What a amazing race day at Messilä Finland! It has been steady growth in popularity of Enduro in last 3 years. Now record breaking 202 as last number plate to race today.
Biggest rider's meeting in history of Finnish Enduro racing
conditions we're perfect, +23C° and nice cooling breeze at the top.
5 different special stages, and 13 special stages raced. For the top guys shortest stage was 1min30sek and longest around 2min30sek. Pretty well from 100m of elevation drop. I spoke to one guy who was at EWS Round one in Punta Ala, and he said this is physically harder, lots of sprinting and you need to pump to carry speed most of the time since trails are not that steep.
This rock garden on stage 1b created a havoc. Dirt around rocks wore out due hard braking and changed lines for every round. This spot took lots of riders down. Not so for Eetu Nyman pictured here, he has great day placing himself 6th today. He has always been fast, but also has reputation of crashing a lot.
One shot showing little bit of that havoc. I'm sure we will have lot's of video of it later.
Kari Veikkolainen, winner of the last two races on previous season took placed 4th today.
Sauli Hjerppe. Man whom has done lot's for the Enduro in Finland, he is responsible for modernising Enduro in Finland. Now less organising, more practising and racing. That seems to pay off, third spot on the podium today.
The reigning champion Ari Kurvinen, second today.
Todays winner Matti Lehikoinen. On first two stages Ari was faster, but for the following 11 Matti clearly set the pace. Matti complained of having flue for a week before the race, and his voice really sounded like it. It's awesome to see Matti riding, so smooth and fast.
1. Lehikoinen Matti TVC 25:58.58
2. Kurvinen Ari OPP 26:35.34 +36.76
3. Hjerppe Sauli Fillariosaracing.com/MTBCF 26:48.20 +49.62
4. Veikkolainen Kari Korson kaiku 27:08.08 +01:09.50
5. Kupiainen Mikko MTBCF 27:16.07 +01:17.49
Matti was clearly fastest at the podium as well, before this shot he had already emptied his bottle before others got anything out. Podium seremony was the best we have seen here. New co-operation with awesome
SwitchBacks Enduro giving out free Enduro holiday in spain made everyone wait to see if they are the lucky winner.
Massive thanks for all the racers and partners that make all this possible.
TREK,
SRAM,
Fillariosa,
FOX,
Switchbacks Enduro,
Hi5Bikes