Widmer and Lazarski grab lead as Kona suffers mechanical disaster

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Alongside all the obvious skills that are essential to success in long distance mountain biking like fast climbing, brave descending, exceptional endurance, being a good bike mechanic with the ability to improvise solutions in remote places can often be the difference between winning a losing. While World Cup Mountain bike races allow mechanical support like the Tour de France, most mountain bike races require that the racers be self-sufficient other than food and drink, and so bike repairs are ingrained into the culture of the sport.

Mechanical issues are a daily occurrence in the TransRockies, and riders must be prepared to make a number of basic repairs like fixing flat tires and broken chains which are an inevitable consequence of lightweight equipment, hundreds of kilometres of challenging trails and occasional fatigue-induced rider errors. Already in the first three stages of 2010, TransRockies riders have fixed numerous flat tires and broken chains and a motorcycle tire iron from a TransRockies course moto was even pressed into duty to reinforce a broken frame tube allowing the bike rider to make it to the finish on his bike rather than pushing it.

After three straight stage wins, Kris Sneddon and Barry Wicks of Kona had established a 34-minute lead over 2009 Champions Marty Lazarski and Stefan Widmer (Rocky Mountain Factory Team) in the overall standings. Much of that time was acquired during Monday's stage 3 when Lazarski had to fix a major mechanical a few kilometers before the major climb of the day started. It was perhaps destined then that Kona would suffer its own mechanical challenge on day 4, when Sneddon snapped his rear derailleur 25km into a 60km ride. He was forced to turn his bike into a singlespeed for the rest of the day.

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The problem with trying to turn most full-suspension bikes into single speeds is that the compression of the rear shock shortens the chain length. When this happens, the chain jumps to a bigger rear cog and then snaps when the shock returns to its normal position. Sneddon snapped his chain twice more before realizing that more extensive surgery was needed.

His teammate Wicks remembered locking gears out with duct tape to meet junior racing rules, and they tried the same trick again... and it worked. They limped to the finish line in sixth place, 43 minutes behind Widmer and Lazarski who donned the overall leaders jerseys at tonight's awards. With less than a nine-minute deficit and more than 170km to be raced over the next three stages, Sneddon and Wicks feel that the 2010 Championship is still within reach.

While their ride went smoothly for the first 59.9km of the 60km day, Marty Lazarski and Stefan Widmer were nearly undone when Lazarski crashed just metres before the finish line turning on the transition between asphalt and gravel, and if that weren't enough, his surprised teammate Widmer also crashed into him. They were both stunned when they crossed the finish line - Lazarski on foot, Widmer riding - but were up and moving quickly and will be ready to race again tomorrow.

Behind all this action, the Timex/Sugoi duo of Will Kelsay and Matt Boobar rode to their second consecutive second-place finish of 2010 and jumped up into third place in the overall standings. With just five minutes separating third through fifth in the overall standings, they'll need to put some more great rides together to get on the final podium in Canmore.

The racing wasn't quite so dramatic in the other categories although the ride of the day must certainly be credited to the open mixed leaders Mical Dyck and Jeff Neilson (Team Terrascape/Trek Canada). After leading the field through the first section of singletrack, they stormed through the race to be the fourth team across the finish line overall and first in their division. Dyck is obviously storming at the moment after medalling at the Canadian National Championships in Calgary. Now that they are wearing the leaders jerseys, they don't look like they have any plans of giving them up.

With everything on the line, the expectation is that Team Kona to come out firing on the 54km stage 5 ride from Anchor D Ranch to Little Elbow Camp to try and overturn their nine-minute deficit.

Full Results

General classification after stage 4