Start: Cerro El Roble, Caleu

Food Station: La Dormida

Camp: Olmue

Special stage: 20.36km distance/-2925m descending

Liaison stages: 17.71km distance/980m uphill

Thursday became Friday pretty quickly with time to grab only a couple of hours sleep before piling into a pick–up again to drive to another of the event’s classics. Luckily day three was slightly easier in terms of distance and after lunching out on steaks, salad and chorizo sausage around midday riders took on one the greatest stages of the week in terrain that was offering more grip than the first two legs. But the changing terrain was to have a marked effect on the riders and the day’s first had already taken its toll. Chris Johnson broke an arm, Joey Schulser opened his leg up.

Francois Bailly Maitre charged Clementz on this day and took the Cannondale man on the tightest twistiest corners of the week on his 29 BMC Trailfox. Pedro Ferriera took Chile’s second stage win (Prudencio won stage two) on what was a trail of utter beauty – that one after the lunch stop. Brayton had come good again and punched out a top ten on that stage although it was nearly a minute back. Even though it was a relatively easy day the stages still offered 31 minutes of racing for the winner, and they were again largely downhill.

Classification

1. Francois Bailly Maitre     13.38  10.34  7.13    31.25

2. Jerome Clementz 13.25  10.43  7.19    31.27

3. Pedro Ferreira      13.53  10.34  7.35    32.02

10. Adam Brayton    14.32  11.48  8.03    34.02

Women

1. Anka Martin          17.10  13.12  10.08  40.30

Start: La Canela

Food Station: La Canela Alta

Finish: Puchuncavi

Camp: Maitencillo

Special stage: 16km distance/-1727m descending

Liaison stages: 17.05km distance/1608m uphill

The drive to the coast offered another change of scenery and smells, the sea mist covering the burning sun for a short while. Driving to the summit of the day’s remote hilltop opener a man walks down the road holding his jeans up followed five minutes later by a woman with a handbag and a world of troubles.

It was the tour’s prickly day and how more riders didn’t puncture in the thorny scrub remains a mystery. A day of short stages, a chance for the Hope man to make amends for earlier strife. If he’d begun the week in typical fashion he should surely wrap it up with something to tell the bosses. How much had he learned from his week in the Andes?

Brayton managed to hold together top tens on each of the sub ten–minute tracks to nail seventh overall on the final day and pip Chris Ball for top Brit. It began with high speed offering full throttle corners, tucked–in straights and awkward stream beds before the transfer to the penultimate track through the highly reflective leaves of a beautiful rubber plantation.

We were now in farmland good and proper and after a brief chat with the locals we made our way to the conclusion just above Puchuncavi before the last transfer to the Pacific. Sixth and only 21 seconds back to the Enduro World Champion on a seven minute track was good going, the closest all week, but it also highlighted the sheer all–round brilliance of Clementz.