Race Report: Richie Rude & Isabella Naughton Win at Big Mountain Enduro - Big Sky, Montana
Big tracks beneath Lone Peak at Big Sky made for some of the most challenging enduro racing in the USA..
Words and photos by Eddie Clark
The Yeti Cycles Big Mountain Enduro Series presented by Maxxis featured 8 stages of racing over two days at Big Sky Resort in Montana with two stages being raced for the first time ever. Impressively, racers took on five transitions for 5,159 feet of climbing with the remaining three transitions being lift served. Clear skies and pleasant temps kept the weather near perfect for racing with a shower on the first day of practice to tighten up the tracks.
Plenty of shirts, swag and one-off BME/Upslope beer socks for racers this weekend.
Isabella Naughton on stage one.
Kate Lawrence handily won the first three stages, and still took second overall despite racing the last four stages in rough shape.
Mitch Ropelato doing Mitch things.
Cody Kelley was racing to win, and it may have been one of the closest BME's we've seen in a while with Cody finishing just 3.7 seconds behind Richie after 8 stages of racing.
Erin Bixler took the women's U21 overall win.
Aiden Chapin kept it smooth all weekend with two stage wins and a first overall.
Jakob Snow locked in 2nd overall for the U21 race.
Last year's Big Sky women's champ, Porsha Murdock, came back to finish in fourth overall.
Kera Linn with Big Sky's Lone Peak in the background.
Isabella Naughton getting a big confidence booster with the women's overall win before going back to Europe to represent at the EWS.
Quinn Reece putting in the effort and rounding out the top ten for the overall.
Nick Nesteroff is starting to get the hang of enduro racing, and claimed a respectable 7th overall for just his fourth ever enduro race.
Richie rode incredibly smooth and deceptively fast all weekend.
Kera Linn got some redemption at this year's Big Sky race by staying consistent and off the ground to claim 3rd place overall.
Lauren Bingham finished the weekend just off the podium in 6th place for the weekend.
Kate Lawrence came out swinging and won the first three stages before a high-speed slam at the start of stage 4 slowed her down a bit for the next day.
Isabella Naughton taking another win on stage 4.
Cody Kelley staying low and fast on the fresh cut Flat Earth stage 4.
The last few hundred feet to the top of stages 1, 2, 3 and 5 were pretty much all hike-a-bike.
Sun's out gun's out.
With 5159 feet of climbing on the transitions for the weekend, racers gave theirselves plenty of time to climb to the top of stage five and recover from the effort before starting Sunday's racing on Yogi's.
Isabella Naughton committed to the challenging lines of Big Sky and was rewarded with the big overall win.
Mitch Ropelato took the win on stages 4 and 5 which were both new stages for this years BME Big Sky race.
Myles Morgan had a breakthrough performance to claim 4th overall in a deep field of talent.
Lauren Danley getting a little sideways on Yogi's stage 5 to round out the top 10 in the women's field.
Max Sedlak missed out on the podium by just 0.4 seconds behind Shawn Neer, which showed just how tight the racing was this weekend.
Richie Rude exuding power and grace on the bike.
Colton Peterson posting up a big result for the weekend to claim 7th overall.
Lia Westermann kept it consistent for the whole race to take the fifth spot on the podium.
Shawn Neer given 'er on stage 7 to take 5th overall on the weekend.
Isabella Naughton taking the win on stage 7.
Full gas from Richie to the very end of the last stage.
A big thumbs up on taking the win and boosting the confidence before going back to Europe for the next EWS stop.
The battle between these two was impressive to witness this weekend, and it's great that good friends can push each other to even better performances.
Full results here.
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Member since Mar 26, 2013
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I watched several pros come down and it was fairly exciting but nothing crazy.
Then I saw Richie dropping in at the top. Other than reading Pinkbike I don't follow the sport that closely but he is by far my favorite EWS racer, so I was excited -
He comes mach-ing into that right hand turn and started sliding out hard coming straight at my position I thought he was going to crash for sure (I mean, we might have different ideas of what "out of control" means but he definitely lost it) - rocks and dust are flying, and he drops his inside leg out and slides though the corner all the way to 180 degrees, hits the top little bump on the outside of the chute and literally flies down the 3 foot chute sideways with his inside leg hanging out, lands in the 2nd corner already pointing the right way and completely recovers without slowing down.
I was the only person anywhere near this spot on the course and no one else saw it !
Absolutely incredible moment !
Thought you were a Canadian company? Has Outside already ruined it?
At this pace I'll be forgetting about PB altogether.