The WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series will have three men’s and women’s races. The event hopes to bring the top professional mountain bikers in the world to Lake Placid to compete in three UCI Mountain Bike World Cups: the UCI cross-country Olympic, UCI cross-country short track and the UCI cross-country marathon.

This past December, the Olympic Regional Development Authority Board of Directors unanimously voted to authorize $1.26 million in payments to Warner Brothers Discover Sports Events Limited, which owns UCI Mountain Bike, to bring the Mountain Bike World Series event to Mount Van Hoevenberg. The contract is a three year deal and will cost $420,000 annually, with World Cup events scheduled for 2025 and 2026 as well.

ORDA agreed to pay the UCI Warner Brothers group $170,000 for an organizational fee and a $250,000 media amplification fee. The organizational fee was originally slated for $250,000 but was reduced due to the infrastructure that is already in place at Mount Van Hoevenberg, ORDA President and CEO Ashley Walden said this past December.

“Biking fans are huge because we’re only talking about approximately 150 racers but 8,000 spectators,” ORDA board member and former state Sen. Betty Little said in December. “I would hope as we get closer to that — if we do this — that we would analyze and make sure that’s about how many we are going to get because I think the FISU Games we thought we were going to get a lot more than we actually got for all different kinds of reasons.”

Mount Van Hoevenberg is one of 15 stops for the series, which spans 10 countries on three continents, starting with two weekends of cross-country races in Brazil. The series continues until the first weekend of October with the traditional formats of cross-country and downhill as well as formats that are new to the series, such as cross-country marathon, Enduro and E-Enduro.

The event in Lake Placid will kick off on Friday, Sept. 27, with a cross-country short track World Cup for both men and women’s U23 division. On Saturday, Sept. 28, the U23 division will compete in the UCI cross-country Olympic-distance World Cup.

The event will wrap up on Sunday, Sept., 29 with the a marathon distance World Cup and an Olympic distance World Cup race between the men’s and women’s elite division.

The 2024 WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series will take an extensive mid-season break during the Paris Olympic Games, which run from July 26 to Aug. 11. The series resumes Sept. 6-8 with downhill and enduro races Sept. 6-8 in Loudenvielle, France, followed by the cross-country races in Lake Placid and the season finale at Mont-Saine-Anne, Quebec, on Oct. 4-6.

“We are thrilled to introduce a mountain biking event of this scale to Lake Placid for the first time,” Walden said in a statement this past week. “This is a unique opportunity for our venues, which have historically been focused on winter activities. The recent upgrades have made it possible for the Olympic Authority to expand our operations to accommodate elite events and training year-round as we begin a new chapter that will now include a summer Olympic sport.”

Tickets for the WHOOP Union Cycliste Internationale Mountain Bike World Series went on sale on Wednesday. Full event general admission will cost $55 for adults (aged 20-64) and teens (aged 13-19), while its will be $35 for juniors (aged 7-12) and seniors (65 and older). The World Cup will be free to children under the age of six.

Single day tickets vary as Friday will cost $20 for adults and teens and $10 for juniors and seniors. Single day tickets for Saturday or Sunday are $45 for adults and teens and $25 for juniors and seniors. There will also be a one-day parking pass for $20.

A full event VIP pass is available at $450. VIP admission includes food, beverage, access to indoor facilities in the Mountain Pass Lodge, a dedicated event viewing area and parking at Mount Van Hoevenberg. There is a single day VIP pass for Friday, costing $100. A single day VIP pass for Saturday or Sunday is $250. Those interested can purchase a ticket, at https://tinyurl.com/49552vxv.

Mountain biking made its Olympic debut at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and has been part of the Olympic program at each of the six Summer Games since, with men’s and women’s cross-country Olympic racing.

“The WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series is our next big chance to show the world what the North Country has to offer,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement.

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“Going to be awesome”

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Barkeater Trails Alliance Executive Director Glenn Glover said it’s exciting to possibly be able to showcase the local trails that his organization has helped create and maintain to spectators traveling to Lake Placid for this event.

“I think that’s going to be awesome,” he said. “We expect that quite a few of the spectators are going to turn into a biking holiday. (They’ll) come and ride the trails. A lot of them will be out getting out on those trails.”

Glover said BETA is working with the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism to provide guidance on the best places for visitors to ride.

“We’re helping to work with ROOST and helping to create that content to give them want they need. Route descriptions, created in Trailforks (a trail database and map app),” Glover said.

In February, the North Elba Town Council allocated $25,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds to BETA to update the Craig Wood trail system. BETA’s proposal included heavy maintenance on the trails to bring them up to modern standards.

Glover said part of the reason BETA was allocated $25,000 from the North Elba Town Council was the expectation that a lot of mountain bikers will ride on the Craig Wood trails, which is less than four miles away from Mount Van Hoevenberg, during the World Cup.

“Craig Wood will get a fair bit of the riding from the spectators just because of where it’s located,” he said. “That was important to the town of North Elba, but they also recognize the importance of those trails for the mountain biking community,” he said. “They want to make sure that those are being kept up to a high quality. The taxpayers are benefiting from that community also.

“It’s exciting to have these athletes coming to this area to experience the Adirondacks,” Glover added. “For the community here, whether they’re mountain bikers or not, to be able to go the Mount Van Hoevenberg and watch what world class elite mountain biking is all about.”