The Monster Energy Garbanzo Downhill made even the eventual Pro Men’s champion feel some butterflies before he launched into the course’s 3,400 feet of vertical.

Aussie World Cup winner and national champion Chris Kovarik has been on the podium at the Kokanee Crankworx race in years past, but hasn’t taken the top spot in the event billed as the world’s longest downhill race.

On Sunday (Aug. 8), that all changed as Kovarik charged through the exhausting course in 13 minutes, 22.99 seconds of lung-searing and arm-jarring riding to knock 2009 Garbanzo DH champion Justin Leov into second place. The top two Pro Men flipped spots in 2010 as Kovarik lopped more than 22 seconds off Leov’s 2009 time for his win.

“I was a bit nervous in the beginning, but then once I got into it, it was fine,” Kovarik said at the base of the Whistler Mountain Bike Park.

Despite the nerves, he thought he could produce a strong time given his experience with the challenging course from the Garbanzo lift hut to the base of the park. But the extent of his speed surprised even him a little bit.

“I’ve done a few times, I kind of know the track pretty well; it’s just a matter of pedalling where I could and resting and just playing it smart, and then pedalling more,” Kovarik said.

The Australian star, husband and ChainReactionCycles.com/Intense teammate of Whistler’s World Cup ripper Claire Buchar, said he enjoyed the event’s “awesome” atmosphere, with spectators lining the end of the course and cheering racers through the woods at the top.

Rider after rider crossed the finish line with feet flashing in furious pedalling, and then chests heaving as they fought to catch their breath after giving their all on the track that’s akin to four or five standard downhill courses linked together. The most successful strategy of the day seemed to be conservative riding: Some of the top racers eased off the throttle slightly to make it down the technical and tiring course in one piece.

The challenge of the Garbanzo DH was intensified by the erratic weather; the dry week turned into a wet weekend and a slippery track, which dried out and then got wet again when smatterings of rain came down on race day.

“It was sort of hard to judge how you should ride everything. Probably the sketchiest run down In Deep I’ve ever had… The roots were really slippery. Other than that, I don’t think I’ve ever been that tired,” said Squamish’s Miranda Miller.

The young downhiller took the 2009 Pro Women Garbanzo title, but had to settle for second in 2010 as legendary French DH and BMX racer Anne-Caroline Chausson steamed to the top of the podium.

When crossing the finish line, Miller said her primary thought was, “Don’t puke.”

Chausson finished what she called a “really hard” race in 15:59.42, beating Miller’s time of 16:17.94 by more than 18 seconds.

“I made some mistakes, but not big ones,” Chausson said.

Still, Miller finished ahead of the likes of World Cup racers Fionn Griffiths of Great Britain and France’s Emmeline Ragot.

The second event of the seventh annual Crankworx festival in Whistler, the landmark gathering of all that’s great about mountain biking, saw riders from as far away as Korea, Brazil, Australia, France, New Zealand and Great Britain join many North American riders in charging Whistler’s bike park.

The top Whistler- and Pemberton-based riders in the Pro races were Dylan Wolsky and Jaime Hill, as Wolsky wound up 11th in the Pro Men’s event and Hill took seventh place among the elite ladies.

Hill bounced back from two crashes to wind up seventh, sitting just ahead of local rippers Fanny Paquette, Bethany Parsons and Dawn Cashen. She was “completely exhausted” coming across the finish line.

“I really tried to keep the rubber side down. I knew there were a few sketchy parts; I tried to take my time through those sections,” said Hill, who added that she’s learning a lot in her first season of racing in the pro category.

The kids are all right

Hot on the heels of Friday’s (Aug. 6) official announcement that they’ll be part of the Canadian team challenging the world on home turf at the 2010 UCI Mountain Bike and Trials World Championships at Mont-Sainte-Anne, Que., in September, Whistler’s Tyler Allison and Nick Geddes promptly started tearing up the trails at Crankworx.

Geddes opened the festival with a long-awaited win in the Junior Men category in Saturday’s (Aug. 7) Dual Slalom contest. After three runner-up results in years past, Geddes hit the top of the standings in the exciting event full of head-to-head racing on parallel tracks.

“I was super stoked to win,” he said, attributing the breakthrough to a concerted winter of training.

Come Sunday and the Garbanzo menace, it was Allison’s turn to take the top step of the podium in the Junior Men division. Though he went into the event wanting to win, Allison made good on his goal with a strategy of “trying to take it easy,” putting racing out of his mind and concentrating on pure speed.

“I kind of paced myself a bit and didn’t really do as much standing up on the pedals. I sat down quite a bit,” Allison said.

Geddes struggled with skewed lines as the tacky track suddenly became wet and soft when rain started along with the Junior Men. He crashed hard on a rock, flipping on his back and getting a bleeding arm, and then recovered, only to crash again in Duffman.

“Every time I see that GLC drop, I just think, ‘finally,’” Geddes said of the big drop that comes right before the sprint to the finish.

Still, he ended up fourth with a time of 14:56.48 to Allison’s 14:11.74. Whistler’s Max Horner finished close behind with his “pretty conservative” but crash-free run, posting a time of 15:01.06 to claim fifth place.

Even though Horner took a scary tumble in practice before the Garbanzo DH, “I was able to put that out of my mind and have a good run,” he said.

Allison and Geddes will join Whistlerites Buchar and Rebecca McQueen on the world championship team, along with Squamish’s Miller and Lauren Rosser.

Enduro evokes

Geddes regained the top of the podium by winning the Junior Men’s division in Tuesday’s (Aug. 10) Canadian Open Enduro, the epic all-mountain challenge involving 3,800 vertical feet of riding and extra expending of energy in short pedaling sections.

In its second year, the Enduro race attracted all-mountain stars like France’s Remy Absalon, who won the Pro Men’s category, as well as the highly regarded Chausson, the Pro Women’s winner. Whistler’s Matt Ryan finished fifth with a time of 19:34.86, about 42 seconds behind Absalon, followed by Aaron Bradford in sixth with a time of 19:50.75.

Jack Iles and Joel Robinson won the Boys 13 to 15 and Master Men divisions, respectively, while Whistler’s Dan Thwaite finished second to Jared Wilson in the Senior Men’s category and Paquette and Katrina Strand finished fourth and fifth, respectively, in the Pro Women race.

What’s next

Crankworx competitions continued with Wednesday’s (Aug. 11) Air Downhill, and the action ramps up this weekend with Thursday’s (Aug. 12) VW Trick Showdown and Pump Track Showdown, Friday’s (Aug. 13) Giant Slalom, Saturday’s (Aug. 14) Monster Energy Slopestyle and Sunday’s (Aug. 15) Canadian Open Downhill.

For full schedule details and results, check out crankworx.com.

If, somehow, that’s not enough to slake your thirst for mountain biking action, watch out for Saturday’s inaugural Richie’s Rally Vertical Challenge, hosted by the legendary Richie Schley, master of pain Grant Lamont and WORCA on signature Whistler West Side trails. For details, visit worca.com or richieschley.com.