The Trail Trophy stop in Flims offers three magnificent days of racing in the Grisons mountains, at the foot of the Tschingelhörner and Crap Sogn Gion. The participants have to tackle a total of 13 downhill stages, four of them on Friday, including a night stage that has its own pitfalls. The sun shines almost continuously for two days, offering the enduro riders perfect conditions and views of the beautiful mountain scenery. However, a lot of sweat also flows on the transfer and descent stages, as the temperatures are very summery right up to the top.

High alpine highlight

The four stages on Saturday afternoon, which start below the Vorab Glacier at around 2600 meters above sea level, are considered a highlight. "An absolute experience having to search for the optimal line in this open, rocky terrain," says Gusti Wildhaber, summarizing these downhill stages on behalf of many participants.

On Sunday morning, the sky over Crap Sogn Gion suddenly became overcast, so the eleventh stage was postponed at short notice. In this dense fog, mountain rescue could not have been ensured in an emergency. Nevertheless, there is still plenty of time to be gained and lost on the last three stages. Especially in the Master Class Men it gets really exciting again. In the end, Tobias Leonhardt (GER/SQlab-Centurion-Velothek) won here with a total riding time of 32:46.31 minutes, exactly two seconds ahead of Toni Gisler (SUI/TellRiders) from Uri and Adrian Vesenbeckh (GER/Giants meets Ibis) in 33:14.96 minutes.

The final result in the "Super Masters Men" class was much clearer: Here, Wilfred van de Haterd (NED/Giant meets Ibis) won in 32:59.77 minutes ahead of André Fritzenschaft (GER/Elchingen) and Wilhelm Stricker (ITA/SC Meran Zorzi Kältetechnik).

In the Riders Class Men and Women categories, the same riders took the podium as in 2016: with Gusti Wildhaber (SUI/Cube Action Team) and Camille Balanche (SUI/Norco Enduro Racing Team), the two Swiss riders defended their "title" from the previous year with aplomb. Wildhaber won in 29:53:35 minutes, finishing 1:20.88 minutes ahead of Mirco Widmer (SUI/Giant Swiss Team) and the former German enduro champion Christian Textor (Velo Stosser), who needed 31:22.32 minutes for the 13 stages in total.

Camille Balanche was also able to pull out a clear lead in the women's race. After 35:57.16 minutes, she wins ahead of Stefanie Thalmann (SUI/chicksgang/ION-MAHU) and Franziska Meyer, the runner-up in the 4x World Championships (GER/Ghost Riot Racing).

Popular team rankings

In the women's team classification, victory went to the three-man team "Chicksgang" with Stefanie Thalmann, Lea Rutz and Andrea Kiser (SUI). Second place went to Michelle Hediger, Andrea de Castelberg and Jutta Würth from the "Sportfreundinnen Schneller" team, and third place went to the "Kanaloma" team with Nadia Sommer, Carol Niederberger and Andrea Lüthi.

In the men's competition, 32 teams compete for the podium. In the end, it is the "Giant Swiss Team" with Mirco Widmer, Marco Arnold and Mike Schuler that prevails against the "biketrails flims" team with Gustav Wildhaber, Ronny Caduff and Pascal Krieger. The "Casa Fuchs" team with Stefan Peter, Tim Bratschi and Claudio Negro took third place.

The "bike-components Trail-Trophy" sponsors are also competing in a classification: in the "Battle of Brands" class, the three-man team "e*thirteen 1" with Markus Reiser, Thomas Schäfer and Roland Audenrieth took first place ahead of Team Fox with André Wagenknecht, Sascha Meyenborg and Willi Lützeler. Team "LevelNine" with Philipp Walder, Björn Feldmann and Christoph Schmitt snatched the last podium place.

www.trailtrophy.eu