As the sun set behind Whistler’s peaks on Thursday (Aug. 12), spotlights brightened to pick out the Crystal Viper, a 70- by 90-foot tangle of track that sits coiled above the Boneyard Slopestyle Park in the Whistler Mountain Bike Park.

The spotlight scene was the setting for the inaugural Ultimate Pump Track Challenge, this year’s new addition to the Kokanee Crankworx roster.

With spectators ringing the compact pump track filled with smooth rollers and steep banked corners, riders faced off in head-to-head heats. They started on the same wooden platform before hurling themselves into the tricky track, which has been dubbed the Crystal Viper for the bite it takes out of riders who make mistakes.

As they used their whole bodies to pump their bikes around the tricky track, eschewing pedals, the competitors created a breathtaking combination of extreme effort, absolute smoothness and some sudden bursts of soaring to keep onlookers cheering and gasping.

The racers had to complete one lap — taking about 15 seconds to blast around its curves and berms — and beat their opponent in leaping back up onto the central platform and crossing the finish line. That format produced some nailbiting battles and intense finishes, and through it all the riders seemed to be having a whole lot of fun.

American four-cross rider Mitch Ropelato took to the compact pump track like the proverbial duck to water, speeding through his heats with ease and a big smile on his face. The 18-year-old broke his collarbone two weeks ago, but the spectators ringing the tightly coiled track would never have guessed it, given the brightness of his smile and the smoothness of his riding.

Ropelato said he tries “every pump track event I can get into. I’m having the time of my life. I love this stuff.”

The feel of the floodlights and the music pumping into the evening air must have been familiar for the World Cup four-cross medallist, who spoke of the evenings he has spent “training” for events like these after picking up his $750 cheque as the inaugural men’s champion.

“I wouldn’t call it training; I just go out in my backyard, me and my buddies, and have two-hour sessions almost every night, pull up the floodlights in my backyard, bust the tunes in the cars, and just knock out laps. (I wouldn’t) call that training; that just seems like fun to me,” Ropelato said with a laugh.

The excitement in the ladder races brought the intensity in the audience to a peak when Ropelato took to the track against fellow finalist Brendan Fairclough, and spectators responded with a roar when Fairclough wiped out on a berm in his last half-lap. Ropelato said he made a few little mistakes in his own run, but he rolled handily to victory on the lush track.

“It was really good,” Ropelato said of the Crystal Viper. “They built it really good; it flowed together really good.”

He said he was skeptical about the head-to-head format at first, but then found the glimpses he caught of his competitors quickening his need for speed.

“That was wicked, that was so new,” Ropelato said of the format, adding, “It helps me to see stuff outside the course. It relaxes me.”

Three-time four-cross world champion Jill Kintner of Seattle surged to victory on the women’s side, knocking off North Shore product Micayla Gatto in a competitive final that let up only when Gatto took a small slip heading into the last half of her lap.

Kintner said the Crystal Viper track was “super tight, the tightest pump track I’ve probably ever ridden. It was pretty cool. I’ve never done a pursuit format, (and) definitely never seen a stage or an operation like this.”

The key to handling the tight track, Kintner said, was “definitely leaning and getting set up for the turns, getting high in the corners.”

Saying she had an “awesome time” racing on the fun, fast track, Gatto wondered whether nerves might have gotten to her a little bit in the intense women’s final.

Gatto said she’d been “concentrating on pumping fast and railing the berms, and I guess I just kind of didn’t exit a berm early enough and went straight into the next one, and that kind of threw me off… But Jill, certainly, she pins it.”

Whistler’s Rebecca McQueen and Nick Geddes, who earned berths in the Crankworx event by winning the Pump Track Challenge on the track in late July, were knocked out in early rounds. McQueen was felled by French World Cup downhill star Emmeline Ragot in her first heat –—Ragot wound up in third place after a photo finish — and Geddes lost to pro rider Cody Warren.

Buchar braves the Open

Crankworx closed Sunday (Aug. 15) with the return of the tough, technical Canadian Open Downhill race, which was won by Ragot and downhill world champion Gee Atherton of the U.K. The riders were also crowned the Queen and King of Gravity in recognition of their results across the board at Crankworx this year.

Atherton, who began his run at the 2010 edition of Crankworx with a win in the opening-day Dual Slalom event, had his sights set on the world championships starting Sept. 2 after he ripped through the Canadian Open course in three minutes, 4.14 seconds.

“This was a real tough course to ride today,” he said in a statement. “It has been a long season and I am excited to go from here onto the world championships in Mont-Sainte-Anne.”

Whistler’s Claire Buchar closed her 2010 Crankworx experience as the runner-up to Ragot, finishing with a time of 3:42.12, while Squamish’s Miranda Miller claimed third place.

“The track was tough but I liked it: a mix of tech, rough, loose and rad big jumps,” Buchar wrote on the blog at canadiandhgirls.com. The Canadian DH Girls cadre includes Buchar and leading Whistler ripper Katrina Strand along with Gatto, McQueen, Miller and Danice Uyesugi.

Whistler’s Tyler Morland finished eighth in the strong Pro Men’s field, while Mathieu Herbert won the Master Men category and Alexander Geddes claimed second place in the Boys division. Whistler’s Tyler Allison and Max Horner finished third and sixth, respectively, among the Junior Men.

Also on Sunday, Rob McSkimming, Whistler Blackcomb senior vice-president of business development, received the Richard Juryn Award, which recognizes people and efforts in keeping with the late Juryn’s example of passion for and dedication to the local mountain bike community. McSkimming has been a key figure in the development of the massively popular bike park.

Best of the rest

Buchar blazed to a sixth-place finish in Wednesday’s (Aug. 11) Air Downhill race in a stellar field of Pro Women tackling the famed A-Line course, where Whistler’s Sarah Leishman also cracked the top 10. Legendary French rider and Olympic BMX champion Anne-Caroline Chausson took the top spot.

American star Brian Lopes continued his mastery of A-Line by winning his fifth straight Pro Men’s title in the event, digging deep and pedalling hard to cover the course and its nearly 50 jumps in 4:15.69.

Whistler’s Stacy Kohut claimed the win in the two-person Four Wheel division, while Herbert was the runner-up among the Master Men, Geddes grabbed third place in the Boys division and Allison finished fifth among the Junior Men.

Ragot was also a force to be reckoned with in Friday’s (Aug. 13) Giant Slalom, claiming the Pro Women’s win while Michal Prokop came out on top amid the Pro Men.

For full results, check out crankworx.com/whistler/home.