Highline MTB Festival goes big!
The Highline MTB Festival was back and riders were set to launch in Mansfield!
Words and photos: Matt Rousu
Mansfield was treated to another great week of freestyle mountain biking at the Highline Mountain Bike Festival over the weekend. With Slopestyle, Speed and Style, Whip off, Dual Slalom and the introduction of Super Enduro it was a busy but well managed event thanks to Shannon Rademaker and his crew!
With events all over Australia and New Zealand at the moment the competition was a little less stacked in most events however the Men's Slopestyle field was one of the best we’ve seen here in Australia.
Defending champ Luke Parker was out in force during the week performing new tricks and effortless style, Mike Ross was riding like he had something to prove as well. Practice sessions during the week also saw some heavy crashes due to high winds and took out big hitters Gaelen Slaney and Matt Cooper, both sustained shoulder injuries and wouldn’t be able to compete.
Slope Style
Saturday started well with the second Freestyle Mountain Bike (FMB) World Tour Women’s Slopestyle event of 2023, 6 women would take on the course and many new tricks were thrown by everyone. Germany’s Patricia Druwen would take a comfortable win with her technical tricks; barspin, toboggan and suicide no hander. Tassie’s Leyla Sharman boosted higher than everyone with her signature relaxed style.
Another Tassie athlete Ruby Jacobson took 3rd with effortless flow down the course. This was a bronze level event on a different course to what the men would tackle.
The Mens Slopestyle was also Round 2 of the FMB World Tour (It was the first Silver tier event of the year so more points and prize money were on offer). Unfortunately the windy conditions would hinder the event throughout the day and would see multiple athletes crash out of contention, many tricks that had been stomped earlier in the week became super difficult to manage on the bigger jumps.
Tom Wrigley, Luke Parker and Mike Ross would all crash out of the event and have to watch as young guns Dane Folpp, Ted Oakley and Leroy Leslie would sweep the podium with a plethora of original tricks. Dane’s run of a 360, Opposite 360, Backflip Can-Can, 360 X-up, Backflip Tailwhip and a Backflip Double Barspin was enough to take the win!
The amateur Slopestyle event took place on Sunday with cool and cloudy conditions, the young guns would throw everything they had to try and get on the podium but consistency would pay off with Ben Hoffmann nailing his run top to bottom.
Racing was back on the menu on Sunday with the Dual Slalom and Super Enduro, results from the hotly contested racing can be found here.
It’s a shame we couldn’t see more athletes at this years event, but with Crankworx Rotorua happening at the same time and the Enduro World Cup about to kick off in Tassie it’s a super busy time of year to fit everything in. It’s a fantastic event and a stellar venue, make sure you put it on the calendar for 2024!!!
