Superenduro PRO6, Finale Ligure - Saturday Practice and Prologue
Just walking down the seafront today you could feel that the pace of the town has picked up. Yesterday was quite relaxed and most people quietly headed out to the trails to practice, but registration opened and the trade exhibitors started setting up today. It has really started to feel like a race weekend now. Some riders looked relaxed, ready, while some had a nervous edge, they knew they hadn't spent enough time on the trails and would be on the backfoot come Sunday. Last year's Italian champion, Andrea Bruno, was the most relaxed man in town though, he knows the series has slipped from his grasp this year and he seems happy to just come and ride.
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 It was clear skies over Finale Ligure this morning and as the summer recedes, the temperature is just at that sweet spot for riding. |
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| Anneke Beerten has come over with US DH racer, Sondra Williamson to come and try a European enduro race. Again it's Riccardo who was on-hand to help them find the trails and a shuttle to save their legs for the race tomorrow. |
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| Unfortunately it wasn't a good day in the office for Anneke, she hit a big, sketchy rock roll and went down hard, face-first. How many fingers am I holding up-kinda hard. You can see how much she wanted to come and race, talking to her, at first she definitely wasn't going to ride tomorrow, by the end of the conversation it had gone to probably... |
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| Fresh from her victory at the Supermountain races, Valentina Macheda was out and getting some practice laps in. You can see the difference a few wins have made, she looks a much more confident rider now. |
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| Her partner (in both the team and more general sense), Manuel Ducci, was out hitting everything hard. With his commitments outside racing, he admitted he's not feeling on top form and doesn't think he'll be able to hang with Vouilloz and Sottocornola this weekend. That said, he still look as aggressive and fast as ever. |
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| Max Schumann is one of a decent-sized group of German riders here this weekend and was giving it some on stage one this morning. |
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| After Anneke went down, Sondra stayed with the shuttle and kept riding. She's not the biggest girl, but she has a surprisingly aggressive riding style and I wouldn't be surprised to put in a solid result tomorrow. |
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| Max gives it some German style. He was doing well to launch this high, as there was no kind of lip, just a small rock that you could pop off if you gave it some. |
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| It's corners like this where you can really appreciate Manuel's skill on the bike. Most people were standing bolt upright through this corner. |
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| Race director, Franco Monchiero was out on the trail today on his new moto, making sure all the signs and markers were up ready for tomorrow. |
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| Another tiny trail feature, another dose of style from Max. |
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| This is vision. Nobody else I saw thought to run the high line above the rock steps (I know I didn't when I rode this), but Manuel saw it first time through and stayed up out of the harsh compressions below. It took a fair old bit of commitment to do this though, and one dab of the brakes and it's down onto the rock below. |
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| Towards the bottom of stage four, Valentina and Sondra ran into another one of Italy's fast women, Marianna Uttini. The three girls took some time to share lines and tips on the tricky switchbacks towards the end of the stage (this isn't one of thoise switchbacks, just in case you weren't sure). |
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| It seemed like the perfect excuse for train... |
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| Manuel stayed with Valentina too, to offer his lines to her and encourage her to try different approaches to sections. |
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| Someone remarked in the comments yesterday about how busy it was here. Today was a whole different world. 500+ riders, with their friends, families and local people mobbed the centre of town for the prologue in the evening. |
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| The prologue is the same every year here, a lung-burning minute round the cobble streets, all in the name of bringing the race into the town for people to see. |
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| It's a great excuse for a few panning shots too. |
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| Franco was there to give each rider a hand setting off for their lap. Just because it's a loop round the streets, don't think that meant the fast guys weren't taking it seriously. |
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| This is the biggest pit area of the year, by far, a measure of how much Finale love having this race here. |
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| Unfortunately I don't have the results this evening, but it doesn't matter so much, the real fun starts tomorrow... |
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Look the rear tyre slick for the prologue!
;-)