For some reason I thought I had blogged about the 2024 Bentonville Bike Fest already, but I guess I hadn’t. So, let’s rewind a few months…
I was fortunate enough to attend the Bentonville Bike Fest in 2022 and 2023, but without any of the local crew. Except of course for Mike Steidley because, well, he rides at a whole different level than the rest of the local group and has been competing at the national level for many years. Oh yeah… and Joe Janicki! Joe showed up as well, which was a nice surprise. All in all, that’s five trials riders representing Connecticut this year!
This year was a new adventure for a few reasons, but one in particular is that Scott and Jim came out with me as well! They had heard me talk about the event, the riding, and the people, but they had never experienced it firsthand… until now. I’m really glad they were able to make it this year; they seemed to truly enjoy the whole experience. Except maybe the long drive from Connecticut to Arkansas and back (I flew out). Check out the vlog of the adventure (above) and a couple additional riding videos (below) as well.
Since Scott and Jim drove out, we were able to bring our trials bikes as well as our mountain bikes. That meant I was able to do some mountain biking in Bentonville for the first time ever, which was pretty cool! It also meant that Scott was able to attend a coaching session with none other than the legendary Jeff Lenosky on Friday afternoon. While Scott was getting coached, Jim and I went mountain biking with some other trials friends.
Friday evening we had a trials group ride downtown Bentonville. The group ride highlights video is below, so be sure to check that out. It was good company, good fun, and good riding. Well… except for the part where Hunter broke his trials bike frame in half… the day before the North American Trials Championship. (Fortunately he was able to borrow a bike and just stomped the competition, taking first place in the Sport class.) We apparently entertained the folks in the outdoor seating area of a restaurant for most of the ride. After dark we walked to a grocery store to grab some dinner and ate by the fountain on the green. Then we rode some more for a bit before heading back to our AirBnB.
Saturday was the North American Trials Championship competition. Scott, Jim, and I all competed in the Veteran (over 40) Class, which rode the Sport class gates. Unfortunately we ran out of time and didn’t get to finish both laps, so I’m sure that impacted our scores. Overall I was fairly happy with my riding, though I did have a couple stupid fails.
This year there were also a number of riders from the Shindig crew, which was pretty cool! Shin-diggers Matt, Tom, Callum, and Andrei all came, sharing duties of riding and announcing. Andrei Burton also interviewed Jim after he discovered that Jim was the oldest trials competitor at the event!
Saturday was also the UCI Trials C1 event qualifying round. The highlights of that event are in the video below. Unfortunately, the a tornado touched down right on the event grounds Saturday night and caused significant damage. As a result, the rest of the Bentonville Bike Fest was canceled, so Sunday’s UCI C1 event final was not held.
On Sunday afternoon, Jim, Scott, and I headed over to the Bike Fest event grounds to assess the damage and see if we could help. We ended up spending a couple hours helping clean up – picking up things like banners and event tables and bringing them to a staging area, helping load metal event gates into a truck, etc. Following cleanup there was a trials group ride on the trials park and a huge group photo. Threatening weather (chance of more tornados) scared off most of the riders; fortunately the storm passed by without incident.
Sunday evening we went to dinner at the Texas Roadhouse with a giant group of trials riders from the US and a variety of European countries. It is interesting to consider that our dinner group had multiple national and world champion trials riders, yet I’ll bet nobody in the restaurant had any idea who they are. I mean aside from use, of course. It was great to get together one last time with these amazing people before traveling back home Monday.
Scott and Jim started their two day drive back Monday morning. I soon headed to the airport for my trip back as well. Fortunately we all had uneventful return trips.
Despite having the event cut short due to the storm damage, this year’s Bentonville Bike Fest was still an extra special time. I was glad to be able to share the experience with some of the local crew. And thankful that once again I could participate, both as a rider and a content creator.
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