Superenduro PRO #3 Madesimo (SO) – Ben Cruz and Louise Paulin win under a heavy rain

Hard life for the riders at the third round of the Superenduro Powered By SRAM 2014!
At Madesimo (SO), in the middle of the Lombardia Alps, the weather played an important role and forced the organizers and race directors to change the event schedule more than once.

Due to the weather forecast, the staff and the race officials anticipated the poor conditions and so decided to make most of the Special Stages (PS) happen during the first day of the weekend.

Overall, four PSs have been arranged: three during the Saturday and one on Sunday. At the end, the victory was all for the American rider Ben Cruz, who also won the Red Bull PS. The rider of the Team Cannondale Overmountain put together a good advantage during the first couple of PS and then he was able to properly manage it, especially defending himself from the epic comeback of Marco Milivinti (Torpado Factory), who is still the undisputed leader of the overall ranking and this time got at a good second position. Alex Lupato (Lapierre – FRM Facroty Racing) is on the third step of the podium, in front of the Irish Greg Callaghan (Nukeproof) and the American Craig Adam (Giant). Davide Sottocornola (SantaCruz – Cicobikes Dsb) owns the sixth position and he is third among the Italian riders, in front of Mark Scott (Nukeproof), Nicola Casadei (Lapierre), Lars Sternberg (Transition) and Vittorio Gambirasio (Trek – Red Bike).

Super exciting has been the race of the ladies, with the third consecutive victory of Louise Paulin (Cannondale – team Oddonebici), who crashed during the last PS but was able to save a time advantage of 2”2 over the British Katy Winton (Pivot). The third position belongs to the Swiss Caroline Gherig (Specialized), while the rider Gabrielle Molloy (GT) from New Zealand is in fourth position and Mary Moncorge (Ibis) from France reached the fifth place. Laura Rossin (Devinci – Dream Team) is sixth and she has been the fastest among the Italian ladies, who suffered the Madesimo appointment more than expected. In the next and last race of Sauze d’Oulx Louise Paulin will only need a few points to conquer the overall title of a racing season that she started just for kicks.

The rain started pouring on Saturday during the third PS and it never gave the riders breath: on Sunday morning they raced the last stage in epic conditions. However, Madesimo has been a spot-on location, with its warm welcoming and a course terrain that made riders from everywhere fall in love with it, especially with the trails of the Madebike Park and of the Andossi slopes. The poor weather could do nothing to ruin these happy days. A few riders couldn’t wait to go out again after the race for a couple more descents: this was such good fun and so authentic of mountain-biking!

There is now only one more round to do before the end of the Superenduro Powered By SRAM 2014 Series, at Sauze d’Oulx on the 6-7 of September. However, the whole Staff will be busy in a couple of weeks for the organization of the first Italian appointment of the Enduro World Series at La Thuile (AO).