Superenduro PRO 3, Gemona, Friday Practice
It's already two weeks since the Enduro World Series race at Punta Ala, but there's no time to sit around reminiscing on good times when there's a race season to be cracking on with. For the third round of this year's Superenduro series we head about as far east as you can get in Italy, to the mountain town of Gemona. Sitting right on the border between Italy, Austria and Slovenia, it's set to be a very international race this weekend. We're not quite up into the high mountains yet, it's still a little early in the year for that, but that doesn't mean there isn't plenty of vertical to play with. Stage one this week has a full 900m vertical metres of descending on offer...
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 This wasn't the view anyone was hoping for today... Somewhere out there are some stunning mountains, but it just wasn't to be today. Word is the weather will pick up tomorrow, or maybe Sunday. We'll see, but a little rain never stopped a mountain bike race. |
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| Of course, fast-moving clouds, forests and mountains are a perfect excuse for lots of moody shots of misty mountains. So I'll get my three out of the way here and we'll say nothing more about it, ok? |
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| Despite being this close to race day, the town is still quiet, but there was still a good group on Piazza Ferro this morning waiting for the shuttles up to the trails. Tomorrow, this set of steps will be the finish for the prologue - a sprint through the streets from the top to the bottom of the town. |
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| Toby Pantling was struggling to clear the mud from his tyres, so went for this haircut to try and open them up a bit more. He reckons they feel amazing now, the huge channel between the side and the centre means they stay clean and he can really feel the side of the tyre now. |
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| Is Manuel Ducci sporting a new prototype from Fiveten, or has he just stuck plastic bags inside his shoes to keep his socks dry. What do you reckon? |
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| Even the grey skies and rain couldn't dampen Valentina Macheda's spirits. After two the first two races of the season, she's sitting atop the women's standings and can't wait for Sunday to try and extend that lead. |
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| 900m above the town, at the top of stage one, you are high up enough to have gone through them once and re-enter another band at the start of the descent. |
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| Under the trees, the thin layer of topsoil washes away quickly and you are soon onto the rock that typifies the trail network here. That means, even after a week of rain there is plenty of grip. Here is Vittorio Gambirasio making the most of it. |
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| Where the mud is deeper, some hilarious-looking ruts were forming. |
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| On the start of stage 3 Vittorio wasn't looking quite so composed... This is literally 20m from the start and we still can't work out how the hell he managed to crash here. With all the rock here, it wasn't a soft landing and we reckon he's rather purple by now... Still, just a flesh wound and he was up and back on the bike soon enough, we don't imagine it'll slow him down too much on race day. |
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| Manuel Ducci has been here for a couple of days and is looking very un-Italian in that he looks comfortable in these wet conditions. He even impressed some of the Brits with how he handled the greasy patches! |
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| No lip, even less landing. No worries. Manuel Ducci gets in a nice big trail huck. If you look, it's not what you'd call a real double, you can roll through the middle of it, and, as there's no landing, there's nothing to case. That means everybody in the race can ride through this safely, which is how enduro is supposed to be. However, when you get a rider as fast as Manuel, you can find these kind of options to go big. |
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| Valentina Macheda looked equally happy on the trails as she did in the car park. She spend a lot of time riding with her boyfriend, Manuel Ducci, and as she has grown more confident on the bike over the last year or so, has started to picked up his aggressive riding style too. |
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| Toby Pantling drops into the bottom of stage 2. |
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| This was Toby's first go at this section, he wasn't sure how much grip you'd get on the loose gravel, so got the leg out and sprayed me with rocks... |
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| ...but by the second time he realised there was more grip than he expected there, so kept it clean and fast the second time through with some nice moto style. He's even got his moto with him in his van and you can see he's been spending a lot of time on it recently. |
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| After lunch the rain turned it up a couple of notches, so it was time to shelter under the gazebos and wait to see if it got better... |
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| Fortunately the guys here in Gemona are prepared for all eventualities! |
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| So is Manuel, busting out the turbo trainer to get some nice, dry miles to keep his legs warm. |
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