Local takes on UCI Mountain Bike World Series

Ledger competed early Sunday morning in the Union Cycliste Internationale Marathon World Cup men’s elite division. The race consisted of three laps of 33.3 kilometers — equaling 100K. He placed 34th overall in 4 hours, 37 minutes, 50 seconds.

“I was definitely hoping to be a bit higher up,” he said. “I just threw the pacing out the window and went hard from the start. The group that I was in, it was like a group of five, at the end of the first lap, we were OK together, but for the most part it was me and two other guys that were doing the work in that group to make up some spots. I wasn’t necessarily satisfied with the pace on the flatter stuff, so I definitely did a lot of work in that group and burned a lot of matches, and that came back and bit me in the third lap. I blew up, so hard.”

While it wasn’t his ideal result, Ledger was happy that he left everything out on the course.

The UCI Mountain Biking World Series was the largest professional mountain bike race ever in Lake Placid. For Ledger, it was the first time he’d ever done a mountain bike race in Lake Placid. But he was rather familiar with the venue as he’s spent a lot of time cross-country skiing at Mount Van Hoevenberg.

“A lot of the trails we were going backwards on,” he said. “Which is kind of interesting and the speed is way different because there’s no snow. It’s all different, but getting to race a World Cup in a really familiar setting is really cool to have that be the one race that I’ve done in Lake Placid.”

Ledger practically grew up on cross-country skis. He started competing in Nordic combined — a sport that combined cross-country skiing and ski jumping — when he was about 10 years old and started chasing the Olympic dream. However, right before the coronavirus pandemic he decided to stop competing professionally and moved back home after living in Park City, Utah.

Ledger is currently attending Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, where he’s in his senior year. During his time there, he was introduced to mountain bike racing.

“They had been really instrumental in me racing all different kinds of bikes, so mountain bike, road bike, gravel,” he said.

Ledger has done a lot of racing in Colorado, including the Leadville 100, which is what helped him get into the men’s elite division UCI Cross-country Marathon World Cup.

When he first heard that UCI was going to host the event here in December 2023, the only race that was announced was the cross-country World Cup event. Ledger was considering trying to get into that race, despite it being a different style than he’s used to.

“I usually race marathon distance and longer stuff,” he said. “Going to chase points and qualify for XCO points would be a little bit of a different calendar than from what I had planned already.”

Then about a month later, the marathon World Cup was announced.

“I was like, ‘Awesome, that’s more of the distance I race anyways, so I don’t have to go and chase a bunch of UCI points to try and get into that race,’” he said.

On Sunday, Ledger competed against some riders in the top-10 of the overall UCI standings for the World Cup marathon. He said it was one of the highest-level races he’s ever done and it was a great experience.

“It certainly wasn’t the highest profile race of the weekend, but still the full UCI experience,” he said. “I got to start under the same banner as everybody else with announcers and call ups and everything. So that was really cool.”

To Ledger, the best part of the entire weekend was getting to race in front of most of his family.

“Getting to come home and stay in my parents house to race at my first World Cup,” he said.

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Family

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Ledger’s family took full advantage of the local venue and showed up in force. Cheering him on during the 100K race were his parents Jen and Patrick Ledger along with his older brother, Forest Ledger, who made the trek from Bozeman, Montana, where he currently lives, as well as Greg and Jody Borzilleri, siblings who are Beckett’s uncle and aunt.

Jen said the whole family was proud and excited for Beckett. She noted that he had been smiling and waving whenever he saw them at Mount Van Hoevenberg.

“Which is not the norm in these endurance races,” Patrick added as the group chuckled.

Everyone in the family knew how important it was to show their support, given the intense dedication that the athletes pour into performing at the sport’s highest levels. Even with vigorous training, results from race to race can still come down to fortune.

“It’s a super high-intensity sport and at the speeds they’re racing and at the closeness they’re racing, it’s the same as any road race, but, their bars are wider so the odds (of making up time after a crash in which the racer is still able to finish) are not in your favor,” Forest said.

“You gotta just focus on your race and hope that you have the reflexes of strength, both of will and of body, to stay upright,” he said. “It’s something that happens to everyone. Nobody makes it through (their racing career) without a crash. You just kind of accept that and at least (know that) the odds are in your favor that not everyone’s going down all the time.”