Horgan-Kobelski and Gould clean up

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On a picture perfect day in the Rocky Mountains, Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski (Subaru/Gary Fisher) rode away from his rivals on the second lap of the cross country race to win by over three minutes.

Jay Henry (Tokyo Joe's) also rode a strong race to take second place, followed by Sid Taberlay (Sho-Air/Specialized) in third. Colin Cares took fourth, only 0.08 seconds behind Taberly, with Bryan Alders finishing off a solid weekend by finishing fifth.

The course at Chalk Creek was 7.4 miles of very fast singletrack, doubletrack, and fire roads. There was only one significant descent, followed by some sweet winding singletrack along Chalk Creek. Both the men and women raced four laps.

Horgan-Kobelski had a small gap at the end of the first lap and then steadily pulled away. "It's always a nice surprise when you feel good," said the experienced Subaru-Gary Fisher rider. "On the second lap I put in a pretty big effort, honestly just to split the group up.

"I ended up by myself so I figured I might as well make it hard on everyone else to catch back on... but they didn't."

Behind Horgan-Kobelski there were some strange race tactics going on. Colin Cares launched several attacks on flat sections where a rider could not really get away. "The tactics were a bit unusual for a mountain bike race," said Jay Henry. "There were a lot of attacks and surges the first lap then it would always come back together."

"Today was great," Henry said. "I didn't actually think the top two was possible. Jeremy went and nobody chased him very hard so I thought I maybe I could so the same thing... and it ended up working."

While Horgan-Kobelski and Henry each finished alone, Taberlay and Cares treated the crowd to an exciting photo finish sprint for third place. Taberlay commented after the race that he thought he had won by about a wheel.

Gould rides another time trial

In a manner we have seen countless times over the past few years, Georgia Gould (Luna Pro Team) simply rode her own time trial to take the victory today, while Kelli Emmett also looked impressive in her second place effort.

Katie Compton (Planet Bike), who has just returned to racing, finished third followed by Heather Irmiger (Subaru/Gary Fisher) in fourth, and Jennifer Smith (Rocky Mountain Chocolate) in fifth.

The course certainly suited Gould's powerful style of riding. "This was a fun course... so fast," said Gould. "I was just trying to go hard the whole time. This was good training, really steady pedaling."

The pro women appeared to ride a very fast first lap, and as a result quickly came up to the back of the men's field. Lap traffic didn't appear to alter the results but in many cases the women were able to draft behind some of the men.

"Overall I felt well. It took me a couple laps to hit my rhythm," explained Kelli Emmett. "I knew it was going to be a long race so I just rode conservatively and tried to be smart."

The top five women were separated by a whopping 13 minutes at the finish. For much of the race each of them rode alone.

By sweeping their respective races, Horgan-Kobelski and Gould won the overall Triple Crown for the weekend and each was rewarded with significant cash prizes.

Horgan-Kobelski, Gould, and Irmiger will return to world cup racing next weekend in Offenburg, Germany.

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