Team USA Ready For The Start Of The ISDE In Chile
Mark Kariya | November 11, 2018
All preliminaries are done and the U.S. ISDE team is ready to get racing started tomorrow morning in the field of 450 at the 93rd International Six Days Enduro, based in the seaside city of Viña del Mar, Chile.
Time To Start Racing
The 31-rider-strong U.S. ISDE team marches down Viña del Mar’s Avenida Peru during the opening ceremonies on Saturday afternoon. Photos: Mark Kariya
Most riders arrived early last week and spent the majority of the remaining days finding the special tests, walking the special tests, reassembling/testing their bikes and walking the tests again—and again.
U.S. World Trophy team veteran Ryan Sipes said, “I feel good; I think everybody’s pretty excited about it. I think we’ve got as good a chance as anybody.
“We’ve all walked a lot! We’ve put a lot of work into trying to know these tests inside and out, and I think we’ve got a good shot.”
Track Walk
Riders walk the special tests prior to the start of the ISDE in Chile.
Asked how many times they’ve walked each test, he replied, “Three times on all of them—almost 70 miles of walking or something like that.”
U.S. Women’s World Trophy team rider Becca sheets echoed Sipes’ confidence, saying, “All three of us girls are really strong riders; now we all have at least one ISDE under our belts so I think it brings us all a little more confidence, and I think we’re ready to go racing.”
Your Team!
Back row, from left: U.S. World Trophy and Junior World Trophy team riders Ryan Sipes, Josh Toth, Taylor Robert, Ben Kelley, Steward Baylor, Grant Baylor and Zach Bell. Front row, from left: U.S. Women’s World Trophy team riders Becca Sheets, Tarah Gieger and Brandy Richards.
Day one of the second Six Days held in Chile will see the riders tackle two laps of a loop with a total mileage of 289 kilometers. The conditions will be dry and dusty, with plenty of hard-pack as well as sand, silt and rocks—in other words, conditions found in the southwestern United States, which should bode well for guys like Cooper and Destry Abbott, Kacy Coy, Kendall Norman, Brandy Richards, Taylor Robert, Jared Schlapia, Ryan Smith and many others. CN
