It's hard to imagine Chad Kagy ever rode with training wheels, yet his assertions are right there on his website, taunting you in the first sentence. And judging from his performance at the first ever Winter Teva Mountain Games in Vail, he's come a long way.
Despite breaking his femur at the X Games in July (Teva Mountain Games were his first event since), Kagy won the Best Bike Trick competition this February -- in frigid temperatures, riding on snow, and a borrowed bike. Kagy's background is in BMX jumping, but he doesn't own a mountain bike.
"A friend gave me a bike and I got to try it out for a couple of weeks," he said to Adventure-Journal. "I tried moves I’d been doing for years on a BMX bike, but at first my legs would run into the wheels or I would miss the handlebars."
Speaking in a YouTube video prior to the event, he reiterated, "For me it's just all tricks I've done on my BMX bike, and it's whether or not I can actually make them work in the snow... this snow just makes is so sketchy." Kagy's winning trick? A backflip tail whip.
The four-day competition included ice climbing, on-snow biking, telemark skiing, Nordic competitions, running, dog events and an Ultimate Mountain Man/Woman combination event.
WATCH an intro to bike tricks on snow and some of the event's best crashes:
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