WILMINGTON, N.Y. --- Six-time Leadville LT100 champion David Wiens (Ketchum, Idaho) looked over his shoulder trying to find Ryan Serbel (Hartford, Conn.) as he crossed the finish line to win Sunday’s, June 22, Wilmington Whiteface 100k mountain bike race (WW100), held in Wilmington, N.Y.  Wiens and Serbel spent most of the actual 69 miles trading the lead back and forth, but Wiens found the extra gear in the event’s final uphill section to pull ahead and finish in a time of four hours, 12 minutes, 17.41  seconds, just 1.4 seconds ahead of Serbel.

“You don’t often have it in mountain bike racing where you’re racing your guts out at the end of the race,” said the exhausted Wiens, who finished fourth last year. “It came down to the final little turns and I sprinted my guts out and I finished in front of him (Serbel).”

“Dave and I worked together for the whole race,” remarked Serbel.  “There was a good group of maybe eight to 10 of us, then some downhill sections got a little hairy and we lost a few people there.

“Dave pegged it on the last climb, I was barely hanging on, but I managed to hang onto him through the single-track, but there wasn’t enough room to pull out the sprint at the end.”

The defending WW100 champion Cameron Cogburn (Arlington, Mass.) spent most of the race in the lead group with Wiens and Serbel.  Cogburn, who’s been injured for most of the season, rode with the pair for about 60 miles, but tired in the last uphill section and finished third in 4:17:03.43.

Since so many hills make up the course, the WW100 is regarded as one of the toughest Leadville Series qualifying events. Beginning and ending at Whiteface Mountain, Sunday’s 460 cyclists endured jeep and gravel roads and back country trails through Wilmington, Jay, Keene, Lewis and Elizabethtown, as well as climbs that measure more than 750 meters each.  All of this before two, three-mile finishing loops and a pair of 350 foot climbs at Whiteface, ahead of the finish line.

Rebecca Rusch (Ketchum, Idaho) won the women’s race for the second time in three years. The four-time Leadville champion was never really challenged and was the only woman to finish in less than five hours. Her time was 4:48.15.30.

Bryna Blanchard (Troy, N.Y.) claimed the women’s silver medal when she crossed the finish line, at the base of the Olympic mountain, in 5:11:48.31.  Jill Vale (Collingwood, Ontario) finished in the bronze medal spot. Her time stopped the clock in 5:12:28.43.

One-hundred of Sunday’s athletes are now making plans to race in the Aug. 9 LT100.  Fifty of the LT100 qualifying spots were awarded based on performance in each division for men and women, and the other 50 were distributed randomly from a pool of all racers, who finished under the maximum cutoff time, which was eight hours.  Since the LT100 lottery had already taken place, this was one of only five nationwide Leadville Series qualifying races in which cyclists could still qualify and compete in the LT100.

Sunday’s WW100 also featured a 50K event. Steve Pasche (Decorah, Ind.) won the men’s race in 1:59.4020, while Rosanne Vandern (Lake Placid, N.Y.) topped the women’s field. She completed the event in 2:16:07.42.

For more information about the Wilmington Whiteface 100K, visit, http://wilmingtonwhitefacemtb.com/

MEDIA: For a complete list of results from both the 100K and 50K, log onto http://www.wilmingtonwhitefacemtb.com/results/ or http://www.auyertiming.com/results.php#.   

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