Rene Wildhaber Signs with Trek Bikes

The 'fastest European freerider' has signed a two-year contract with Trek Bicycles

Rene Wildhaber, the Swiss racer known as the most successful downhill marathoner, will take on races such as the Avalanche Cup and the Trek Bike Attack on the much lauded Trek Remedy.
“My collaboration with Trek signifies an extremely exciting challenge. I am convinced by the high quality of the Trek bikes. Downhill marathons – my primary discipline – has become increasingly popular. Thus, I am particularly excited about letting my technical experience be known when it comes to the further development of bikes such as the Trek Remedy and the Trek Session 88.

Wildhaber has defined his goals for the upcoming year: “I intend to take part in an elaborate photo trip to Asia. Furthermore, I target defending my Megavalanche victory in Alpe d’Huez.” 1800 racers try annually to take over the freeride-champion’s title in the French Alps. So far substantially unsuccessful: The 32 year old from Flumserberg/Heidiland has already won the Alpe d’Huez event six times.

However, his abilities are not only limited to downhill qualities: The Eastern Swiss even repeatedly put the fear of god into some of the big names during various cross-country oriented races. Just recently Wildhaber left Olympic champion Julien Absalon and U23-world champion Nino Schurter at Megavalanche in the tropic island of La Reunion.

Wildhaber hasn’t only established his reputation within the race world but even more so within the mountain bike movie scene: Beginning in May 2009 he will appear in a sequel of the legendary Kranked movies and he has plans for more global photoshoots.

Rene Wildhaber’s successes:
Winner 2009 Urge Kenya
Six time champion Megavalanche Alpe d’Heuz
Nine time champion Swiss Bike Masters
Four time champion TREK Bike Attack Lenzerheide
Two time champion Red Bull Trailfox
Three time champion Nozowa Avalanche, Japan

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)