After leading the Epic Flow category from the start gate, we manage to take today’s stage win! Hurrah! This stage brought us 1400 vertical meters of climbing and more than 3000 verticals going down. Right from the start gate, we went for a nice pace even though there was no warm-up. And we keep the lead for almost the whole race. What went extremely well was the long uphill climbing 1000m in a row, and also keeping a good pace in all descends.
But to make it a little tougher for us, at the end of the 12km long descend on singletrack, we arrived at the time checkout station at Visp as first Epic Flow team. Instead of giving us a sign or signal to stop there, we were directed to keep going the Epics track. Even when we asked at that point, if Epic Flow teams keep going, we were adviced to keep riding (watch the video). Thinking that the finish and shuttle bus are soon to come, we rode on for about 3km until we realize the way must be wrong. Just another mishap on this long race trip. More attention to detail is certainly appreciated, also by other Epic Flow team racers!
When coming back 13 minutes later to this checkout station we get 10 minutes subtracted. Looks plenty enough, right? We still like the event a lot and think that this race format is way better compared to enduro races that are actually mini DH. The overall organisation is good and the main focus is clearly on the Swiss Epic edition, with their UCI teams.
The Swiss Epic Flow in our eyes is not just for gravity junkies but it is for allrounders who enjoy sweet mountain singletrack and can manage long climbs
Find here the Stage 4 ranking:
