Enduro World Series Round Two: Val D'Allos, Sunday Racing
Coming into today Jared Graves was leading the men's race here at the second round of the Enduro World Series, Nico Vouilloz, Greg Minnaar were hot on his heels. In the women's race Tracy Moseley won every stage yesterday, with Anneke Beerten, Innes Thoma and Cecile Ravanelle battling it out for the two remaining podium spots. With two runs down the weekends longest stage and a final, shorter run to race over, everything was up for grabs.
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 As everyone left the paddock last night there were ominous, grey clouds hanging over the valley. Looking out of the window first thing was a nervous affair, had they come in or were we spared? We had been, yet there was a small system hanging over the peaks to the north, as if to say "I could, you know..." |
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| Rat Boy was feeling it after two hard days of racing, and snatches a cat nap in the pits before the final stage of the weekend. |
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| While Rat Boy was attemping to catch some shut eye, Fabian Barel was deep in the zone, visualizing his run on the final stage. |
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| Out of the start gate riders sprinted down a stretch of fireroad, through the steep rocks and into a balls-to-the-wall, flatout blast down the crest. Max Schumann getting a bit loose on his practice run. |
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| Tracy Moseley is used to these kind of high speeds from World Cup downhill and started today as she left off yesterday. |
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| After the fast part of the crest you had a climb up to the singletrack that dropped into the mountainside itself. In the practice runs the start times are more relaxed so you tended to get these long lines of riders tackling the course together. Sam Flanagan drops into the ridge. |
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| Hannah Barnes tackles that first climb. |
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| While the overall podium today tells you the story of the race, the story of the day was rather different. Jerome Clementz smoked everyone by a reasonable margin, only his puncture yesterday denied him the victory. Overall he finished a minute behind the winner and SRAM's Jon Chancellier reckons that he lost a minute and twenty seconds to that puncture... |
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| Katy Winton on a scree section just below the crest. She finished fifteenth overall today and was possibly the happiest girl in the pits this evening because of it. |
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| Once you got into the steeper stuff a few people started to get into trouble... |
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| Anneke Beerten keeping focused to pin it through the loose, steep corners after the scree. |
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| It was no problem for Fabien Barel who just smashed into the catch berm and then placed it nicely on the high line out of trouble. In the scratch results from today he was third overall. |
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| That's the kind of view we like to see, racing towards a blind crest with mountains in the distance... |
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| Today's stage was more all mountain, so that meant more climbing, including this brutal haul after the first meadow section. |
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| Greg giving the singletrack through the woods his full attention. He won his first EWS stage today and took third overall, holding off Rene Wildhaber. |
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| Gregory Callaghan launching one of the little fly-offs in the woods. |
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| Lars Sternberg getting his overtake on, outside the top few riders there is a surprising amount of overtaking in these races as most riders set off at just ten second intervals. |
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| Somewhere in there is Anneke Beerten (bottom right), but this is mainly an excuse to take a photo of the beautiful pine forests here. |
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| Tobias Woggon of BMC racing rolling the big wheels on track. So far the 29er haters seem to be celebrating wild success as no wagon wheeler has thus far notched a victory. The larger wheels, however (the 27.5) under the capable guidance of Nico Vouilloz and Greg Minnaar, have notched two podiums and one victory (Nico) here at Val d'Allos. Nico calculates a 1 second advantage every three minutes of racing by using the 27.5 wheels (that's pure guess work, really, as there are so many variables on dirt vs pavement). Total racing time for Nico on the weekend was 1:05.11.109. Graves was six seconds back from Vouilloz at the end of it all. Take away that wheel size and Graves and Nico swap spots. |
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| Kellie Emmett finished in tenth today and seemed to have the knack for showing up just as there was a slash of golden light in between the forest canopy. |
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| Dan Atherton looked like he was charging hard today, but on the day's running found himself outside the top ten in thirteenth and well back in the overall after his crash yesterday. |
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| Nico Vouilloz looked calm and relaxed heading up for his final run. He was carrying a pretty good lead into it and if anyone knows how to win it's him. |
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| On the stage he did just enough, coming home in a, for him, relaxed seventh, keeping it all in a pile to take a well-deserved victory. |
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| Not such a good day for the other Nico, Nico Lau. He was one of the riders we were expecting to see on the podium this weekend, but it just wasn't too be. |
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| Nico Lau wasn't helped by his slight mechanical issues... We'll leave you to guess what had happened beneath that gaffer tape. |
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| Rene Wildhaber showed more of the kind of form we'd hoped to see from him this weekend. He was in the hunt for the third spot on the podium last night, but dropped some time today and had to settle for fourth. After he came down he went over to speak to his injured countryman, Florian Golay. There were a few injuries today, most notably Josh Carlsen who bagged himself an ambulance ride for his troubles. |
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| Sabrina Jonnier was on the start list this weekend. When she didn't come past us on the first run we asked the organisers if anything had happened to her. It turns out it had, about seven months ago... Congratulations Sabrina from all of us here at Pinkbike. |
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| Dan Atherton blinking a bit of sweat out his eyes after crossing the line. "Effing hard" was his assessment of the race. |
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| Adam Craig is a Real Man. You have to be to wander round the pits drinking pink wine... |
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| Tracy Moseley steaming into the finish area to take the win. We're struggling to remember the last enduro race she entered and didn't win... |
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| Anneke Beerten had mechanical problems on the final, sixth stage and had a few problems over the course of the weekend. Her disappointment was obvious as she crossed the finish line, the final podium spot doesn't seem to have been quite what she was after. |
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| The Syndicate finish line doesn't necessarily mean the end of the day; Kathy Sessler with a full tray of glassware (and going back for more some five minutes later--the boys can take down a cold one almost as fast as they can ride bikes). |
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| Jared Graves savoring that cold one before claiming second place for the race here in Val d'Allos. With that placing, Graves moves into first overall for the freshly minted Enduro World Series. |
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| Nico was never an extravagant man during his downhill career and little has changed, after finding out he'd won he retired back to his van with his mechanic, away from the crowds and the attention. |
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