Cycle News

OFF-ROAD 93RD FIM INTERNATIONAL SIX DAYS ENDURO NOVEMBER 12-17, 2018 VINA DEL MAR, CHILE P52 was hard to ride that stuff. It was hard to find where to push and where not to push too much—it was a tough balance to find. "Everything was really hard- packed with a layer of silt on it, but we didn't really ride on anything flat all week so that made it pretty tough. It wasn't so much the hills; it was the hills into massive off-cambers and trying to stop for them. It's nothing we usu- ally ride because no one would really make anything like that because it's not that fun. Other people were just better at it." She added, "An unfortunate incident put me way back in start- ing for one day [so] I was catching really slow riders in front of me [in every test]. Today, it finally felt like I was riding really well and caught the faster girls who were in front of me and it was like putting blind- ers on, like covering your eyes and trying to ride a dirt bike at that point! All the tests were really sketchy—especially if you couldn't see, they were really dangerous. It's hard to go fast when you can't see where you're going." A newbie to both enduros/Six Days and thrown into the deep end by riding on a U.S. WT team full of veterans, former MX pro Zach Bell faced a huge learning home in the conditions, and the Aussie WT team went on to win handily for just the second time following the 2015 ISDE in Slovakia (where they had to wait weeks after they'd gone home before receiv- ing word that originally declared winner France was demoted and Australia awarded first). "I think it's a lot like Australia, to be honest," former GNCC regular Milner said. "It was dry and there were gum trees. That was the cool thing, it was like home, rid- ing between the gum trees and stuff like that." Though certainly at home in the desert, Taylor Robert and the rest of the Americans went well right off the bat, but while the Aussies got faster, the U.S. riders found themselves unable to follow suit. As U.S. WWT rider Tarah Gieger explained after day five, "It was just a really tough Six Days. It two.) We just put the head down and butt up, and it was good from there on." For the Australians, it certainly was. Despite losing Lyndon Snod- grass on the second day to a reported oil starvation issue, Milner simply dominated the race the rest of the week, seemingly right at (Left) Grant Baylor started strong and turned in the fastest Junior times until four instances of dislocating a shoulder put him off the pace. He persevered to finish fourth overall individual Junior and eighth in E2. (Right) Ryan Sipes was all smiles at the end of the first day as the U.S. WT team sat at the top. Unfortunately, a couple crashes the next day forced him to play catch-up the rest of the week. Another 15-minute work period, another two tires changed for U.S. Junior World Trophy rider Ben Kelley.

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