Les Alpes 2 in Full Swing - Air DH and Whip Off and More

July 10th, 2013 12:56pm

With the wild success of Crankworx Whistler, the owners of the event decided to take that winning event formula and see if they could share the love with the crazy Europeans by creating Crankworx - Les Alpes. As of todays writing (July 10, 2013), Les Alpes 2 is well underway in its second year and results and videos are starting to appear. The Athertons are continuing on their winning ways with Gee and Rachel taking out the wins in the Air DH. Having both won consecutive World Cup Downhills, this is getting to be a bit of a habit for the successful riding trio. In fact brother Dan won the thrid race in the World Enduro Series this past weekend that was also part of the Les Alpes event.

The grassroots born Whip Off that was started as pure biking fun on CrabApple hits when I was there several years ago, was also brought over for Les Alpes and it has now become an event all by itself. Kind of a bummer how these cool "fun" competitions that happen on the side of these big events are instantly exploited and turned into "official" events but such is life. In any case, taking my personal opinion out of the equation - Give full props to New Zealander Cam Johnson for winning the event. While the jump was off the bottom jump in the Air DH course, it isn't a Crabapple Hits run.

camjohnson -whip off winner at Les Alpes 2013

Cam Johnson on his way to winning the Les Alpes Whip Off

I will leave it up to you to decide if they capture the same mojo that Crankwork Whistler has, but here are three videos to showcase what has happened so far in the French Version of Crankworx.

Please don't get me wrong, but it seems like they have really missed the boat here calling this an AIR DH. While the course looks fun, all I see is a DH run without the Air. When I think of Air DH, I am seeing tons of table tops, G-force burms, drops and flat out ripping speed. This one, well, lets just say they should rename it instead of trying to pass it off as something it isn't.

How about an anti-gravity event at Crankworx? Well - now there is one and I think its pretty cool. Race up the dual slalom course! I can feel their pain just watching it. I think my heart rate climbed about 10 bpm just watching the struggle.

You can watch the the remaining events LIVE including the slopestyle competition using the links below:

Live Streaming Webcast Schedule Crankworx Les 2 Alpes – July 11-13, 2013

The webcasts are live streamed at www.crankworx.com, and www.redbull.com/bike.

Thursday, July 11

· GT Dual Speed & Style - 17:00-19:00

Friday, July 12

· Crankworx Les 2 Alpes Slopestyle, presented by iXS Qualification – 13:30-15:30

· Teva Best Trick – 16:00-18:00

· Les 2 Alpes Pump Track Challenge, presented by Rock Shox – 21:00-22:00

Saturday, July 13

· Crankworx Les 2 Alpes Slopestyle, presented by iXS FINALS – 16:30-19:00