Urban Roof 'n' Slopestyle
The first Urban Roof ‘n Slopestyle took place in July 2008 in Morzine. It was an event that, on paper, looked amazing. A freestyle mountain bike competition that would bring riders from around the world to a purpose built track that ran through the centre of Morzine town, over the rooftops…….yeah right!
If you want to hold a downhill ski race or a cheese festival in a ski resort, the mayor is usually on board, but try to persuade him to allow tons of dirt to be dumped in the main street and then let a group of scruffy kids in ripped jeans and masks onto the resort’s roofs and you’ll surely find you way blocked by mountains of red tape. Or a simple “no”.
So it was with a sense of scepticism that we journeyed over to Morzine, in the rain, for the first rooftop mountain bike competition.
When we arrived in the centre of town we could not believe it. They had done it!
The course started with a hub drop, a large yellow tunnel that the riders dropped out of before tackling a wall ride and hip giving them speed to jump up onto a large wooden platform that dropped off and into a another hip. Then a banked corner ran onto the roof of the local shops where a gap jump and a bridge connected the roof of the shops to the tourist office. The end of the tourist office roof had been built up with earth to form a drop-off that took the riders back down to street level where two final dirt jumps completed the course.
It was an incredible course, unlike anything we’d seen before and with € 11000 prize money up for grabs, the event had attracted some of the top riders from France, Britain, America and Canada. They really had done it!
The competition started on the Monday night with a best trick jam session. Bad weather earlier in the day had made the course un-ridable and most of the competitors had not been able to practice much before the competition got underway. Non-the-less an impressive, crowd pleasing performance was put on by all the riders with first place going to eighteen year old Sam Pilgrim from Essex.
The following day, the skies had cleared. The sun was shining, there was a sound system rigged up throughout the town and everything was ready for the event to get underway properly.
It was incredible to see the riders on the roofs. The unusual architecture of Morzine was blended seamlessly with the jumps, and the sloping roofs looked like they had been designed for this kind of freestyle event. The ever forward thinking resort had created a spectacle that some 10, 000 people turned out to see and the riders were not about to disappoint the fans.
The winner of the Roof n’ Slopestyle was, again, Sam Pilgrim who continues to show his dominance in the sport. Special mention must go to the Tom Cauquil who qualified for the final after winning the amateur competition and was placed a remarkable 5th overall.
The whole event was not only a great spectator event but a new and innovative style of competition that really captured the idea of what freestyle is all about. Creativity.
