October 04, 2018 (Israel) – Canada’s Raphael Gagne and Andrew L’Esperance have teamed up to take on Ford Epic Israel, a 3-day MTB stage race, S1 UCI off-road stage race, from Oct. 4-6. Stage 1 at 87km featured a mix of dirt road, double track, dusty road, farm field and single track, with 1,800 meters of climbing. The Canadian duo finished 14th overall. Fellow Canuck, Cindy Montambault, finished 3rd in the women’s race racing with Jacqueline Mourao on their Scott Bresil/Trek GPL team.

“It was a really exciting day here at Epic Israel and I am happy to get it started after the anticipation since arriving in Tel Aviv on Monday,” said L’Esperance. “We had an awesome few days touring around Tel Aviv and Jerusalem with the Israel Ministry of Tourism and seeing parts of this country that is very rich history.

“Today started off well with strong riding by both Raph and I to get in the lead group and do our best to save as much energy as possible for later in the race. It was a really cool experience being in a large group racing and smoothly flowing through the rough terrain. At 25 km in we had our first mechanical of the day, a front flat on my bike that took multiple plugs in two different locations to fix. It was not a quick fix but it was also not a simple flat so we were happy with how we managed.”

The pair had a really strong first 25 km with good positioning and felt good in the lead group but suffered a front flat that needed two tire plugs to fix. Then a slow rear flat was fixed with a shot of CO2. The duo chased back strong in large group that headed into tech/feed 2 at 57 km.

“It was humbling to be able to support each other in a tough luck day with highs and lows to bring the best of each other. We worked well together and kept it positive,” said Gagne. “We did a really good job of being well prepared in terms of nutrition, hydration and mechanic. We even stopped to grab a few extra CO2 from our mid-race tech box from the tech zone just in case. The heat and the dust is the challenge for everyone, in some spot its pretty scary and dangerous in the lead pack with the reduced visibility and obstacle coming our way. We are confident that with a bit of luck on our side we can have 2 strong day and progress in the overall standing. I’d like to thanks my team Silverback OMX pro team for the continued support this season.”

Over the rest of the day they had a bit more bad luck having to top up the rear and do a wheel change at tech/feed 2, “When my back tire picked up a nail that entered the tread and exited the sidewall,” shared L’Esperance.

“We worked really well as a team throughout these challenges I am confident we will be able to manage anything that comes up over the next 2 days. For the last hour of the race I suffered big time in the heat and it was a real team effort to make it to the finish and a lot of keeping it together for me,” he added.

Results (brief)

Men
1. Lexware Mountainbike Team (Branbl/Eger) 3:32:21
2. Mobel Morki MTB Pro Team (Raggl/Markt) 3:32:29
3. Team Trek Selle San Marco (de Fararo/Cosmo) 3:35:28
4. Hungarian National Team (Morton/Valter) 3:36:53
5. Team Papival – Bergamont (Chenaux/Chenaux) 3:38:00
6. Lexware Mountainbike Team 2 (Scharzbauer/List) 3:39:37
7. Monkey Town CT (Blums/Ocklean) 3:42:29
8. Israel Germany (Schulte-Lunzum/Sessler) 3:43:31
9. Serpantin (Seledkov/Filatov) 3:43:53
10. bischibikes / kopierpapier.ch (Spiess/Vitzthum) 3:44:47

14. Canadian National Team (Gagne/L’Esperance) 3:51:57

Women
1. Hungarian Nation Team-Ghost (Terpstra/Benko) 4:10:39
2. Red and White (Tazreiter/Suss) 4:14:32
3. Scott Bresil/Trek GPL (Mourao/Montambault) 4:41:56
4. Joe’s No Flats (Daubermann/Noyman) 4:47:56
5. BWR Team (Michiels/Crnogorac) 5:03:58