Italy was the first country to have an enduro national championships, crowning their first champion last year. As the championship rolls into Pogno this weekend, riders will fight it out for the coveted tricolour champions' jersey. Only one man has ever worn that jersey - Andrea Bruno. The big man from Cuneo comes into this weekend off the back of a win at the last round at Punta Ala, one where the form sheet said he shouldn't do well. But Pogno is the backyard of his two big rivals, Davide Sottocornola and Alex Lupato, and you can bet that they are going to want to hammer home that advantage.
While only an Italian can win the championship, this is still a full round of the Superenduro PRO series and a more than a few foreign riders have made the trip over to come and race. Not least among them, Nico Vouilloz. It's is his first Superenduro race of this year, last year he looked to dominate every race he entered, but had no luck with mechanicals. Al Stock will be looking to go one better than his second at the last round in Punta Ala, if he hadn't crashed on stage four it was his win for the taking. Nico's fellow countryman, Karim Amour, hasn't won a Superenduro PRO round in a while and will definitely be after a win. One rider who was looking strong for this weekend, especially if it keeps raining, was Paul Aston, but he's out with a broken hand from training.
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 These are the people behind this weekend's race - the club MTB i Gufi (the translation is Owls MTB). While many of the races are at bike destinations, or places that want to become bike destinations, this race is different. It's here because this group of people want to be part of the Superenduro series so much. They put a huge amount of their spare time into getting the area ready for raceday. |
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| The late-night, pre-race club meeting for MTB i Gufi. All these guys have jobs elsewhere, they do this for the love and are all volunteers, so they can only find time to meet late in the evening. In the nights before the race, they go over every detail, down to the little things, like which side of a tree some tape should be to keep the course safe. |
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| The village sports hall is the centre of everything for the MTB i Gufi club this weekend, all their organising works out of here. Today it has been getting the village ready and those last minute trail touches. |
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| One of the big jobs this afternoon was putting the final touches to the course - start boards, finish boards and a little more tape. To get up the wet, slippery dirt tracks there was only one thing to take: a 4x4 Fiat Panda. You wouldn't believe the things that little car with road tyres got up. |
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| Although they might seem like small details, getting these signs up was an afternoon's work. |
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| At the meeting the night before, someone had seen a line where people were cutting the course, so Simone gets the tape out to make sure people stay on track. |
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| No shortcuts. |
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| How's the weather here in Pogno right now? This about says it all, but with the sandy soil, it dries quickly, so if it doesn't rain for a few hours the courses changeg from slippery to perfect hero dirt... |
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| This is what it looked like out on track this afternoon. |
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| These two were hanging around the car park this morning... French legends, Nico Vouilloz (left) and Karim Amour. |
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| You can see Al Stock wants this one. Last man in the car park in the rain making sure his bikes were ok. On his trip over Bambi decided to step in front of his new van and did that damage. Al 1 - Bambi 0. |
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| Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Will it make the baby Jesus weep? Nope, it's just a mountain bike with a different wheel size. German rider Max Schumann is trying out a 650B prototype from German company, Carver, this weekend. He seems to like it. |
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| I'm not sure I'd want to see this dangling inside the door of an uplift truck I was about to climb into. |
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| Pogno is Davide Sottocornola's backyard and you can see that in his riding. Here he just boosted this out of nowhere and put the bike down again twenty or so feet further down the trail. His answer when asked if he wanted the jersey on Sunday? "Yes." |
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| The Gehrig twins, Anita and Caro have made the trip over from Switzerland for their first Superenduro race this weekend. They're pretty chilled out about the whole thing, but don't be surprised to see them on the podium come Sunday. |
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| Stages one, two and four all finish on this series of switchbacks. Coming into them you going flatout, then suddenly find yourself carrying that speed into tight corners. If you have the confidence you can ride a lot of the walls and carry much more speed that you'd expect, but if you make a small mistake chances are you'll be paddling round them. The Gehrig twins make it look easy. |
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| Not everyone made the conditions look so easy. |
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| Pogno sits on the edge of the plain, just above the beautiful Lake Orta and above that perches the stunning Santuario di Madonna del Sasso. |
That's it for today from Pogno... It's about time for that age-old race tradition of sky-watching to try and guess what the heavens will do tomorrow. The forecasts say it will be sunnier, but who's ever trusted a forecast when it comes to racing?
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