US Cup Triple Crown Super D National

Joe Lawwill of Bike Skills has been working hard at promoting the growing Super D race scene. He just fired us his race report from the weekend's 2011 Fontana US Cup Triple Crown Super D National, check it!
The 2011 Fontana City National Super D will go down in the history books for two unprecedented facts. On the wake of the overwhelmingly positive feedback for the Fontana Winter Series Super D courses the folks at Team Big Bear stunned the riders by nixing the Lemans start and leaving the Super D course design to local promoter Don Jackson of Southridge USA and myself.


Previous years the Super D courses actually started with a substantial climb and had nothing technical. It was really more of a time trial than a Super D, so making this last minute change was huge. For the unsuspecting XC field the course was quite a surprise. My favorite overheard quote was “Wow, Lawwill really put the Super back in Super D”. In case you have been living under a rock and have not seen my short promo video for the Fontana Super D, check it out here:


The National course used many of the trails you see in this video.


Being that Super D is part of The US Cup Triple Crown All Mtn Series there was a huge field pro XC riders. Although I noticed a number of top guys didn’t start, there were still a lot that did including the XC winner Max Plaxton who actually looked great on the top part of the course, but ended up having a mechanical and didn’t finish. I actually sort of felt bad for the lycra wearing guys as there was very little time for them to check out the course and be prepared considering they raced the pro XC event just a couple hours beforehand. The level of fitness these guys have is incredible though. I couldn’t imagine racing the pro XC and then riding back to the top of the mountain for a 6th time to race the Super D. Big props go out to those guys.



Especially to 4th place Rocky Mountain Facto rider Raphael Gagne who finished 11th in the XC and Giant rider Adam Craig who put together a solid 3rd place finish and was 10th in the XC earlier in the day. Although it wasn’t a close 3rd place, as local all-around ripper Waylon Smith was clear of Craig by almost 13 seconds! However that didn’t turn out to be the biggest news of the day. Southern California resident and multi-time World Champion and National Champion Brian Lopes made his debut at Fontana on his Ibis Mojo HD and crushed the field! Brian finished another 4 seconds faster than Waylon, which to me was truly amazing. Brian seemed to be having a good time on the course which was nice to see considering he is known for being vocal of bad courses. Brian noted "Rumor was Joe Lawwill had put together a legit Super D course with what Fontana had to work with, so with the National in town, I decided to go out and see for myself just how good it was. I've only ever been out to Fontana a few times and never raced there, but I was happy with the course layout and the recent rains only made it that much sweeter."


Although my legs didn’t do much more than hold me up, I rode great through all of the technical sections, but was 30 seconds behind Lopes, which still placed me 7th out of the 41 pros. This particular course had a little more pedaling than the usual course which didn’t play into my favor, but that’s part of the charm of Super D. It has pieces for every rider out there. I am sure this course was a good eye opener for the regular pro XC guys and surely they will be a little more prepared next time around.


With the positive feedback from riders I think it's safe to say the same format and a similar course will be used again next year, so if you want to take your shots at the best cross country riders in the nation I highly recommend marking the Fontana City national on your calendar for next year. Or keep an eye on the www.southridgeusa.com website for upcoming local events that will be using variations of the popular Super D course.


Photo credits go to Craig Glaspell, Jason Cleghorn and six3events.com.