We made it to the airport in Santiago, returned the rental car and packed up our bikes once again. We were a bit tighter on time than I would have preferred but we made the flight in time and I could finally relax for a little while. After a short transfer in Bogota, the second flight took us to Pereira. We landed around midnight local time and were waiting for our bikes in the pickup depot, with mostly other mountain bikers who were on the same flights. At least we weren’t the only English speaking people! Unfortunately, our, as well as a lot of other rider’s, bikes didn’t show up. Thankfully one of the race organizers was still at the airport and got our information so that he could send the bikes to us in Manizales. This wouldn’t be the only time this man helped us and I was so impressed with everything that he did for us, as well as many other racers. I haven’t experience anything that has come close to his help as far as race organizers or assistance. I am truly thankful for everything he did.
We spent the night at a hotel closer to the airport because we would need to take a bus to get to Manizalas to our next accommodation. The taxi ride over was interesting to say the least. This is the first time I’ve traveled outside of the US/Canada and after being in Santiago and seeing how similar it was to our cities, I wasn’t expecting this. The roads were a mess, totally torn up putting the spring time potholes in Edmonton to shame. It was kind of like what I imagined a third world country city to be, but I wasn’t expecting it and to drive through it in the middle of the night in a Taxi that felt like it was going to fall apart really made me appreciate how well we have it up here.
After a good nights sleep and a much needed shower and breakfast, we set out to explore the city for a little while until we needed to go back to the airport to collect our bike and catch the bus to Manizalas. We got to experience the city in the daylight this time, which made things look a little bit better, but it certainly wasn’t like Santiago.
At the last race, a fellow Canadian rider let us know that we would need back protection to race in Columbia. We searched around for something in Santiago before we flew out, but didn’t find anything suitable in our price range. Anthony brought his guiding pack, which technically he could use a back protector so he was covered, but I didn’t bring mine because I don’t usually race wearing it. Good lesson right there, always bring your riding pack! While we were in the city, I tried to find any bike or motorcross shop to find something. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything, but apparently there were lots more of those types of shops in Manizalas.
After exploring the city a little bit, we went back to the hotel to pack up and get a taxi back to the airport. Again, the race organizer was there greeting other racers and taking care of any lost luggage. He said that our bikes wouldn’t be coming until the next day or the day after, and to just take the bus to Manizales and he’d figure out a way to get the bikes to us. Being that practice was only a few days away, this was a bit worrying, but seeing how he was handling everything, we trusted him and boarded the bus along with a bunch of other pros and privateers alike. The drive to Manizales was pretty fantastic, we got to go by a bunch of coffee plantations in the hills, up and over small mountains and through small towns. One thing I noticed was how many really old big rig trucks there were. I wasn’t fast enough with my phone but I was amazed by how good of condition they were in. I guess they don’t get much snow to rust out all the old metal.
Another thing that amazed me was how skilled the bus driver was driving the huge bus on such tight roads without hitting anything. Most of the busses and public transport vehicles were pretty banged up, so they did miscalculate some things at times, but it was still really impressive. We got dropped off right outside of the condo where we were staying and managed to get the keys to our room from the front desk person who didn’t speak any English. In Chile, we were staying on an upper level of a taller high rise and we got to use an elevator to get all our gear and luggage up in the elevator, but in Columbia we were on the 4th floor of a building which didn’t have an elevator. The condo was a lot cleaner than the one in Santiago and had a lot more room to work on our bikes, but it didn’t have wifi. We asked the fabric workers next door to let us use theirs because we needed to be in contact with Ivan to get our bikes back, so we had to go out to the front of the building and sit on the steps to use the wifi.
View from outside the door of our apartment
The bikes were suppose to be delivered around 7:00 AM the next morning, so we went out on a walk to explore the city and to get some groceries. Manizalas was a much prettier city than Santiago and it was super green, even compared to Vancouver. What a big difference coming from 35+ dry heat with very little vegetation to 15-20 Degrees of humid air and jungle like greenery. It was everything I imagined Columbia to be: green rolling hills, old buildings, tin roofs and cobblestone roads. There was modern malls and buildings as well of course. A big difference between Santiago and Manizalas were the people. They were super nice and tried to talk to us everywhere we went. We were visibly a bit beat up with scratches and bruises on our legs/arms and Anthony’s hand was still all wrapped up. In the super markets the older ladies would ask how it happened and be so concerned. It was pretty cute. When they heard or noticed we were mountain bikers here for the race, they wanted photos! I guess we got a little taste of what it was like to be rock stars.
A lot greener than Santiago!
We sat outside the next morning at 7:00 and our bikes didn’t show up until around 9:30, but we were just glad that we had them! After inspecting and putting everything together, we went out for a ride to see more of the city. We also got a rental car because the race and pit area was too far to ride easily back and forth. The car that we got was a lot bigger than the one in Chile, and since we were so good at fitting all our stuff into a smaller car, it was a breeze to get our bikes and gear into the back in record time. One thing that we forgot while looking for a rental car, was that it was Easter weekend, so a lot of shops were closed. Luckily we were able to find one that was open.
The race weekend was divided up into 3 days. Practice for stages 2-8 was on Friday, practice and race for stage 1, the Urban DH stage was on Saturday, and racing on stages 2-8 were on Sunday. This was a really well thought out schedule because we weren’t able to shuttle to any stages, which meant riding all the transfers and climbs to get to the stages. This gave us Saturday to recover, only having to race one short DH stage and not having to pedal to the top of anything. We went to the race village to register and walk some of the stages. I was pretty excited by the stages because the dirt was so grippy-when it was dry. There were a couple wet sections where I instantly slipped and fell. This made me a little worried but I knew we still had a few days for things to dry out completely.
Stages 2-3 were right next to each and we were able to walk up stage 2 that went higher than 3 and walk down stage 3. Stages 2 and 3 both had these huge freshly built bridges that crossed over the road that we would be pedalling up. The top of stage 2 was all new and some sections had tight switch backs before going down the steep hillside. This is important to remember later. We skipped walking 4 because it was too far out of the way and walked 5. Stage 5 started out in a farmers driveway and then went into a creek bed which felt like a tunnel it was so deep and rounded! There wasn’t any water running of course and it was pretty smooth and I was pretty excited to ride that section. The bottom got pretty steep and finished popping out of the trees back on the road. Stage 6 was way out of the way so we went back and took a look at the start of 7 and 8 which started inside the park where all the pits and tents were set up.
Bottom of stage 5 look at that perfect dirt!
There were a few places where I slipped and fell because the ground was still wet from a little shower we had earlier in the week, but I thought it would dry out by Sunday and the dry sections looked super grippy and I was so excited to ride! We spent the rest of the day looking for back protection, and fortunately there was a vendor selling some in the race village. We later came back for registration after not finding any in the shops that we went to and I had to spend $200 for a back protector that was too big and something I wouldn’t normally wear. I was annoyed, but also didn’t want to risk not wearing any and them checking or using cardboard to try to trick anybody that was checking. I didn’t travel all the way to Columbia to get a DQ.
Practice on Friday morning started off with us driving up and parking close to where the fire road up to the top of 2 and 3 started. We were a bit worried that we would get penalized for doing that, but a bunch of other factory teams showed up and did the same thing so we figure we would be safe. The liaison times were posted and seemed rather short considering how far apart the different mountains were where we’d be riding. I was a little nervous about this and since we weren’t racing all day the next day, I decided to go a bit harder on the climbs and try to make the start times. I made the first one, but only by 5 minutes. Not really enough time to put the pads back in my helmet, have a drink and get everything put away to drop in. This made me even more nervous, but everybody was having the same issue and said that the officials would probably give us more time. Stage 2 started off with a little pedal section into some switchbacks which ended up being a lot more slippery than we all thought, but not unmanageable. It was a bit of a gong show with bodies and bikes everywhere on the steeper sections and I was really looking forward to racing on Sunday. There were a few more slippery sections but soon I got down to the faster sections where the massive bridges were which cleared my tires. It was still a little slippery in places, but for the most part, stage 2 and 3 were ones I was looking forward to.
The pedal to stage 4 was a little steeper than to 2 and 3 so I walked a few sections, still paying attention to time and putting in some effort to see how it would feel on race day. Stage 4 started off in a flat boggy section which was just a big giant mud pit. This is one stage that we didn’t walk so I didn’t know what to expect. I still don’t really remember much about stage 4, it was pretty much just a big muddy selection of ruts. Most of the way down I couldn’t stay clipped in and rode with one foot out. I took a little crash and got pretty muddy which made my grips slippery and my pedals and shoes full of mud. Not something that I wanted to happen on race day! Luckily there was a creek at the bottom that we had to cross, and we used this opportunity to wash off the tires to make the bikes lighter.
We decided to skip stage 5 since we walked it and we knew that stage 6 was quite a long ways away. We went back to the car and drove back to the race village. Stage 6 really was far away, it took forever to get over there and about half way up, it started raining. If it wouldn’t have been raining I would have enjoyed the pedal because it was quite exposed and we were able to see quite a bit of the country side and the small communities that we were riding through. I was struggling a bit with energy by this point, trying to make all the start times, and had to take a long break at the top. By this point it was raining quite a bit and all my gear was soaked including my goggles. After a break and clearing up the goggles lenses, I dropped into the stage. Instantly I was sliding everywhere and was riding with one foot out, sometimes both. This continued on for the whole way down. Some sections were fun to slide around on, but it was mostly annoying not having any balance and going where the trail took you instead of where you wanted to go. Our tires were full of mud and the bikes weighed twice as much as normal. I was not looking forward to racing stage 6.
1/2 mud doughnuts
Stage 7 started right at the entrance to the park where the race village was and started out with a flat sprint and dove into the trees. It went up and down a bit, traversing close to the road and had a really awkward punchy climb that required a trials move to get over a big root. The trail continued down and at one point, turned onto a climbing trail that took you all the way back up to a road before going back downhill. I wasn’t too happy about that, but the lower part of the stage made up for it with some nice corners and a few jumps before finishing on a BMX track. Most of the stage was deep in the trees so it wasn’t as slippery as the other stages.
Stage 8 was basically a big downhill sprint through the middle of the park. A nice way to finish off the day! The day before practice there was a nice wooden jump set up by the finish line and I was excited to hit it. Unfortunately, they took it out. Enduro isn’t like Downhill where only the best can race and most gaps are mandatory. Anybody can enter the lottery for an EWS race and I guess they took this into account and decided to take the gap out because there may be a few riders out there that wouldn’t have been able to clear it safely.
Finish line jump that nobody got to hit
We went back to the condo to get cleaned up and get ready for the next day. There was a riders meeting later on that night in the race village so we went back and I was happy to hear that they were increasing the liaison times. The riders meeting was mostly in Spanish but luckily there were a few friendly people who could translate the parts that weren’t in English for us foreigners.
Can’t even see our sun tan/burns from Chile!
Back in Chile, Anthony cut his hand pretty deeply on day one of practice. It ended up getting infected and he was taking some drugs and having to clean it regularly to keep it from getting worse. He was getting a bit worried after running out of good bandages that it still could be infected and tried asking if there was still people from the medical tent around to take a look. The guy he was talking to didn’t speak English that well and ended up calling an ambulance. We tried to tell him that it wasn’t needed and he just needed someone to take a look to see if it was still infected. It didn’t work and the ambulance showed up, so he decided to make the most of it. Luckily the EMT guys spoke English pretty well and laughed it off. They weren’t bothered at all by having to come out and gave Anthony more good bandages for race day. A Fox guy that we were talking to earlier walked by and was all confused and asked “What happened to you? I just saw you! Did you get hit by a bus or something??” That made everybody laugh and was one thing that I’ll always remember.
Anthony in the back of a Columbian Ambulance
Again, the folk from Fox were super helpful with our bikes and even recommendations on restaurants and translating certain things. There seemed to be a bond between people who weren’t Spanish speaking who were traveling to both of these races. I guess the sound of English being spoken in a place where there wasn’t much brought people together! Plus, yanno, mountain bikers are awesome.
Saturday started out not too early and we rode to where the Urban stage would start. There was a bit of a delay for our practice start times but we made it down and started our one and only practice run. I didn’t watch the course preview for the Urban stage, but according to people who did, it was a completely different course. There were only a few flights of short stairs compared to what I was expecting after seeing many videos of similar races, and a lot of the race was mostly slalom through wide roads with hay bales and tape determining where you went in the road. Not what I was expecting, but I knew that once the area filled up with people, It would be a different story.
It all went by so fast and I was a bit worried that one run wouldn’t be enough to get a good feel for the course considering I had never raced on pavement before. We had almost 4 hours until our actual race runs so we went back to the condo to relax and make final preparations for the next day. We made it back to the start area and found out again that the start was delayed. I was a bit annoyed that nobody was checking for anybody wearing back protectors. I spent $200 for nothing? I started and hit some lines that I didn’t do in practice that people had told me about and some that Anthony pointed out while looking at the GoPro footage. Everything up top went ok, but I was really cautious on the slalom sections and lost a lot of time. I wasn’t happy with my time on the first stage, but it was a really cool experience racing with thousands of people around you cheering.
Not me in the photo, but a good example of what we were riding through.
After racing stage 1, it started pouring. Back at the condo we saw videos and pictures of what it was like closer to the other stages. Water was rushing in the streams and things were looking really muddy. So much for drying out by Sunday. After going through the bikes one more time, we went back to a restaurant that we had previously gone to for dinner. We figured it was cheap, you got lots of food, and we didn’t get sick, so why try something else? Can’t beat a $6 dinner where you don’t have to cook or wash dishes.
