Big Bear Delivers For INTENSE: National Championship Weekend
The 2026 USA Cycling Gravity Mountain Bike National Championships is the one weekend every domestic program circles on the calendar. Stars and Stripes on the line, the deepest fields of the year, and a home dirt advantage for nobody once the course goes dry and blown out. Big Bear doubled as Round 4 of the Monster Energy Pro Downhill Series, so every result carried championship weight and series points at the same time. Both INTENSE Factory Racing and the Outlaw Team arrived with riders racing for podiums and national titles across multiple classes.
INTENSE Factory Racing came out of the week with a national podium in Elite Men, two runner up finishes across dual slalom, and both red plates still in the trailer.
Nate Kitchen took third in the Elite Men's Downhill National Championship, and it was tight at the top. He stopped the clock at 2:50.101, 1.196 seconds off the winning time and just over three tenths away from second. He backed up his seeding pace almost exactly when it counted, which is the hardest thing to do at a race like this. This is his third national podium of the year with wins at Mountain Creek and Solitude, and it keeps his run of results at the front.
Dante Silva was second in the Elite Men Dual Slalom on Thursday, going deep into the bracket against one of the strongest slalom fields National Champs has assembled in years. Head to head racing rewards the riders who never give up, and Dante was one of them all afternoon. He backed it up Saturday with 13th in the Elite Men's Downhill, a result that moves him up a stack of positions in the series standings.
Teagan Heap crashed hard in the Elite Women's Downhill final and came across the line in 27th. It is the second time in two rounds she has gone down after posting quick split times. The speed has been there every weekend. Putting a clean run together is the only piece missing.
Tyler Wagoner got two podium level rides from the youngest rider on the team. Tyler took second in Junior Men 17-18 Dual Slalom, then went 4th in the Junior Men 17-18 Downhill on Saturday, missing the national podium by one spot in a class that has been decided by fractions all season.
The Outlaw team also left Big Bear on top. Sixteen-year-old Eli Bundy put down the fastest time of the entire amateur field on finals day, a 2:58.466 in the Junior Men 15-16 category that would have slotted him third among the Junior Men 17-18 riders and just outside the top 20 in the combined Elite and Junior seeding. A day earlier, Boston Bryant went toe-to-toe with the Elite and Junior 17-18 field — more than 160 riders deep — and came away with the silver medal in Junior Men 17-18, clocking a 2:58.141 to hold off Brent Shorter by half a second and finish behind national champion Kai Burleson. On the women's side, Jade Savage placed 4th in Women's Cat 1 17-18, another strong result to round out Outlaw's weekend at Big Bear.
