Superenduro Round 4, Madesimo - Saturday Practice and Prologue
Jul 14, 2012
The rain that started to come in last night as the article went up carried on all through the night... and this morning.
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 This is how Madesimo looked at 8.30 this morning. The low cloud hung heavy over the buildings and it wasn't until well after lunch that you could see the mountains above the town. |
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| And don't forget the rain that was falling. |
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| First man up and about in town was race director, and the man who created Superenduro, Franco Monchiero. While he was busy organising a race most other folk stayed in bed (for the Pantling brothers, their van) or in the bars drinking strong coffee and waiting for inspiration. |
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| As morning wore on into lunchtime, the cloud clung on to the rooftops and the only sensible choice was to head for some food. You don't expect to find a little bar with loud music, snapped snowboards and Masters of Dirt stickers everywhere in a small town like this, but that's exactly what Ricky has opened with the Jolly Roger. A perfect place to shelter from the weather and inactivity of the morning. |
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| The rain mostly died down by mid-morning and as the cloud started to rise up higher after lunch riders started heading up to get some valuable practice runs in. |
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| Luca Dreos is usually too busy building trails or taking photos to ride during a Superenduro weekend. Today was different though and he was putting in laps on the special stages. On the entry to the woods on the first stage the line basically smashed straight through the bushes and Luca just held it wide open through them. |
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| It was strange conditions for taking photos - in places the cloud would be lying beneath the trees, and five metres later it would be golden sunlight. |
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| With rain and natural sections, there was plenty of roost flying about today. Ben Whitehead getting in amongst it. |
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| Mark Scott has taken the break in the world cup calendar to try his hand at enduro this weekend. He's had a couple of respectable finishes in the last two rounds, despite big mechanical problems. It's going to be interesting to see how he gets on. |
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| "I look like Cletus from the Simpsons." Mark isn't alone here this weekend and has a group of friends with him. Loudest of them all is Sam Flanagan, who let Mark shave him a full redneck mullet last night. He's convinced it's going to be a hit with the Italian girls... |
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| This many riders heading back up the trail only means one thing... |
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| ...train. |
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| Andrea Bruno was getting some practice laps in too. Despite complaining about how slow he is in the rain, he didn't look it. He's having his worst season in a few years, so he's looking for a solid result this weekend (read: smashing everyone else out of sight) to get his confidence back and stay in the running for the title. |
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| Out in the open the only word for the conditions is greasy. Mark gave it some moto style to get through. |
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| No, this isn't a badly-processed photo: Sam Flanagan really is that pasty. |
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| In the evening the town put on the prologue - a short sprint through the streets. Although they aren't the gnarliest thing in the world, the prologues are good fun and a great way to get the local communities excited about the race. |
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| This is what I think you call a happy mistake. A bar of sunlight crept into a panning shot and, well I like it. So there you go. |
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| It's easy to forgive Vittorio Gambirassio for keeping you waiting on a mountainside when his facial expressions make for photos like this. |
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| Davide Sottocornola and his red number plate. |
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| Made4Fun is the local bike shop, bike hire and general centre for riding here in Madesimo. After the prologue they threw on a barbeque, DJ and beers, and invited everyone to come down and relax. They've got a really nice vibe going on here, there seems to be a real strong community of riders in a fairly small town. |
In the prologue, Alex Lupato took the win, with Toby Pantling smashing his way to an impressive place. The margins are small though, dozens of riders are covered by a couple of seconds and with what looks to be around twenty minutes of descending tomorrow it's all to play for. As of this evening, the weather looks to be improving, but the only way we'll know for sure is when we look out the window tomorrow morning. But regardless of what the weather does, it looks set to be a great day of racing tomorrow.
www.superenduromtb.com
