Huairasinchi - The 2014 Adventure Racing World Championships
Bent Wheel Almost Ends Race for Team YogaSlackers
Mallory Paige / 11.11.2014
It just takes a moment. A brief change of focus can change everything.
Erik Sanders of Team YogaSlackers found this out the hard way during the first bike section. A quick glance back at the Team and the next thing he knew he was flying over the handlebars, having ran at high speed straight into a ditch. Fortunately, he was unharmed.
Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for his Ellsworth bike. The wreck had bent his front wheel. Tensions ran high as the team tried to decide what to do. After taking the wheel off they determined that no spokes were broken and, while not ideal, they could indeed re-align the wheel close to true.
The real test would come, though, during the second bike section a 144 km up and over the Andes mountains. This leg was marked by rain. So much rain. The consistent downpour took it's toll on all of the teams.
Team Raidlight and the Swedish Armed Forces Adventure Team were exhausted and wet as they rolled through CP10, but remained in good spirits.
Team YogaSlackers was relieved to report that Erik's bike was holding up just fine. They rode off into the dark, lights blazing, with the goal of making it to TA4 in San Jose de Minas as quickly as possible. There they planned to discharge a few hours sleeping before heading into the 45 km ridge-laden trek.
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