Mtn biking power couple

Photo: Fraser Britton

Coldstream's Vaea Verbeeck competes in New Zealand Tuesday.

A local pro mountain biking couple secured two podium finishes in New Zealand this week.

The first leg of the Crankworx World Tour kicked off in Rotorua, N.Z., Monday, and Coldstream resident Vaea Verbeeck took the top spot in the women's dual slalom event on Tuesday night, local time.

“I feel like with experience you learn to be super clean, so I know I have a lot of work still to do,” Verbeeck said following her win.

“I think I had a lot of luck behind me, along with a lot of work. I did work for this. It’s cool to see it come out as number one.”

The same day, Verbeeck's boyfriend, Bas van Steenbergen, snagged second place in the men's dual slalom.

“Quite the Okanagan mountain biking power couple,” said Julia Montague, communications manager with Crankworx.

The mountain bike festival series began in Whistler more than 15 years ago, and has since grown to include the New Zealand event, followed by one in Austria in June. The series wraps up with a 10-day event in Whistler in August.

Each leg of the tour involves five different biking disciplines, including downhill, pump track, dual speed and style, dual slalom, and slopestyle. Points are accumulated over the three legs, and the King and Queen of Crankworx are crowned in August.

The Okanagan is well represented on the tour, with Vernon's Brett Rheeder preparing to compete in the slopestyle competition this Saturday.

Rheeder took the top spot at the Whistler slopestyle event back in 2016, and he's coming off a first place finish last October at one of the biggest mountain biking competitions in the world, Utah's Red Bull Rampage.