The second edition of the Red Bull 5000 Down was already shaping up to be a great event, involving some of the best downhill riders in the world, the local scenery and promising a significant challenge with a race course stretching from the peak of Whistler Mountain to the foot of Whistler Blackcomb's bike park.
Then Mother Nature decided to make things even more interesting on Sunday (Sept. 12), sending some 14 centimetres of new snow to the mountaintop and bucketing the bike park trails with rain.
When the 131 competitors set out for Sunday's mass start in the snow, riders soon found themselves jostling each other and alternately pedalling and pushing their bikes through the loose mess of the white stuff.
Tear-off strips and goggles were wrestled with and tossed throughout the visibility-challenged runs. And still, most of the riders had a terrific time.
Rosser, the 麻豆社国产rider who recently made history as the first Canadian woman to win a world junior downhill racing title, rolled away with the win in the women's category after starting her race run by following Whistler's Katrina Strand, the 2009 women's winner in the event.
Then she caught up to Strand coming out of the Little Alder trail, and cruised onward to victory.
"If worlds was like this, it would be the best thing ever. I love riding in the mud," said Rosser.
Rosser did find the uphill section at the start somewhat tiring, where she was running through the snow while slipping and struggling to see through her goggles.
She also overcame a challenge to her vision: She went to tear one protective strip off her goggles and instead yanked off all of the layers.
She wound up tossing her goggles entirely, so they're still somewhere in the bike park.
Overall, Rosser rated the Red Bull 5000 Down race a hearty 10. She finished with a time of 27:31.59, while Squamish's Miranda Miller finished fifth with a time of 31:23.90.
Squamish's Shaums March, the runner-up on the men's side in the inaugural 2009 edition of this event, finished eighth with a time of 22:58.99.
Whistler's Tyler Morland charged out in front early in the crazy conditions on the course, and led the pack of riders all through the long way down the estimated vertical drop of 5,020 feet.
"There's no science to it - really you've got to get in with the guys and mix it up a bunch, which is great because everyone in the front row, we're all friends, so no one's playing dirty out there," Morland said. "It's a big race but it's local too; it's super good like that."
After fishtailing and pushing bikes through the snowy start, Morland led and battled with World Cup stalwart Chris Kovarik for the first half of the race. Then Kovarik crashed on In Deep, and he had to fight hard to pull back within striking distance of the local rider and leader.
"A couple of minutes before the end I made my move, I started to make some ground on him, and then on one of the last bumps here I just landed into the downside of the landing and washed out," said a mud-spattered Kovarik at the finish line.
While Kovarik was down, American pro rider Curtis Keene flew past and rolled over the Australian champ's legs, on his way to claiming second place behind Morland. Kovarik wasn't upset - Keene couldn't help it, he said.
Morland claimed the men's title in the event with his time of 21 minutes, 49.82 seconds, while Keene finished second in 22:01.03 and Kovarik recovered to capture third with a time of 22:13.30.
