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3Rox launch 2017 season

The Cannondale 3Rox team (from left to right) team manager Kyle Douglas, riders Erin Huck, Keegan Swenson, Raphael Gagne and Derek Zandstra.

The Cannondale 3Rox team (from left to right) team manager Kyle Douglas, riders Erin Huck, Keegan Swenson, Raphael Gagne and Derek Zandstra.

By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express

It was a heck of a 2016 season and a busy off-season for Oshawa’s Cannondale 3Rox Racing mountain biking squad as they not only took on a new title sponsor, but picked up a pair of new faces in the process quite possibly making them one of North America’s most competitive mountain biking teams

Formerly Scott 3Rox Racing, the club officially kicked off the start of the 2017 season during a launch party at Gears Bike Shop in Toronto on Jan. 20. Friends and fans filled the shop to meet the team, which now includes a pair of new faces when the 3Rox team joined forces with Cannondale.

Original team members Derek Zandstra and Erin Huck are joined by 22-year-old Keegan Swenson, an up-and-coming talent from the United States, who captured a second place finish in the USA Cycling Mountain Bike National Championship in 2016. Rounding out the fourth spot on the team is Raphael Gagne of Quebec, who competed for Team Canada at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio and won the gold medal during the Pan Am Games in 2015 in Toronto.

“We’re probably going to be one of the strongest teams on the circuit,” says Kyle Douglas, the team manager.

With that said, the club saw some of its best results in 2016 with Huck winning national championships in both cross country and short track racing, while Zandstra biked his way to becoming Canadian national champion. It’s something he hopes to repeat in 2017, as he credits experience and the mentorship of former teammate Geoff Kabush as keys to the big win.

“Everything just kind of clicked together on the right day and I had my moment,” he says.

For Zandstra, the name change is refreshing.

“It brings new excitement to the team and fresh product and a fresh mind basically, which makes it easier to get on that bike everyday and do your training and then when the results come it just makes the positive vibes all around,” he says.

And there were a lot of positive vibes in 2016, something Douglas says has helped the team immensely moving forward.

“I think the results helped us build…because we brought everything together that we did well last year and added just a few things this year to complement (that)” he says. “I’m really happy with how everything went last year. Everyone was working really hard.”

That hard work is something Zandstra say the team will be focusing on moving forward.

“We want to be a strong North American team and really show our true colours in the North America scene.”

 

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