Windham Mountain hosts ProXCT Finals

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Teammates Mary McConneloug (Image credit: Dave McElwaine/trailwatch.net)

All of the top North Amercian racers will head to Windham Mountain this weekend for the finale of the US Pro Cross Country Tour (ProXCT) series. Cross country, short track, and team titles will be awarded after a highly competitive six-race series that started in Fontana, California, back in April.

Last year was Windham Mountain's first year hosting mountain bike events. The ski resort, only 140 miles from downtown Manhattan, made a major investment into course construction and it has paid off. Windham Mountain has been named as a 2010 World Cup Venue for both gravity and cross country events and will directly precede the World Championships held at Mont Sainte Anne a week later. Riders from as many as 35 countries are expected to attend the races at Windham.

Cyclingnews reported last year that the courses were "World Cup class" and "the most fun courses of the year". Then US national cross country champion and current US national short track champion Adam Craig (Giant) said, "That is a hard, proper, mountain bike course". US short track national champion Georgia Gould (Luna Women's MTB) said, "They did such a great job building this course. You could tell they put a lot of work into it-it is really great."

Pendrel currently has a 20-point lead over her teammate Georgia Gould. With five points awarded per position in the race, Gould would have to finish at least five positions ahead of Pendrel to take the series. At last year's race, Gould won convincingly by 1:27, but Penrel was second. With Gould not satisfied with her fourth place finish at Mount Snow, she will certainly be looking to redeem herself at Windham.

The men's race last year was perhaps the most stunning of the year. Mattieu Toulouse (Team Maxxis) won in a sprint to the line against Adam Craig. While Toulouse has retired from racing, his teammate Canadian champion Geoff Kabush will be competing at this year's event. Kabush won the Bromont World Cup two weeks ago, and then followed it up with a win at Mount Snow. Only Todd Wells (Specialized) and Sid Taberlay (ShoAir/Specialized) were able stay with Kabush for most of the race.

Rick Hodge, the Windham Race Director, reports that “The UCI wanted to shorten the course and make it more spectator friendly.” As a result, the course has been reduced from 4.8 miles to 3.2 miles. It still will include a couple dozen man-made bridges, two flyovers, and technical trails where every rock placement has been thought out. Tons of flat rock has been placed in strategic places to make the course flow like few others in North America. Man-made berms allow the rides to carry high speed through the turns on the long descent. Climbing will be 1,100 feet per lap on singletrack and some relatively steep fire roads.

Barring a disaster, Todd Wells has the Trailwatch.net short track series all but wrapped up with a 45-point lead over Carl Decker (Team Giant). He also won the Windham short track event in 2008. The real battle may be between Decker and JHK who trails Decker by only five points in the standings. If JHK can finish two spots ahead of Decker, he could take second place away. Both of them will know the math heading into the race.

Only two women have a shot at winning two short track races this season; Heather Irmiger (Gary Fisher/Subaru) and Katerina Nash (Luna Women's MTB). While it is quite likely that Irmiger's 30-point lead in the series will be sufficient to give her the title, both women would like to win this race. Last year Nash won the event and Irmiger was fifth. Georgia Gould was second, only two seconds behind Nash.

The short track course at Windham Mountain has far less climbing than the last two short track events that the racers have faced. The start on a fireroad climb, make a 180-degree turn onto some off-camber grass, then ride a lumpy downhill with more off-camber sections until the course bottoms out near the ski lodge. It continues along a flat before riders tackle a small climb on a sweeping turn that brings them back to the start/finish.