Supermountain Round 1, Limone Piemonte - Race Day
Today was a leap into the unknown for the Superenduro team - there aren't many races where the organisers are as nervous as the racers. They know what they're doing when it comes to putting a race, everything was in place, the course was good, qualifying went well... but what was going to happen when the racing started? There was only one way to find out and it was a seven o'clock start to make sure everything was ready at the top of the mountain.
So there we go. Supermountain has it's first set of victors, there are some broken bikes and bodies here in Limone Piemonte tonight and the general feeling is that this was a great race. Changing format didn't phase the slick organisation of the Superenduro team and the series will be back in September at one of the most popular spots on the European DH scene - Pila. Until then...
www.superenduromtb.com
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 To get to the start nice and early, there's no use waiting for the chairlift to open and a car wouldn't make it up the final, rocky fireroad. That makes for a long walk with the timing gear, posts and tape. So pick-up it was. |
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| It looked like the weather was going to be glorious... |
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| ...but a strong wind blowing from France bought with it grey clouds and the threat of rain. It's easy to blame the French, so as time is pushing on this evening, let's. |
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| No good Italian mountain would be complete without a shrine at the summit. Today it was a cross looking down on the start area. |
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| And this is that start area. The line would be just in front of the pick-up and then the plan was that riders would sprint towards the first corner to split the field up somewhat before the steep first chute and unforgiving rock field that starts in the right of the picture. |
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| The fastest riders from yesterday's qualifying session had the pick of the spots on the start line. Some of Italy's top enduro racers held those fast times: Manuel Ducci (2nd) is on the left, Davide Sottocornola (1st) is in the middle and Andrea Bruno (3rd) is on the right. |
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| Go! The moment everyone had been waiting for. If you look closely, you can see Davide making sure he has an elbow in front of Andrea. |
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| That small advantage led to getting the holeshot for the first corner for Davide, a lead into the rocks and the victory in the first heat. A puncture put Andrea 15 minutes off the pace and ended any hope a good finish for him. |
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| The battle wasn't just at the front though, as 50 riders simply don't fit into one piece of singletrack. |
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| Chiara Pastore lead out the first women's heat, but the she lost out on the lower parts of the course to Elisa Canepa. |
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| Each heat had two groups - the top 50 and, errr, the other 50. Here's Emmanuel Maillard leading out the second group in the first heat. |
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| Once you were behind someone life got tough. Even if you were faster, you couldn't necessarily overtake and the light spattering of rain hadn't dampened down any of the dust. |
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| 365MTB's Cristiano Guarco put the pen down for the weekend and had a crack at racing instead. |
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| It didn't quite work out for everyone though. It's a long way up to be sore and out of the running. |
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| In between the heats the clouds kept swirling and even strong gusts of wind were blowing, but in the end the amounted to little more than a few, half-hearted drops of rain. |
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| The trail split in three just above this point. In the second heat, Manuel was one of the few riders to take on the tougher, more technical upper line and was rewarded with a lead over Davide Sottocornola. |
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| He then began to stretch that advantage and took the win in the second heat. Although this meant both he and Davide had a win and a second place each, Davide's combined time was slightly faster, putting Manuel on the second step of the podium. |
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| With the leaders through cleanly, the rest of the field were back to battling it out amongst themselves and, in some cases, just trying to get through the tricky rock sections. |
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| Not everyone made it through cleanly though, this fella was down for a while and rolled down to the medics station in the field below after a while. |
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| Valentina Macheda looked much smoother and cleaner through the technical sections than most of the men in the second heat. Unfortunately that only translated to a third place in a field of three - although the two women who beat her are two of the fastest in Italy right now and she stayed in touch through both heats. It's a real shame there weren't more women here this weekend and hopefully more will make the trip to Pila in September. |
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| While it's easy to watch the top guys make the course look easy, it's when you watch the second group come through and struggle with the sections that you really understand just how tough the course was this weekend. |
So there we go. Supermountain has it's first set of victors, there are some broken bikes and bodies here in Limone Piemonte tonight and the general feeling is that this was a great race. Changing format didn't phase the slick organisation of the Superenduro team and the series will be back in September at one of the most popular spots on the European DH scene - Pila. Until then...
www.superenduromtb.com
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sadly that he crashed and lost position