Trophy Workshop

The Mont 24 Hour Race trophies gained a great deal of attention during the event. They were talked about, picked up, played with and photographed repeatedly throughout the event. Given the interest, we thought we'd give you a little background to their creation.

The idea actually started when I was racing in NZ last year with a mate and we saw the hand-carved trophies on offer at a race in Rotorua (yes, we missed out on one). It struck a real chord with us, so we got to thinking. We wanted to ensure that Mont trophies were something unique and special and I guess we've always had a problem with the 'canned' trophies you get at trophy shops. We settled on mixed hardwoods for the bases and recycled bicycle parts, which is a pretty wide brief when you get down to business.

Our mate Peter helped source and put together the timber bases and we raided the local bike stores' discard bins and also received huge assistance from Rob Eva and Mick Cantwell at SRAM/Monza as well as Shane at Bike Culture in O'Connor. Through their support we amassed a massive range of parts. When the bases arrived (with under 7 days to race day) we launched into a trophy making frenzy. David, Garrett and myself spent all Saturday and Sunday getting creative with timber, oils, bike parts and power tools. Another mate, Rob, also jumped in to assist with the final few and put his creative skills to work to come up with some more cool ones. We had a great deal of fun despite the pressure, the range was really pleasing to look upon and has us fired up to make more for 2010.