After falling in love with the Pietra Ligure tracks in practice, both Super Grassroots riders Elliot Smith and Czech Jakub Riha had a battle with the trails on race day. The dusty tracks claimed many victims, some more permanently than others, luckily for Elliot and Jakub it was just bruised egos. You did not want to crash on either of the two massive opening stages, both of which dropped over a whopping 700+ meters and were both over 8+ minutes long. Stage 1 was Elliot’s first ever pro EDR/EWS race and he opened his account with a solid 68th after a couple of minor off-track moments, Jakub wasn’t to be so lucky going down on stage one, losing valuable time and finishing the stage in 93rd.
For Stage 2 it was a role reversal with Elliot going down mid-run, losing his chain and with it, precious time, he’d cross the line in 97th. Jakub had a clean(ish) run posting a solid 66th. New father Jakub has spent the off-season spending time with things a little more important than his bike and knew that a good result here wasn’t going to be easy. Every single rider here is fast and has something to prove, any bobble, mistake, and missed pedal stroke was going to be costly, after a mistake on stage 3 cost Jakub time, he reigned it in and laid down a solid 4th stage, finishing in 56th. The hot (84ºf) and long day (2000m climbing) was taking its toll on the riders and Jakub finished his day with an 85th and 75th on stages 5 and 6 respectively. He’d finish the day in 78th place.
Elloit’s second-place Open result at round 2 in Derby only guaranteed him one round in the Pro ranks, he needed a decent result here in Pietra to stay there, the pressure was mounting and he started second-guessing his pace. Thinking that there was room to open it up a bit more, costly errors would happen. He didn’t have a clean run until stage five where he posted his day’s best stage result, a 44th place, buoyed by the result, he tried to repeat it on the 6th and final stage but lost traction in the dust and went down hard in a crash. His times on the 1st and 5th stages helped save the day somewhat and secure Elliot 84th place and a valuable 61 points. The ESO (the EDR’s governing body) has yet to confirm if Elliot’s total 2023 UCI points haul of 131 will be enough to stay in the Pro field.
Leogang is up next for the EDR, it’s a new venue for international Enduro, there has never been an EWS here before. On top of that, it’s a pro EDR event only, there is no Open racing here, which means if Elliot doesn’t get the call-up, he’ll be on the sidelines cheering Jakub and his Kiwi companions on.
In the open event, Alexis Roukens and Jonas Demuylder had an epic day out racing on the same stages as the pros, just with no stage 1. Alexis would post some fast times (faster than many pro’s) and finish the day in 10th while Jonas finished the day in 32nd
Above Photos: Sven Martin
