$300,000 in course work includes features for TV viewers
By Mike Lynch
Walking through Mount Van Hoevenberg in Lake Placid, Kris Cheney-Seymour pointed out changes at the Nordic venue this summer in preparation for the World Cup cross-country mountain bike races in September.
Rock gardens have been constructed. A dual slalom course has been carved into the hillside. A trail has been added just above the snowmaking reservoir. A section of the course has been designed to emulate a bobsled run looking like the Olympic course just up the hill.
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After riders go through all of those sections, they will enter the stadium to a scene reminiscent of traditional Adirondack camping — except with a twist.
RELATED: Mountain Biking World Cup organizers gear up for Lake Placid event
“We’re cutting a hole out of the back of the lean-tos, and they are going to ride through the back and jump out the front,” said Cheney-Seymour, the Olympic Regional Development Authority’s program director for the venue.
Cheney described the mountain bike community as having a “playful” element, sometimes even to the point of being “hokey.” For instance, after riding through a lean-to, the cyclists will pass a bonfire where race staff will roast marshmallows. This will be done to create visuals for the television cameras broadcasting the event on MAX.
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“It’s not uncommon for them in the downhill races, especially urban downhills that they host in South America, to ride through buildings,” he said. “A couple years ago, they rode through someone’s house that was on the edge of a cliff, and they came in the door, went through the living room, and then jumped out a window, and so yeah, anyway, (the organizers) were excited about this.”
The main event
This is all being done for the WHOOP International Cycling Union Mountain Bike World Cup races that are coming Sept. 27 to 29. Warner Bros. Discovery Sport (WBD) is one of the organizers of the overall series.
Planning the courses and trail features was a collaborative effort between three main entities – Cheney-Seymour and Allan Serrano, the teams from UCI and WBD, and Max Van Wie, a professional trail builder who is originally from Elizabethtown.
The changes were done with permits from the state Department of Environmental Conservation and Adirondack Park Agency. The design and construction cost $300,000, ORDA officials said earlier this summer. The majority of the work is expected to wrap up in late August.
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The main courses for both the Cross-Country World Cup (XCO) and Short Track World Cup (XCC) mountain bike races are laid out crisscrossing the Nordic racing trails.
The courses are on conservation easement land owned by the town of North Elba, Cheney-Seymour said. Most of the features built this summer are considered temporary. More permanent ones will be put in place next summer.
Landscaping has been done with materials from the property to avoid the potential of bringing in invasive species. It’s also being done in a way to allow for the venue to convert back to one for skiers once the biking competition is over.
Keeping viewers in mind
Bike racing culture differs from Nordic skiing, and it’s apparent as Cheney-Seymour described the upcoming event slated for late September.
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The action is done for the cameras, but these mountain biking events tend to be more interactive with fans than Nordic events. There will be fan engagement zones with music and other forms of entertainment. Vendors will take over a parking lot, creating a “farmer’s market” environment.
“Everywhere except for the race course is more or less open for fans to be watching, spectating, engaging with what happens,” Seymour-Cheney said. “If you’ve watched the Tour de France on uphills, you can see the fans sometimes are quite close to the riders, and that is the goal that they have access to the riders all of the time. They obviously can’t impede the race, but getting them as close as possible is a really large priority.”
The event will be the first season of a three-year commitment between the parties to bring mountain bike races to Lake Placid.
Initially this sounded like a great thing for our community , more awesome trails to add to the already great trails we have in the area.
BUT the fact that they will be tearing out all the trails after the race is a colossal waste of $300,000 of taxpayer money.
This is just another example of how O.R.D.A. loves to waste money.