Haute Boy Summer

Across the relatively short history of UCI World Cup mountain bike racing, Les Gets, in the Haute-Savoie region of France, has stood out as a star of the European courses. Fast, flowy, and stunningly scenic, it’s served as a 4000-foot-high (1200m) stage for some of the sport’s most memorable races – including today’s Short Track World Cup.

Three Cannondale Factory Racing riders – Alan Hatherly, Charlie Aldridge, and Simon Andreassen – lined up on their Scalpels among 35 competitors. They breathed deep in the fairly thin mountain air – a necessary habit before the brief but intense race: roughly 22-minutes from start to finish.

Immediately off the gun, Hatherly and Aldridge bolted, and would stay on or very near the front of the pack the whole time. The lead group never exceeded seven riders, but was stacked with national champions, including Hatherly (South Africa), Aldridge (Great Britain U23), Switzerland, Chile, the United States, and a rotating cast of others. This was good news and bad news: good because it meant quick, clean riding from the world’s best, but bad because it ensured an even faster and more brutal pace than usual for the entire race – no slack to give, no time to relax, no fat on the bone.

With heart rates soaring and riders’ lines sweeping across one another for the full 22 minutes, the face up front kept changing, sometimes multiple times per lap. But as the race came down to the final minutes, Hatherly and Aldridge kicked up the pace yet again to stay in podium range. Over the second half of the last lap, both riders were in the lead, but feeling the pressure from reigning UCI world champ Sam Gaze, who was hot on their wheels.

But Hatherly had enough of the tactics, and he felt strong. He downshifted and shot off the front, putting a massive five-second gap between him and the rest in an instant. He’d virtually won it already. Alridge responded to his teammate’s heroic burst, but with Gaze in pursuit, too. Gaze made a move wide around one of the final corners that put him in second place, but Alridge met the challenge and clung to his wheel.

After cresting the final climb, back-to-back rocky sections gave riders a choice of two lines across each. Alridge followed Gaze’s line across the first, but when hitting the second, he surged and took the harder left line, passing Gaze in a flash.

Sitting up and high-fiving the crowd, Hatherly was cruising to victory, while just behind, Alridge and Gaze were now sprinting. But Alridge’s move was too much, too fast. He’d put nearly a second in front of Gaze by the time he crossed the finish, four seconds behind Hatherly. Their teammate Andreassen’s efforts would be rewarded, too, with a strong seventh place result.

Smiles were beaming and arms were hugging after the finish. It was another day of stellar results for CFR – and another race the crowds would never forget at Les Gets.