Lagares Extreme

Anders

Anders

Gold Level Site Supporter
This weekend is the Lagares Extreme race on. I am here in Portugal with Norway's best extreme rider, Anders Becker Johansen. I'm sorry that the is no GG content in this post, as Anders rides a Beta. He has teamed up for the weekend with Sweden's Magnus Thor, also a Beta rider.
Me and my wife has driven his Iveco lorry with the two bikes and equipment 3264km and met the riders here in Porto yesterday evening.
The Lagares race is very spectacular and has a prologue i Porto city, an after dark endurocross on Saturday and the normal extreme race on Sunday.

http://www.extremelagares.com/

There are lots of videos from previous years on YouTube.


Sent fra min E5603 via Tapatalk
 
Sounds like the kind of holiday deal I could make with my wife ... I'll take you on a 7000km tour of Europe if you give me 3 days of extreme enduro lol

Keep us updated #superjealous
 
Well, I'm not riding, just spannering, filling fuel etc. But its a nice type of holiday, this is our third year doing this trip. The previous years has been for a smaller event, a part of the european extreme cup. This time we up the game and go for the big one, Lagares.

On the way back my wife will even get to a spanish beach for a short while! We have one more day available for the return and have time for a short break. But driving a lorry with 90 km/h top speed takes its time. We started out on Saturday and arrived Wednesday.

I will keep you posted.
I also have a blog, but its all in Norwegian. If you care to run it thru Google translate, its at http://kvennamekaniske.blogspot.com


Sent fra min E5603 via Tapatalk
 
Today was check-in and technical control. The bikes are now in parc ferme in front of the Porto city hall under police protection.
Tomorrow's prologue takes place in Porto city centre.

3c69e50b31f87c1424b8b13d450cf02a.jpg

Parc ferme

40022ee905ebb01245fc05e2b59cefec.jpg

The only Gasgas in the pro class
 
The race is over and we are heading home tomorrow. It will take almost a week.

Our man Anders Becker Johansen got an injury in the elbow early in the race, but completed one lap. Not the best of fates in his first world top level extreme race. Another rider dropped his bike from some meters above, and it ended up on Anders standing at the bottom of a very steep hill.

Our Swedish friend, Magnus Thor completed two full laps and ended up around number 15 in the pro class. That's a good result and Magnus is happy.

The Extreme XL Lagares is a very spectacular race that has three different stages. First, the prologue in Porto (as mentioned in earlier posts, sorry for the crappy night images). Then, in the evening, an endurocross race. The pro class started around 2300.
Then, on Sunday, a six hour race in the most extreme terrain. Steep up and down hills, river crossings, riding up and down creeks (in the water), tunnels, you name it, Lagares has got it.

There are no official results yet.
Two GG bikes in the pro class: one 17 model and one of the new 18 models.

I have uploaded some (better) images at http://kvenna.piwigo.com/index?/category/16-lagares_extreme_2017
It's mostly from the pits and start/finish, as I had to be there all the time during the race. Anders is #19 and Magnus is #20. You may recognize some of the other top level riders
 
Thx for the report! I like the vids from xl lagares.
The gasgas man is Lars Enoeckl from Austria, a former KTM Testdriver, winner of sea to sky, Erzberg and Romaniacs finisher. He reached p12 - a very good result I think as he was injured recently.
I think he was the most intensive tester of the tpi prototype.
His change to gasgas was a big surprise as this brand has been almost non existent in the land of KTM (and husky nowadays ;-) ).
I hope this helps to see more gasgas bikes here.
 
They both do as far as I know, but Lars Enoeckl has more chances at catching a couple of podiums as he is well younger (and a very good rider too).

David retired from the pro scene and I think he only rides for fun these days (while Lars Enoeckl is looking to join the pro scene). I suppose David will show up at the cross country races, maybe Romaniacs and a couple of others but I don't see him registered for Erzberg witch is only two weeks away. He did mention last year he enjoys faster flowing races and not so much these "hardcore" ones.

p.s. both very big names here in Romania, but GG needs to invest more in marketing online regarding them (we could help too in this regard!).
 
swazi_matt said:
wasn't David Knight supposed to be racing the WESS?
Click to expand...

David is just supported by the UK importer, so no real pro-riding program. He said a few weeks ago that he wants to do some races but not all and in no way on a pro basis, he said just good fun and help the brand.

Lars is the best rider we have in Austria and noone tested more TPI prototypes than him. Working very long for KTM I think he expected to become a factory rider, but KTM didnt ask him. When he appeared with a carbed 300 at a few races in Austria we asked him why he does not ride a TPI. Lars said he doesnt have one and KTM does not give him one so he rides his private 300. At this time it was clear that there's something cooking.

GasGas offered him a better support than KTM, but he is still not a fulltime factory racer. However, on one of the first races he broke his thumb and still suffers from this injury.
At the Lagares he just had bad luck and jumped into a whoop bending the forks. Like Taddy Blazusiak he started from somewhere behind but didnt make it up to the front like Taddy in rage mode.

In this vid you see his crash at 5 mins 19 seconds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNvchoXkPJ4

Cheers
Doc
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top