UVM bikes were burned in a FedEx truck fire before nationals. Then Trek Bikes stepped up.

Nicole Higgins DeSmet | Burlington Free Press

University of Vermont students showed up in Montana for a national mountain biking championship last week, only to find out their bicycles met with disaster.

The group arrived in Missoula late Wednesday night, only to learn the next day that the FedEx truck carrying 13 team bicycles caught on fire, said Sara Spencer, a UVM sophomore.

"Some of them were pretty singed," Spencer said.



Or, as team president Sammy Hedlund put it in an Instagram post, "My bike melted." In the photo, he's holding aloft a crispy-looking mountain bike.

At a time the group was supposed to be making practice runs on the various courses, Spencer found herself hunting up alternatives. She soon found a willing sponsor in Trek Bicycle Corp.

Trek bicycles shipped overnight, and success followed

The Trek shipping order went in at about 5 p.m. Thursday. The two-wheeled marvels arrived at Open Road Bicycle and Nordic shop in Missoula early the next morning for pickup, according to shop staff.

"It was amazing," Spencer said. "Trek shipped us 8 bikes from California overnight, and we were able to race on them the rest of the weekend."

Mazie Hayden, of Pittsfield, won the downhill and dual slalom races for the club.

"In the dual slalom, she was riding one of the Trek bikes that we got, which was pretty sweet because she had never ridden on that before," Spencer said.

The University of Vermont came in third out of about 50 clubs, according to the results. The team members ended up placing in the Collegiate National Mountain Bike Championships races, according to Spencer.

UVM senior Nicholas Lando of Ringwood, New Jersey, finished second in Short Track Cross Country. Nicholas scored a total 358 points for all four races, placing him nine points ahead all the other male club competitors, according to USA Cycling rider results.

Spencer, in the women's club competition, came in seventh over all with 424 points.

Contact Nicole Higgins DeSmet ndesmet@freepressmedia.com or 802-660-1845. Follow her on Twitter @NicoleHDeSmet.