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The four-day festival bike fest begins, Thursday, June 14, on the Flume trails with the "Fun not Fear" mountain bike instruction clinic for beginners, sponsored by High Peaks Cyclery. The two-hour clinic begins at 4 p.m.
An all-star group of cyclists headlines Friday's, 6-8 p.m., free Jump Jam and Trials Exhibition. The line-up includes Kyle Ebbett, a renowned course designer and builder and mountain bike freerider, Sam Perkins, who will be demonstrating his bike trials skills, and Taylor Wright-Sanson, who is one of only five unicyclists who can consistently land a backflip.
Other riders also include "Evil" Elias Ingraham, a pro downhiller, and mountain bike rider Heikki Hall. Each will also be available to sign autographs and pose for pictures.
Afterwards cyclists and fans can gather at the Steinhoff's Sportsman's Inn for the Wilmington Whiteface welcome party and the "Best Calves of Wilmington" contest. A celebrity panel of judges will select the "Best Calves" for both men and women.
The bike festival's first race, the 11th annual Whiteface Mountain Uphill Bike Race, gets underway at 8 a.m., Saturday. As many as 400 road cyclists will compete in the 11-mile long race that will take them from the base of New York State's fifth highest peak to the summit, via the Veterans Memorial Highway.
Registration for this BUMPS (Bike Up the Mountain Points Series) event is available at www.bikereg.com/Net/14909.
Saturday's activities also include a dual slalom race, beginning at noon, at the Whiteface Mountain bike park, operated by High Peaks Cyclery, and the "Brainless not Chainless Gravity Ride," starting at 4 p.m. The free costume parade for both cyclists and bikes begins at Santa's Workshop and finishes at the town beach. A beach party follows at 5 p.m.
Several athletes will wake up early Sunday morning to race in the Wilmington/Whiteface 100K (WW100). The 7 a.m. shotgun start, at the base of Whiteface, will send the field of mountain bikers 69 miles through the upstate New York towns of Wilmington, Jay, Keene, Lewis and Elizabethtown on back country and jeep roads before returning to the Olympic mountain where a of 2,500 foot climb awaits them ahead of the finish line.
As many as 400 riders, including four-time Olympian and 2010 Nordic Combined Olympic champion Bill Demong, are expected to race in the only Leadville MTB 100 (LT100) series qualifier in the eastern United States. Demong, who finished 34th in last year's LT100, will try to grab one of only 100 qualifying spots for this year's LT100.
And while the WW100 is taking place, several of the country's top downhill mountain bikers will be competing in the Pro MTB Gravity Tour's seventh annual Whiteface 5K Downhill. The top pros will be pursuing the cash purse of $2,500.00, while all of the amateur categories will come away with prizes from participating sponsors.
For more information about the Wilmington Whiteface Bike fest, log onto www.whitefaceregion.com or on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/WilmingtonBikeFest.
