December 17, 2003 – The Kona Clarks Les Gets Factory Team today announced their 2004 World Team roster featuring many stars that have sported the team colors in the past. World Cup Leader, Tracy Moseley, and World's DH Bronze medalist, Fabien Barel, are back with the Kona Clarks Les Gets Team for the next two years! Also returning are current Canadian National Cycle Cross Champions, Peter Wedge and Kris Sneddon. Joining Pete and Kris on the XC squad will be last year's teammate, American and current Collegiate Cyclo Cross #1 Barry Wicks, and fresh from the Kona X team, and a score of major National results Ryan Trebon, also from the US.
As you will have already noticed, new to the team is the addition of Les Gets Ski Resort (pronounced 'Lay Jay”), Portes du Soleil, France as a title sponsor, to create “Kona Clarks Les Gets” for the next two years. Les Gets is a mountain biking mecca in Europe and is situated between Lake Geneva, Switzerland and Mont-Blanc in France, Les Gets will becoming a Kona Ride Centre next season and will have a full range of Kona Bikes for rent, new courses are planned and the team will also be using the resort as their official training ground. Sandra Lardy from Les Gets said, “We are so pleased to be involved with Kona and to be a Kona Ride Center. We will be working with the team to promote the resort and the Ride Center and the team will also be involved with designing the trails. The whole community is really looking forward to it.
Also supporting the team is Carbone Lorraine, the brake pad manufactures from France. Carbon Lorraine are linked with Clarks Cycle Systems, they saw what a great job the team were doing and the results we were getting so wanted to be involved, the team will be running Carbone Lorraine pads this season and will be helping develop new compounds. Tony Wright of Clarks Cycle Systems “We were so happy with our involvement with Kona this season that we wanted to bring our partners Carbone Lorraine in to the team so that they could benefit from the coverage and results that we received last season”.
The riders are going to be busy this year, Tracy and Fabien will be competing in the full UCI World Cup schedule along with the Maxxis International Cup in Europe. The XC boys will be trashing it out on the NORBA circuit and North American World Cup stops. Along with the new title sponsors the team has the continued support from Clarks Cycle Systems, Kona Bicycles, Marzocchi, Tioga, RaceFace, Fox, Shimano, Hayes, Sun Ringle, Easton, Bio-Racer, Paligap, Heinz, OnFire, MRP and CycleOps.
The team will continue to have and update there comprehensive web site with the name changing to www.konaclarkslesgets.com which will be live Jan 04. This will once again be updated through out the year with the latest results/news and coverage of the team, just like www.teamkonaclarks.com was this season. Team Manager, Russell Carty said, “I am so pleased that we have been able to bring on board two new major sponsors and bring back our star riders from last season with this support it's going to be an amazing year!”
The Kona Clarks Factory Team finished as the 2nd best UCI trade team last season, so the main goal for 04 is to finish #1! The team will once again have a mixture of bikes that team mechanics Robin Sansom & Paul Walton will keep it top condition all season. Tracy & Fabien will be riding the Kona Stab Primo for Down Hill, and Kona Roast for 4X. Peter, Kris, Barry & Ryan will be on the Kona King full sus and Kula Primo hard tail bikes.