Race coverage is all about timeliness, and the first to print (so to speak in the digital age) reigns supreme with the clicks, views, and shares. In that capacity, I am definitely firmly sitting in last place. Ten years ago, I was usually the first to publish the coverage from the day – a perk of being a one-man team. The graft was unreal, and 18-hour days are no joke as the captain, crew, and ship all rolled into one; there is a lot of pressure to have both the best photos, but also the best inside story, facts, interviews, hot take, or whatever cool bits and bobs shook out over the course of the event. Even after stepping away from being a Squid fulltime, I held myself to that same level of commitment at the events I was able to attend annually here in the US and Canada. But, in the last few years, I found myself delaying publishing longer, and longer again. Most of it was strongly circumstantial and is of little concern now, but what it did allow me to do, was revel longer in the memories and relive some really exciting and fun times spent on the hill(s) with friends and family, cheering on other friends as they went blasting by, chasing time.
This time around, the delay was for much more understandable reasons: I built a house and started a business! Imaginably, anyone reading this will already know that – the fan base of The Start Gate is pretty core – but it bares worth mentioning for posterity. A year ago (today is August 23rd, 2026), Britt and I had been home owner/reconstructors for a year and fifteen days; we had been living in the house for two and a half months. The televised World Cups felt like a little bit of an escape on the weekends, it gave us an excuse to put down the tools and chill for a bit. I was working part time (as a paid bike mechanic) and working part time (as a self-employed and unpaid builder), so life was full-on and flat-out. But through the madness, there was one other plan that had been made, and it had been on the calendar since before we’d even bought the house: the three week “all things mtb” at the end of the summer of ‘25. We had the US Open, followed by the first-ever Lake Placid DH WC, and capped by the final installment of MSA. The “staycation” was the carrot on the stick that kept projects moving, and the motivation churning.
In classic fashion, literally five days before we were planning on heading south down to Killington to camp, ride, and cheer on some friends, I got sick with what can only be described as, “my body decided it was time to slow down for a minute, so it made it impossible for me to get off the couch because I had the gnarliest vertigo or whatever-the-fuck”. Not an ideal start to the Big Plans. Thankfully, I improved by the time we were packed and headed out… I was going to force myself to feel fine, but it was nice not having to battle it out with myself.
Editor’s Note #1: It is worth quickly noting, that this piece is about the story and the vibe, not the results or stories of the race, by the way. So, hopefully noone was hoping for a recap of a season come to pass, in the middle-end of the current season of racing.
I digress: late summer in Vermont is a fickle time of year; it is either amazing or wretched, or somehow, both. By the grace of global warming, it was amazing in 2025. The temps were up, the ground was dry [though the sky did open up the day before the US Open kicked off… spooked us there for a moment!], and the colors were starting to kick off. For Britt and I though, we were in town with an agenda dissimilar to any year prior, we were here to shred some singletrack, THEN spectate. And shred we did, Britt aboard a newly-acquired ebike, shout out to Salsa bikes for making affordable and dope bikes, and me running ragged off the back of illness, but spurred on by a summer of banked fitness. The riding was all-time, catching up with friends at the Open was a real treat, and on a whole, it set the tone for what would end up being A Really Excellent Staycation.
The first bit of shenanigans though, was losing my truck keys at Mt. Peg – the ebike saved the day in the end… Britt found ‘em on the first corner of the last decent we did, and of course, the last place she checked (zero complaints about two extra laps from her though!). I got to hangout with women from Woodstock Search and Rescue, as I called dispatch to see if someone could help me recover my spare keys from inside the truck… one of the women was small enough to fit through my back window of the truck as it turned out – quite hilarious: “Oh, I’m used to this… I’m the only one on the crew who can fit in crawlspaces in full gear, so this is totally fine because there are no spiders and/or nothing is on fire next to me.” Firefighters are next-level. So, with my spare key secured and a reality check on what constitutes a “hard job”, I waited for Beeb to return (Britt and Ebike as one). A funny end to the ride, and a notable story from the weekend. With the weekend in Killington concluded, a quick reverse back to the campground to get my crocs, we were back on the road headed north to the Adirondacks.
Editor’s Note #2: Seeing as I am the Chief Editor of this fine publication, I am allotting myself as many words for this piece as I like, so with that in mind, here is the original copy that I laid down for this portion of the story on November 7th, 2025 – I didn’t finish it, because I needed to finish some structural work on the house and just never managed to find the time/headspace after to pick it back up… but here we are, we made it to the recap 10 months after it all occurred!
And, a little background before “the piece”: my mom’s side of the family is from Lake Placid. I have lived and worked up there twice, one summer, one winter. Summer and Winter school holidays/vacations were spent at the family home. Lake Placid, though I did not “grow up” and go to school there, feels like home. So, having World Cup racing get added into the annals of deep sporting history in the region, has been incredibly special and exceptionally exciting.
Ok, The Intro, that is now like, the middle of the piece:
Whiteface mountain is a raw, imposing, and unforgiving facade looming over you as you enter into the venue. The two peaks, Little Whiteface and Whiteface proper, rise up to the sky with the steep and narrow trails cascading down the headwalls like tendrils of a willow. The mountain is not the kind of place for the feint of heart or skill, winter or summer – the charm is that it’s for the intrepid and rugged. This is perhaps one of the reasons that there hasn’t been a mountain bike program at Whiteface for many years now… hard to get people to show up to a really steep, rough, and very-handbuild trail center theses days (no jump line or blue flow! GASP!). I for one though, love Whiteface: it is my home mountain for skiing, and the first place I ever did lift-access mountain biking as well – quite the introduction to gravity-fed riding to say the least!
The lore of this piste among the now-elder guard of East Coast DH riders is one of exceptional reverence and accolades; Whiteface was home to one of the longest and rugged DH races during the earls-2000s, the infamous “Whiteface 5K DH”. The start was from the gondola, all the way to the base lodge, with a few different iterations down in between over the years of its running. The very first iteration of the race, September 6th, 2006, the winning Men’s time was 6:36.4 and the Women’s was 7:42.9; I raced the event in the Junior category, placing 2nd with a 7:08.9 (which would have been 10th in Pro Men!)…grueling stuff; just crossing the finish line for the 5K was a feat on its own. Year after year though, everyone in attendance would say, “This would make an amazing World Cup track!” (or, “I almost threw up…”).
Fast forward almost two decades to Autumn 2024: rumblings began spreading of a World Cup DH potentially [finally!] being held at Whiteface after successfully hosting an XC race 15 minutes down the road at Mount Van Hovenburg (the Olympic XC skiing/Biathlon/bobsled/luge/skeleton venue). When the schedule dropped heading into the off-season, phones of Elder Millennials began buzzing as group chats lit up with screenshots of the calendar, ancient facebook photos being reshared, and an overall jubilation that the highest tier of the sport was once again returning to the Northeast. Once it was official that the most legendary track from the heyday of US DH was to host a World Cup round, the biggest question on everyone’s mind though was, what track would they use?! A NEW one? An OLD one? A mix of the two?!
A bulk of the 2025 race calendar had passed by before finally, as summer waned, we received the information we were looking for: a headcam from track designer Aaron Gwin. It was immediately apparent that the as-local-as-you-get dudes responsible for the immaculate build, Backslope Trail Building, had nailed it. Their work with earth moving equipment, machine and shovel alike, has already been on display at XC track just over the way, so it was no surprise that the track has equal parts tech and rough; it was super fast and replete with some properly big jumps. From the outside looking in, it had all the makings of a World Cup-worthy ribbon of dirt down an iconic mountain. We all held our collective breath, track walk would be a telling affair!
I had driven by, but not physically been to Whiteface in the summer in a long time prior to the World Cup (the main trail riding is about 5 minutes across town from the hill). It was thus, particularly surreal when I arrived for trackwalk and immediately saw the Fox Racing / Frameworks pit, front and center at the base lodge. Neko had won the Whiteface 5k every year when we were racing Juniors together, so there was some poetry to the moment. Once I was on the chairlift, heading up the hill, I took a moment to really be present and acknowledge HOW FUCKING COOL IT IS THAT THERE IS A DH WORLD CUP AT WHITEFACE MOUNTAIN!? I’m fine, it’s fine… right, where were we? Going up the lift, passing over the track, seeing the veryyy large jumps traversing the hill, I couldn’t stop smiling. The moment had arrived, 20 years after the first time I raced DH at the venue myself, in the 10-Year-Anniversary of #MTBJesus; I felt joyous.
The part of the week in LP that really highlighted the magnitude of importance this event held for me, more so than what I’ve described already, was having long-time friend Eddie and his partner Kara over to the house (I had only finally met Kara in person the day prior, she’s an absolute legend herself!). In true fashion to the setting, the four of us did the only sensible thing, which was kickback in Adirondack chairs on the deck and gab about all the happenings in our lives, silly stories, and all the rest.
It was surreal for me, because since the last time Eddie and I had been in that exact spot, he had gone from World Cup Team Owner to Enduro World Series Round Winner and beloved Youtube Personality [shout out Ed Bull TV]; my own journey since then has been an insane one as well – Now v. Then look nothing alike!
For context, Eddie had last been to the house in 2015 during little mid-week holiday in between the rounds at MSA and Windham. The sidequest squad consisted of half of the then-Bergamont Factory Team [Ed, Casey Brown, Kurt McDonald] and the notorious Vanzacs, [who have all since gone onto do some really cool stuff: Dave McMillan, Jackson Davies, Tom Matthews, Tyler Brooker, Dave Meilink]. It was quite a hilarious and much needed excursion for all of us that week. Better yet, my mom was also at the house at the time and was so hyped to hangout with all of these kids she’d been reading about through my work – she’s definitely the #1 Subscriber to the #MTBJesus Newsletter.
Later in the afternoon, we were joined by more of the gang from the Pivot team [Barney, Stef, Dan Meilink – yes, he was back too! + special guest, Ben Lovell] which was super fun, as I’ve know those guys for just as many years – once again thanks to my handful of summer stints in Queenstown. From New Zealand and trips around the World with these rad folks, and to having them hanging out on the deck, watching the sunset on the lake from my family’s home on the other side of the world, in a small mountain town, was sublimely cool. Unironically, it really is about the friends and stories we make along the way.
It was another week of amazing weather in one of my favorite places, surrounded by so many of my of Global Friends and Local Friends alike. After some high-fives and hell-yeahs, we packed it all up, and hit the road. We were headed north to do it all, yet again, though this would be the final hurrah of the year, at Mont Sainte Anne, in Boupré, Canada.
I have written a lot about MSA, and in the last few years, have had a lot to say about it. For 2025, now in 2026, my thoughts are a little more melancholy and nostalgic: from my first time seeing World Cup action in person at the 2010 World Champs, to being in attendance at the swan song of the legendary race, there is a lot to cover. I think I said it best the years that Finn and Jackson each managed truly iconic wins, and then again reinforced that sentiment when Troy won in ‘24.
The final installment of the famed Canadia piste was sadly, the Year of The Great Letdown, as I am calling it, for two reasons: series overall winner Vali flatted in her run, and Loic was unable to battle Jackson for the title… it was a bittersweet ending to the season, the lore of the mountain, and to the enthralling show that The Giant on The Saint Lawrence had become known for – it delivered the drama though, that much can be said.
Those oddities aside, this event was still a wonderful week because I got to chop it up with my Overseas Homies for a second week in a row, athletes and Squids alike, both my parents were able to join (it had been 8 years since they were able to jointly attend), my partner, our friend from home, Mike and his partner Katie (this was the first time we got to meet Katie and she immediately got written into the team roster – she’s rad). The mornings of coffee before the day on the hill with everyone was a part of the experience that I never used to get when I was working, because it was always work-work-work, even during breakfast. MSA was a family tradition over the years while I was in the B-Zone; my mom and dad would join for the week, spectate, and hangout with me while I’d edit and write – we’d often be joined by a friend or two who were racing as well. So to be able to take a more casual approach around the days and make it about more than just editing and writing was a welcome change. At the end of the week, in keeping with tradition, after Finals I went over and kicked in the Squid accommodation with the dudes, catching up and chatting while they edited (unless you’re staying in the house, there is too much to do during the course of the week, no time for socializing off-track; not in a mean or sarcastic way either!). Though the foliage had fallen this time around, The Final MSA was a truly lovely way to bookend three weeks of non-stop MTB action with Britt, friends from all over, family, and some new faces too!
This is what it has always been about for me: the memories, stories, and the people who make it all worth it. For the years that I was on the circuit, which feels like a lifetime-ago now, I knew in the moment that each week on the road with different characters, each sidequest shenanigans, each race with crazy story potential – it was all capturing lightning in a bottle. I don’t have the opportunity to really do that anymore, and that’s ok by me, honestly. My life is far less chaotic now, and I have put down roots owning a home with Britt, and also run a high-end MTB-focused repair shop out of said house; My favorite trails are literally down the street, so I get to ride to the trails from the shop/home…It’s a solid gig to be fair! It has all been a serious privilege the few years to able to still show up once or twice a year to MSA, Snowshoe, or Whiteface, get back into the B-Zone, and be a part of the action like I once was!
Heading toward the 2026 Lake Placid World Cup, I had the realization last week, that it too is another Round of Conclusion, not just for the series, the contract for the venue was not renewed. So, in 2027, for the first time in 35 years, there will not be a World Cup on the eastern side of North America. So, weirdly, I’m not sure when I’ll be able to attend another World Cup – without a doubt, I’ll endeavor to make it to one or two, it is just going to take a little more planning and financial commitment! But, it also sounds like a great excuse to get out of town for a bit and drop in on some friends…
#MTBJesus isn’t going anywhere for whatever that is worth, he’ll just probably be at home or somewhere nearby being a Strava Lord. Thank you to everyone who has tuned in for the last decade to The Start Gate or other features involving my work (shout out Shredder Zine). It ain’t over, it’s just going to look a little different down the line! In the meantime, roll onto Lake Placid, Round 9 and Finals, of the 2026 World Cup season, see you out on the hill!
