Course designer reflects on Whitestyle event in Austria. 9 Feb 2010

Grant Fielder has just returned from Leogang, Austria where he designed the course built out of snow for the fifth anniversary of the White Style event, that he describes as the “world’s freeride mecca”.

The first slopestyle event of the year was a great start to 2010 for the mountain biking scene, attracting 21 riders from Canada, USA, Austria, Sweden, France, Spain, Czech republic and Germany.

Grant is part of the Kona Clump team, the industry’s longest running freeride team, striving to push the limits of what can be done on a bike. He was determined to make the course even better than last year.

“The course is easier to build in snow than on dirt as the machine can shift everything much quicker. This saves so much time in the preparation phase.

“The snow at first doesn’t seem right to ride on but as the evening draws in, it becomes almost ice, making it more compact and better for the tyres to find more grip! The most spectacular obstacle was the final big hitter, which marked the end of the course: A huge snowboard big air style kicker shooting the riders into Leogang’s sky.
“I was happy to place 9th overall after two hard weeks of building and preparation. Considering my focus was on getting the course up to a world class level, I was satisfied with my result.

“During the winter, you can imagine how busy it is with skiing in the Alps. The evenings become silent until White style arrives! It was such an exciting event and great fun!”

A 30 minutes event report will be aired soon in the Red Bull TV window on Servus TV: March 6th at 11:30 pm CET. You can watch it with your digital satellite receiver or on March 6th also live online at http://www.servustv.com