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MTB News and Notes: Big Bear, team news and Stik’s out

By Jason Sumner, VeloNews associate editor
Published: Dec. 10, 2004

After the usual post-season lull in the mountain-bike racing world, the second week of December saw the fat-tire news rolling in at a breakneck pace.

Tops on that list, of course, was the news from Big Bear Lake, where it was announced that Snow Summit Resort – the Wrigley Field of downhilling – was shutting its doors to the gravity set. The initial explanation was that a combination of liability exposure and pressure from the Forest Service were to blame. And a source with knowledge of the situation told me that the liability concerns have reached their crescendo because of a $25 million lawsuit that’s been filed by a rider that was badly injured in June of 2003. The source, who requested anonymity, said that the rider is now a paraplegic.

In the suit, which is in its early stages, Snow summit, Team Big Bear and USA Cycling have all been named as defendants. USA Cycling provided the insurance, which provided a lawyer. But Snow Summit wasn't satisfied with counsel so it is paying out of its own pocket. And of course as great as it is to have a bunch of SoCal rippers up on the hill, the money they drop on lift tickets and post-ride beers doesn’t cover those kind of legal fees.

Another big factor in the Snow Summit decision is the fact that unlike resorts such as Mammoth, Winter Park and Whistler, which are owned by resort giant Intrawest, the ski hill in Big Bear Lake has an individual as its primary stockholder, making it that much tougher to retain Johnny Cochran.

No matter the outcome of the lawsuit, it’s a sad end to what had been one of the best traditions in American gravity racing. The first NORBA NCS downhill (that VeloNews has documentation for) was held on Snow Summit’s dusty slopes in 1992, with Jimmy Kight and Missy Giove grabbing the wins. Since then Big Bear NCS winners have included the likes of Leigh Donovan, Shaun Palmer, Dave Cullinan, Mike King, Penny Davidson, Elke Brutsaert, Brian Lopes, Steve Peat, Myles Rockwell, Mick Hannah, Chris Kovarik, Anne-Caroline Chausson, Tracey Moseley, Eric Carter and Sabrina Jonnier.

Snow Summit was also where NORBA’s dual slalom debuted in 1993, with Carter and Donovan taking wins.

As for his fondest memories, Team Big Bear boss Tom Spiegel pointed to the “first time they ran downhill mania at a national. We had two Aussies, Michael Ronning and Scott Sharples, go 1-2. That really started the whole Aussie-Big Bear connection.”

Unfortunately, Spiegel continued, “Snow Summit is in Southern California, which is one of the most litigious places in the country. People are suing each other non-stop around here. It’s amazing this didn’t happen a long time ago.”

TEAM NEWS AND MORE TEAM NEWS
The chips finally really started to fall in place this week with several big signing announcements. First came word from the Specialized camp that it had inked a deal with rising British star Liam Killeen. The 22-year-old replaces Filip Meirhaeghe, who was popped for EPO earlier in the year and ended up receiving a 15-month suspension.

Killeen will be joined by a yet-to-be named XC support rider, a marathon specialist, plus the three-rider gravity contingent of Americans Kyle Strait and Chris Powell, and Dutchwoman Anneke Beerten. The team’s focus will be the World Cup series, but also expect to see them at a handful of NORBA events as well.

On the domestic front Specialized is once again backing USA Cycling’s U23 national team, while opting not to bring back the U.S.-based cross-country squad that it backed last year.

Killeen is one of several big names to vacate the Subaru-Gary Fisher tent this offseason. Canadian Chrissy Redden has decided to retire, while countryman Ryder Hesjedal has signed a full-time deal with Lance Armstrong’s Discovery Channel team, after riding part-time with U.S. Postal in 2004. The 24-year-old Canadian doesn’t know his exact schedule yet, but don’t be surprised to see him riding support for George Hincapie at the spring classics.

For more on why Hesjedal decided it was time to jump to the road check out the January 10 issue of VeloNews.

Don’t shed any tears for the Fisher formation. In place of the riders that left the team, team director Dean Gore has brought in a solid new class led by 2004 Olympian and double national champion Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski. You’ll also see fellow former RLX rider Willow Koerber in Fisher kit, along with up-and-coming Aussie Trent Lowe. Holdovers include Kerry Barnholt and long-distance/24-hour specialists Nat Ross and Cameron Chambers.

Gore said he would have liked to hold onto Killeen, but that “the tiebreaker was Specialized is going to have a full-time staff in Europe and we won’t. We’re sponsored by Subaru of America so our focus will be over here.”

That doesn’t mean Gary Fisher has completely forsaken the World Cup like its Trek-VW brethren (“We don’t give a rat’s ass about the World Cup,” Trek brand manager Zapata Espinoza recently told VeloNews). Gore said that “if someone is going well coming out of Sea Otter then we’ll send them to the World Cups and see what happens.”

Lastly, I got a note from longtime pro wrench Craig “Stikman” Glaspell this week saying that after more than a decade of tuning the bikes of some of the best riders in the business (Lopes, Cullinan, Carter, Brutsaert, etc.) he was hanging up the tools. Stik, who’d been working under the Pacific Cycles banner since 2002 (GT-Hyundai first, and then later Mongoose-Hyundai, too) said that in his next life he’ll be running the on-line, sister store of wife Leigh Donovan’s clothing boutique Tangerine. (check out shoptangerine.com) Of course Donovan, the 1995 world downhill champion, was another of the many riders Stik worked with along the way.

Got to admit that Stik and I didn’t always see eye to eye, but there’s no doubt he’ll be missed out on the circuit. The guy was as passionate about the sport as anyone, and his Web site — stiksandstones.com — was a good place to find insider news about the racing world. In fact it was Stik, a former VeloNews contributor, who broke the cancellation of the Telluride World Cup a few years back. Anyway, good luck down the road man.