Brasil Ride Stage 3 Wrap

It probably wasn’t ideal for anyone, but I think people understood and made the best of it.

By Jason Sumner

Imagine turning loose a World Cup-caliber cross country field on a 7km circuit, then peppering the course with slow moving sport class riders just to keep things interesting. That was essentially the nature of things Tuesday at the Brasil Ride mountain bike stage race.

At 10 in the morning the fast folks were sent on their way. A few minutes later, everyone else started the 5-lap, 35km race. It took less than 10km before the top men were blasting through the amateur field; the slowest riders were lapped three times by the fast guys. That made for some occasionally harrowing moments, especially on the crux of the circuit, a steep, loose, rocky descent near the end of the lap.

“It probably wasn’t ideal for anyone, but I think people understood and made the best of it. And it was a very fun trail,” said stage winner Kristian Hynex (Future Cycling-Sweep), who escaped early in the 35km race with Luis Pinto (Spano-Luso), and then took a two-up sprint at the line, stopping the clock in 1:33:58. German Lukas Kaufmann (Easton Rockets) was third, at 2:26.

Tuesday was also the only day in this seven-day affair where teammates didn’t have to ride together. Instead, it was every man or women for themselves. Afterward the combined time for each two was averaged to calculate impact on the general classification.

That gave Hynek and teammate Robert Novatny a 1:53 GC gain on Pinto and his partner, Alejandro Lopez, slicing the GC gap from the Czech to the Iberian duo to just 44 seconds with four days of racing to go.

The mixed field saw greater expansion, with German Ivonne Kraft and Brazilian partner Mateus Ferraz (Brasil Soul-RC Bikes) widening their GC edge over the Italian duo of Annabella Stropparo and Piero Pellegrini (Annapiero) to more than 40 minutes.

The top of the women’s standing also remained intact, as Adriana Nascimento and Sabrina Gobbo (Ladies Brasil Soul-RC Bikes) took their third stage win in a row.

This unique stage included the core elements of a true mountain bike race: technical climbing, rough and fast singletrack, and the aforementioned loose, rocky plunge that favored full suspension bikes and/or riders with a little courage.

There was also a quick trip through the inside of a small, open-air chapel, right after a steep hike-a-bike and right before the plunge, giving riders a chance to say their prayers before dropping in.

The compelling challenge was stark contrast to stage 2’s 145km slog, that culminated with mind-numbing, 20km fire road climb in the heat of the day.

Up next in Brazil is the stage 4, an 81.5km loop starting and finishing in Rio de Contas. In between riders will face a 2343 meters of climbing.