The Longest Day - Enduro World Series, Round 6 - Whistler
The longest day. Nearly 9 hours on the bike. More than 65km covered. 2,300m of climbing, 3,300m of descending. This was a big day in every sense of the word, and that is before you even talk about the stakes for the race, both for the series and the huge prize money...
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 This race course was all about textures... from blown out loose dirt to loose over hard, to pointy rocks that want to kill your wheel to well laid rock armor to wheel wrecking mine fields to water crossings to wood slat bridges to luxurious loam to combinations of root, rocks, and loose blown out dirt... this track had it all. |
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| Nico Lau was showing his support for Canada today. |
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| Errr, yeah. |
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| Cecile Ravanel dropping into the very start of the best day of Enduro racing she's ever had... |
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| Anne-Caroline Chausson had a solid day on the stages, winning stages 2, 3 and 4. |
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| T-Mo in stage two: "I rode like crap today, to be honest. My arms and legs felt like wood. I just couldn't really get it together until stage 5. I was able to relax and have fun in there. But the rest... I just rode like crap." |
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| Lorraine Truong put in a big ride to take fifth - a great result for a self-supported privateer. |
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| Jared's fork blew on the first stage this morning, and even a top rider like him isn't allowed support on track, so he had to re-inflate it with a CO2 canister to keep going. |
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| Richie Rude had some mixed luck today, and couldn't repeat his podium performance from the last round, but still put in a top twenty ride. |
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| Lucky number 13: Florian Nicolai ripping the loamy goodness of stage one, aka Microclimate. |
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| Martin Maes won stages 2 and 4 today, taking a 12 second leand into the final stage. |
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| Ben Cruz in stage two. His time had him ballpark in the top ten for the stage, but a mechanical issue took him out of starting stage five, resulting in a DQ. |
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| Francois Bailly-Maitre was up there on stages today, but wasn't quite able to get onto the podium. |
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| Yoann Barelli charging hard in stage 3. |
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| Local rider Jesse Melamed was the star of the morning. He wiped out three times on the first stage and still managed fifth. Then he won the second stage, his first ever EWS stage win. |
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| Marco Osborne getting a little scrub on over a root line in stage 3. A top twenty showing for Osborne makes it 4 Americans in the top twenty. |
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| To any naysayers who considered Curtis Keene to be not that talented, it seems as if the "American Dream" is coming into his own: third place here in Whistler. "I love this place. This place is so awesome that everytime I come here, I turn it up. Last year I was doing well, but flatted." |
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| Anneke Beerten getting wild on stage 3. |
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| Complete focus from Oton. He's cemented his position as consistent contender in the last few races. |
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| Joe Barnes blistering in the sun on the climb to stage 4. Sure, a chunk of the climb was pavement...hot, sticky, asphalt without a speck of shade. |
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| Cecile Ravanel won the first stage today, then capitalised on a puncture for ACC to take the win. |
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| After a run of podium finishes, Rene Wildhaber was slightly further back today, finishing 11th. |
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| Damien Oton dons the armour for the final, brutal stage of the day. |
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| Cecile Ravanel blowing smoke on Top of the World. Ravanel's time seems to have finally come, with multiple stage wins on the day, including two minutes over T-Mo on the final stage, and five minutes on Chausson (to her credit, Anne Caro flatted somewhere on the stage, so finishing only five minutes down was no small feat). |
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| Rocky Mountain blowing dust on the trails.... |
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| Ines Thoma cranking corners up on Top of the World. |
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| Giant's Kelli Emmett cornering hard on Top of the World. |
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| Mark Weir back racing! |
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| The number of media at the top of the world was incredible today. |
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| It was another big ride for Marco Osborne today. At this rate he's going to be much in demand for a full EWS season next year. |
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| Privateer Greg Callaghan put in his best ride of the season today to take 15th. |
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| Nico Lau was so close today after nearly an hour of racing he lost out to Jared Graves by just 2.5 seconds. |
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| Dan Atherton getting back on the horse on the Top of the World. Fourteenth for Affy on the day; it's good to see him getting back to form. |
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| Jared was dominant on the final stage. He came in a good way off the lead and dimolished everbody.After a tough morning with a blown fork, it's solid testament of why you should never give up. |
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| Anne-Caroline Chausson was close, so close to victory today, but the rocks of stage five could be cruel. |
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| This was the end of Martin Maes victory hopes. |
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| Jared needed a moment or two to compose himself before he could talk about the day's exertions. |
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| After such a long, hot day Nico Lau needed some serious refreshment. |
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| Bubbles for the winners. |
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| This was Cecile Ravanels maiden EWS victory and she clearly enjoyed every moment of it. |
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| So that the sun setting on another great weekend of racing in Whistler. The series concludes in Finale Ligure on the first weekend in October. See you there. |
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Member since Oct 29, 2006
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Props to you all photographers (Matt Wragg, Colin Meagher, and Margus Riga)
And thanks to you too my days at the office fells soo boring..
I was just pointing out the fact that Maes was running the Shimano 1x proto and came down without his chain on.
I'm not whining, Shimano 4 life!
Jared what a race !!! YETI FAN 10000%
I flatted on it anyway, so took it easy, I was going to throw in the towel but kept on trucking in the end, and finished it. So many people missed their starts on the transitions, to even finish this was an achievement.
That's the toughest thing I've ever done on a bike.
I thanked Seb in the finish corral at the end of 5 for the hard work his team puts in and the first thing he did was apologize for the screw up on water for the early riders. I know that doesn't fix things, but they know they dropped the ball on that.
Seb did a solid job on Crazy Train; Zander and the Gravity Logic guys on Boyd's; and Paul and Dave on Microclimate. My small contribution was with Zander and Trev punching in that climbing trail from the road to CT/CM in three hot days.
Seriously? I never knew people said that about Keene. He has mad skills.
(..seems like I'm always writing this... )