The first date of the Kona Montenbaik Enduro Championship 2012 in Chile took place this October with 200 enthusiastic riders. This was the 4th year of the championships and is still the only one of its kind in Latin America.

This type of enduro is similar to the superenduro in Italy or to a Moto Rally. Riders have a certain amount of time to get to the top and do their check point before starting their timed, mainly downhill, Special Stage.

With a 27.5 km track with 4 liaisons, a gain of 1425 meters, and 4 special stages of 1300m of downhill all the riders finished exhausted.

For this first date, the riders got to test out the new El Durazno Bike Park which was recently pimped out by Momentum Trail Concepts. There was a lot of excitement with all the riders because the new trails are awesome and unique in Chile and probably Latin America.

This year was also the first time Montenbaik used a new timing system that uses a personal chip that stores the data from each check point. The same timing system that Transprovence uses.
Among the 200 registered we saw new faces. Several Moto riders, such as Joshua Smith (Pivot 5.7), Jose Moreno Calufo (Pivot 5.7 carbon), and Agustin Fuenzalida.

Riders also included Chilean legends from XC like Claus Plaut (Specialized Stumpjumper), Diego Diaz (Giant Athem), the DH Triple Master World Champion Sebastian Vasquez (Kona), Pedro Ferreira (Commencal Meta AM) and Rogelio Cano.

The Master A category was surprising, with nearly 60 competitive riders. Calufo Moreno who participated in his first Montenbaik Enduro, took the win followed by local Eliodoro Matte (Cannondale Jekyll) followed by Juan Cristobal Rodillo (Ibis HD) who won in the same category in the 2009 Montenbaik Enduro.

The Expert category, which also had many entries, 41 riders, saw the return of a classic DH rider who took the win: Jan Guzman (Ibis HD), followed by Juan Hagn (Trek Remedy) and third place Nicolas Jubera (Ibis HD).

At day’s end the top of the Elite Pedro Ferreira took the win with his Commencal Meta AM, dethroning Nico Prudencio (Giant Reign/Schwalbe) who competed with a plaster cast on his hand, followed by third place Claus Plaut (Specialized Stumpjumper ) who preferred to participate in Montenbaik Enduro instead of the XC Nationals.

There was a special atmosphere with the 200 riders, plus families, friends, spectators, dogs, beers, barbeques and delicious pizza sponsered by Papa John’s, which added a special touch to Kona Montenbaik Enduro.

We look forward to the next venue on November 17 in the south of Chile, Valdivia, where Jerome Clementz and Ben Cruz from the Cannondale International Team will participate.

Hit up montenbaik.com for more info.