Fastest bikes at GoPro Mountain Games Enduro
Alex McGuinnes came into the race as a bit of a dark horse, but also hot on a winning streak after taking the Colorado State Super-D Championship that was held the previous week in Eagle. If he looks a little dirty, it’s because he hit the deck in stage 2. He was on a winning pace, and the crash certainly motivated him to dig a bit deeper for the rest of the stage, and really put it on the line in stage 3 to take the win by an 11 second margin over second placed Adam Craig, with MTB legend Brian Lopes in third (click to enlarge).
New for the GoPro Mountain Games in Vail, Colorado, this year was the enduro race which featured a $7500 cash purse three deep for the pro men and women. Considering the elevation of Vail and the nature of enduro, the race was held a bit further west and at a lower elevation in Eagle, Colorado, to avoid the still snowed in upper portions of Vail Mountain.
For those who have never heard of Eagle, just know there is nearly 150 miles of mostly rock-free buff singletrack that is accessible for a much larger part of the year than the typical Colorado mountain towns. Racers started rolling out from the town park at 9 a.m. to tackle three timed stages with pedal transfers in between for a total of about 4000 feet of climbing and descending. Colorado locals Alex McGuinnes and World Cup cyclocross racer Katie Compton took the top steps at the end of the day. (Full results here.) Ace shooter Eddie Clark was there to provide this look at the bikes that got them there.
McGuinnes, aka Krunk Shox, got his nickname for running some pretty clapped out suspension on his race bike back in the Winter Park downhill series many years ago. Fast forward to today and his Transition 29’er Smuggler is about as trick and finely tuned as it gets. Rear suspension comes in at 115mm of travel and the front is set up at 150mm of travel via a Rock Shox Lyrik. Drivetrain is a SRAM XX1 1×11 with a 32-tooth front ring, and brakes are SRAM Guide Ultimates with 180mm rotors front and rear. Notable is the dropper locker that he has set on the Rock Shox Reverb 170mm dropper to keep from getting too low on the pedal heavy stages (click to enlarge).
Krunk’s Transition sports a factory prototype rocker with a metric conversion to run a metric Rock Shox Deluxe rear shock that pivots on sealed bearings. He says the top end is super plush and the shock feels like it gained an extra half inch of stroke after the conversion to metric standards. Also seen in this photo is an MRP chain guide, and a carbon ENVE bottle cage with a Specialized SWAT bike tool mounted underneath the cage (click to enlarge).
Traction duties are handled with the new Specialized Butcher Grid sidewalls in size 29×2.3” up front rear and a Specialized Ground Control Grid 29×2.3” in the rear. Both tires are mounted on prototype ENVE rims that sport a much wider (supposedly 30mm inner width) rim profile that are laced up to class leading Chris King hubs (click to enlarge).
Cockpit duties are handled with cut-down ENVE DH bars and ENVE carbon stem. For grips, Krunk runs ‘old school’ Intense rubber grips that he has a private supply of. Last but not least is the “50-01” labeled Garmin mounted on an SRAM carbon holder. As Krunk explains, 50-01 is the rear wheel to front wheel ratio that suits his riding style (click to enlarge).
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