Race Report: Portuguese Enduro Cup - Round 2

After a successful First Round in Cadafaz, it was time to move north to the beautiful landscapes of Murça. The area is home to dry soil, burning sun and good wine, but this year for the good of us, the sun took a break and the temperatures were just perfect for a pleasant weekend of racing.

The venue was composed of 5 Special Stages with around 1100m climbing and 1300m descent on a total of 38km of length. The type of trails that this region presented to the riders were a mix of flowy but unforgiving loose trails with a few pedaly and technical sections. The key for a successful race here was to play it wisely and just send 99% commitment at the loose sections and 110% full gas in the other ones, especially on the pedaly ones. So, consistency and being fit were the magic words.


Henrique Monteiro and Duarte Medeiros with their fancy new "The Collective" jersey and those flying Nukeproof Megas as well.








So pinned these two. Tiago Silva took his first win in Junior's and Diogo Silva finished in 7th in Elite.


Besides his flats, Stromp enjoyed the race all the way to the end. Ana Leite made 3rd place in Women's.



Fernando Aires finished 3rd and Marcio "Golias" Ferreira finished 2nd, both in Master 30.



Views for days! The young talent Nuno Reis won without surprises the Under-17 category and even took a Special Stage Win.



These two had a crazy battle during the race day. Joao Cordeiro finished just 0.7 seconds back of David Guerra who won the Master 40 category.




Men's and Women's Elite.


Men's and Women's Master.
What a race, one of the tightest races we've seen in Portugal - in every category the race was up to be determined until the last corner.
Now it's time to take a breath for a couple of months to let the riders settle everything up for the National Championships. With this huge window, which surprises do we're gonna have?