The time for talking came to an end this morning. As riders rolled out of the pits here in Nevados de Chillan and headed towards the first race stages for the Enduro World Series in 2014 it all became very real. So, fittingly, we won't say anything more and get straight into the action...
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 Enrico Guala flew in from Italy supposedly to commentate, but it's more of an excuse for him to get to check out the trails here in Chile. |
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| Commit to the turn and carve. |
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| Or you will end up like this. The volcanic sands are a fickle mistress. |
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| Martin Maes tore apart the first stage today. From talking to people, it seems like he was manualling and roosting everything in his path. It equaled speed too, as he opened the day with the stage win. |
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| Coming straight from the Pietermaritzburg XC World Cup, Tracy Moseley seemed to take a while to get up to speed today, conceding the first two stages to her title rival, Anne-Caroline Chausson. |
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| Santa Cruz's newest signing, Iago Garay put in a decent ride for 18th today. |
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| Lukas Anrig dropping out of the woods and into the grey, volcanic sand on stage two. |
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| Richie Rude is finding his stride on his first outing in the EWS. Not the best day for the young American, but don't count him out. |
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| Nevados has plenty of steep chutes with moto like ruts of loose volcanic sand. Get off line in one and you will be heading over the bars in a hurry. |
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| Anne-Caroline Chausson has shown she has put in the work this off season. Chausson came out swinging to win the first two stages, showing the kind of form we expect to see from her. |
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| Florian Nicolai was on fire today as well, finishing 2nd on stage one, and third on stages two and three. |
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| Anneke Beerten had a solid day in Chillan finishing third on every stage today. |
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| Alexandre Cure showed he had the physical fitness on the flat sand sprint of stage two today. Cure finished the stage in sixth place. |
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| While Martin Maes smashed stage one, he didn't fair as well on the more demanding stage two where he slipped back to 8th place. Not to worry, Maes has plenty of growing to do yet and we are sure he's only going to get much, much stronger. |
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| Cedric has always been a hell of a showman, but today on stage two he proved he had what it takes to hang on the most demanding of stages when it comes down to fitness. Gracia finished fourth in both stages two and three. |
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| Jerome Clementz may have his work cut out for him this season. Clementz finished stages two and three in second, and stage one in third. There are lots of young guns hungry to make their mark and Graves is on the hunt for the overall title. It will be interesting to see how this season plays out for the frenchman. |
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| So many loose corners to blow up. Chillan is roost heaven, and we think you can never have too much of it in a post. |
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| Jesse Melamed lightens up the rear wheel to get around the loose hairpin on the entry to the bottom half of stage three. Probably one of the most awkward corners on any of the stages today where you have to shut down a ton of speed to make it round. |
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| Remy Absalon ended the day in ninth place, he will have to be full on the gas tomorrow if he wants to move up in the rankings. |
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| Today wasn't a good day back in the office for Fabien Barel. He went down hard on stage one. Being the man that he is, he carried on for the rest of the day, but we last saw him this evening heading for the medical centre to get his back checked out as he looked to be in a lot of pain. |
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| Fifth this evening for Justin Leov and a solid start to his Enduro World Series campaign. |
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| Jeremey Horgen-Kobelski didn't fare too well on the bike park stage today... |
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| While we wouldn't say it was a spectator extravaganza trackside today, there was a seriously impressive number of fans lining the final stage today - it's even more impressive when you remember that Nevados de Chillan is more than an hours drive from the nearest town. |
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| Putting on a show for the gathered fans on the bike park section at the end of stage three, Cedric throws it out for the people. He wasn't just stylish though - taking the win on the stage too and putting himself fourth in the overnight standings. |
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| The locals riders were hucking their meat the best way they knew how for those fans. |
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| While Moseley did manage to grab the stage win on the final stage today, it was too little too late and Anne-Caroline Chausson goes into tomorrow with a commanding 30 second lead. |
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| Jared Graves showed what he's made of today - heading into Sunday with a healthy, 12 second lead over Clementz. |
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| Colombia represent! The vibe here at the EWS is unlike any we've felt at a mountain bike race for quite some time. Here in Chillan there is the opportunity to make many new friends despite the large variety of languages spoken here. In the end, we all speak bike. |
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| Our very own Matt Delorme, sending the bike park, complete with 15kg camera pack. To cover these races you have to be fit - you don't just stand at trackside and occasionally point a camera at things, you need to run, ride and hike to reach the action however you best can. For instance, on stage two today there was a 5km march through sand dunes to reach the start at 1,900m - all with the camera bag and bike to be carried. |
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| More than a few people checked into the medical tent as the long, technical stages were unforgiving when you got to the rocky parts. |
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| Nick Geddes and Jesse Melamed are studying engineering together at University of British Columbia. Finals are approachig rapidly, so after training, it's straight up to the hotel to study. |
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| That's race day one in the books. We are starting to get a picture of where the riders stand after the off season, but we still have three really tough stages to go. Time to empty the sands of Nevados De Chillan from our shoes, charge up our camera batteries, and catch a few winks so we can do it over again. |
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67 Comments
Oh wait, you meant the lady in the first pic? Nevermind...
but ended up breaking the dudes finger. It's on Sven's instagram.
Me perdí una gran oportunidad en mi vida, por no ir a fotografiar, esperamos se repita nuevamente una fecha del EWS en Chile.
Por favor, no le escuches, está diciendo insensateces.
(oops my bad)
montenbaik.com/2014/04/live-timing-santa-cruz-montenbaik-enduro-by-mtblab-enduro-world-series-nevados-de-chillan
Is this the site for live timing?
with 27.5 at all?
Castlemtn: "Can we,please talk about how,much fun and passionate riding is in general"
Unnecessary, I think we all agree on that one.