The Raid World Championship 2005
The French Make Their Move
Rob Howard / 10.09.2005
First to arrive were Les Arcs Quechua, who had been 17th at the start of the stage, an incredible move up the field. They must have moved much quicker than other teams, or knew all the trails well and took every short cut they could ... or probably both. Equally impressive were Salomon Suisse who came in second just 3 minutes behind them, and as the timing updates from the checkpoints on the route came in it was clear the top French and Alpine teams were making big gains.
Defending champions Nike ACG Balance Bar were still up with the leaders though, coming into transition 6 minutes down on the leaders. They’d stayed with them for much of the way, benefiting from some help on the navigation, but fell back on the final run into transition. They made up for this with a highly professional and lightning fast transition however, arriving in 4th place and leaving in second (jumping past Salomon Suisse and Aigles Seybelles).
As you might expect from such an experienced team they know the value of time gained in transition. They made up 4 minutes at this one, and there are 17 transitions in all … They also had some local help from Stefan Barischi, an old time mountain biking friend of Mike Kloser. He was in charge, reminding them of what was coming next and even advising them on the technical nature of some of the descent on the next stage. “Your tyres are good for this,� he said, “the leaders left on slicks.� He even had all 4 bikes on a rack, each with the right drinks, maps on mapboards, GPS mounted and helmets hung on the handlebars! (While they were there the Competitio GPS tracking team checked their transmitter which had not been working – they think because of some metallic thread in duct tape holding it on!)
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