the geometry changes that the team made to the old Fury? Those were baked-in to the new bike that Gee's pictured with below.





2015 World Cup - Aaron Gwin and Rachel Atherton

This was Gwin's third World Cup victory of four in Val di Sole (he won in 2017 as well), and while it wasn't as dominant as in 2012 when he made the rest of the men's field look a bit silly, all he needed to do was win. And that's exactly what he did, with 1.7-seconds over Loic Bruni that sealed the World Cup overall title yet again.

Aaron was on a Specialized Demo this time, with a prototype rocker arm that altered the leverage rate of his suspension, presumably to provide more ramp-up than the stock design is capable of. The link rotated on smaller than stock sealed bearings to shave some grams - it helps to have a full-time mechanic - and it also had an eccentric flip-flop chip from the old Demo that allowed for three different geometry possibilities. There was the stock setting, but the other two options gave them a range of +/- 6mm of bottom bracket height and less than +/- half of a degree of head angle adjustment.




Italy has been good to Rachel and to GT over the years, with the youngest Atherton taking the victory aboard her Fury by 2.2-seconds over Myriam Nicole on her Commencal, but more than 6-seconds up on Manon Carpenter back in third place. Atherton had wrapped up the overall title at the previous World Cup back in Windham by besting Carpenter by over 9-seconds, meaning that she was probably feeling a bit less pressure than usual in Italy.




2016 World Championships - Danny Hart and Rachel Atherton

Eight years on from the last time the Valley of the Sun hosted the World Championships, it was Danny Hart and Rachel Atherton who pinballed down the track to earn their rainbow stripes. It was also an incredible weekend for Mondraker, with the team making up first, second, and third on the men's podium with their wild looking Summum Carbon Pro downhill bike. Danny's rig was done up in his national colors, as you do, and his victory came five long years after he earned his first set of stripes with that legendary 11-second win on a soaking wet Champery track. His Val di Sole 'champs win was a little more subdued, but still convincing, with 2.9-seconds between him and teammate Laurie Greenland.




Really, who else did you think it was going to be? Rachel Atherton seems to get on quite well with the outdoor motocross-style Val di Sole track, and she took her stealth black Trek Session to a 3.1-second victory over perpetual rival Myriam Nicole. Atherton's raw black Session eschewed paint to save some grams - plus, it looks so damn good - and she went with a coil-sprung Fox X2 shock over the weight savings that an air spring provides, which makes sense for a track like this one.



2017 World Cup - Aaron Gwin and Tahnée Seagrave

Val di Sole hosted the World Cup finals again last year, and you-know-who did you-know-what yet again - Gwin won by 1.4-seconds, this time over up and coming Frenchman Amaury Pierron who has gone on to win two rounds in 2018. ''It was all big highs and big lows this year,'' Gwin said post-win, ''It was a wild season that was nothing like I'd ever raced before.'' After winning on this track while aboard a Trek Session and a Specialized Demo, the American was on his YT Tues this time around.




2017 was a breakout year for both Tahnée Seagrave and Transition, with the Pacific Northwest brand's new TR Eleven having about the best debut that a downhill bike could. Tahnée's new carbon bike was said to be nearly 4.4lb lighter than her aluminum TR500 that she had been on, and it uses a Horst Link (Transition calls it the 'GiddyUp linkage') system with more built-in progressivity that works well with the coil-sprung shock that was used for her Italian win.




So, what does all that tell us? Besides that Gwin and the Athertons seem to really, really like Val di Sole, the stats also say that single-pivot designs have seen the most success in Italy, with Commencal and GT combining for eight World Cup victories on one of the rowdiest tracks around. Four-bar bikes like the Session, Demo, Tues, and the new TR Eleven account for six victories, while dual-link bikes have only a single win on their resume - Emmeline Ragot on her Intense 951 eight years ago.




A lot of words for nothing, if you ask me, because it always comes down to where the talent is. The talent, in this case, being Gwin and the Athertons, with good showings from Hart, Beaumont, Ragot, Nicole, and Seagrave to round out the winner's list. Gwin has tallied four victories, while Rachel has five, and both legends have used completely different suspension designs over the years to do it, further underlining how skills are always going to be more important than equipment.