100 km/h and huge jumps: was snow bike world champs actually really cool?

Over the weekend, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) crowned four new mountain bike world champions. That would be at snow bike world championships in Chatel, France. It’s a race you might have missed, with the spotlight on Red Bull Hardline and, you know, the actual Winter Olympics.

But, unlike Hardline, snow bike worlds managed to hold finals. And finals looked wild.

We’ll be the first to admit that, well, we’re not quite sure why snow bike world championships exists. It’s an odd event, as a one-off weekend with no World Cup leading into it. Or any other big snow bike events, really. And, with small fields of mostly French and some Swiss riders, it’s not a particularly global event. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t also really cool.

Especially when you watch Vincent Turpin’s run from the Super G. Turpin pushes past 100 km/h in the final stretch, which is kind of terrifying on a bike with tires armed with enough spikes to tear a good chunk out of the rider in a crash. That max speed isn’t far off the average speed, either, with Vinny T just shy of 70 km/h average speed and hitting at least one massive jump at around 90.

All that, and he only gets silver.

Here’s his Super G silver medal run and his world championship-winning Dual Slalom run against none other than the legendary Cedric Gracia.

Lisa Baumann brought home a double gold for Switzerland, if you’re wondering. And Pierre Thévenard won the men’s Super G, even with a crash in his finals run.