Bones Over Metal Freeride and Downhill Video Blog

About 60 riders from spots throughout the Northwest converged on Snoqualmie on Sunday, May 4 for the BENT III comp.

Ladders, skinnies, drops, swooping berms and fast downhill were the focus of the day. In the first event, riders trying to conquer Shore-style stunts were dinged 10 points for every dab. But in the downhill event, a number of racers bypassed big hits, including several ladder drops, in the interest of shaving seconds off their time. A jump jam on a few of the bigger stunts concluded the comp.

At the end of the day, Matt Patterson, Brian Guse and Trevor Louvier ascended the podium for best overall male rider and Caryn Cantu, Kat Sweet and Deb Hutton were determined the top overall female riders. Damien and Trevor won spots one and two on the jump jam podium, joined by Matt P.

After the all the riding was over, the Dirt Corps threw an afterparty to reflect on the day’s activities and recognize the fastest and most ‘BENT’ riders. Plus there was a raffle for some really sweet bike gear donated by sponsors! The Dirt Corps and everyone involved greatly appreciated the support of Transition Bikes, Fluidride, FSA, Deity, Twenty6 Products, SixSixOne, and SDG for their generous donations!

Here’s the history of BENT, in the words of Matt Patterson from Dirt Corps:

BENT was started 3 years ago to settle an ongoing dispute between two fairly vocal riders on a local email list (Chad and Armando from the BigBikeList). There was much debate as to which rider possessed the best all-around skills as a freeride, downhill and trail mountain biker. Thus the BigBike Epic Noodle Throwdown was born. An invitational event held by riders for riders.

Initially there were a variety of trails suggested as possible venues for BENT, but only Snoqualmie had enough of the right terrain to test the breadth of mountain bike skills in one day.

In its first year, there were only about 15 people entered in the race, and the original format involved a timed one-mile climb to the top of the downhill trail through some tight and twisty singletrack. This proved way too much effort to those riding big bikes (BENT was after all declared a one-bike only event) and so the climbing leg was scrapped in favor of more time for downhill and freeriding starting with BENT 2.

After the climb and a short rest riders took to the downhill trail. The DH leg was a race against the clock down a classic Snoqualmie trail that lasted almost 3 years before development claimed it. This years’ BENT DH race was held on that trail’s successor, which was unveiled last year at BENT 2 as a sort of surprise/reward for those who stuck around until the end. This years’ surprise trail extended the play of the old race course and saw riders coming in between 1 – 2 mins in total time. (1:04.43 is in fact the course record held by Boe McGee).

For BENT 1 and 2, following the DH race, riders navigated a network of elevated wooden stunts and jumps, some as skinny as a bike tire and in places up to 6 feet in the air. Here riders could earn points for ‘cleaning’ challenging sections of the trail. For most riders this part of BENT proved to be the greatest challenge, as very precise balance and bike control are necessary, as well as a good set of nerves to keep cool under the pressure.

One of the changes made to this year’s BENT was to run the Shore-style event first, before the DH, while riders were still relatively fresh and also to encourage greater participation, since in the past a number of entrants opted out and took themselves out of contention for the overall prize.

You can find out more about the Dirt Corps at www.dirtcorps.com.

Order the photos from BENT III here.