MARIGOT—Mark Maidwell and Otis “Oats” Paines (Team Music Men) won Sunday’s Baker Tilly Extreme Duo mountain bike race to deny a back-to-back win for last year’s champions, Dick Luttekes and Karel Spiker (Oyster Power).
Music Men completed the tough 49K off-road on-road around the island race in 2: 48:45 coming into the finish line at Kim Sha Beach three minutes ahead of Team Oyster Power (2:51:40). Third team to cross the finish line was Team Fortenight (Kenny Carty and Noel Kianny), the first Junior team (2:53:20).
Nico Warmé and Christopher Cilliers (Here for the beer) finished in fourth place (2:56:25) with the Bonaire Team coming in fifth, despite taking several wrong turns on the course (3:05:20).
SX-Treme Love Riderz (Andy Armongon and Céline Verdonck) was the first mixed team to finish followed by CIRE Express (Nicole Erato and Eric Bendahan). Tr Sport Tigers (Susy and Juan Pablo Piscione) were third.
Dick and Karel controlled the race from the beginning until Mark and Otis overtook after the Pic Paradis water stop.
“We had to pace ourselves until Pic Paradis because we knew that would be the separator,” said Otis afterwards. “Dick went pretty hard on the Pic Paradis climb and the plan was not to let him get too far in front. We took the technical descent from Pic Paradis carefully until Le Galion when we upped the pace again.”
It wasn’t until the Princess climb in Bellevue that Dick and Karel caught up again. The two juniors Kenny (15) and Kianny (18) from the ASM Club had a remarkably good race despite being dedicated roadies.
“It was fun race. We don’t have that much experience mountain biking but we are very good on the road so we were able to stay with the top guys,” said Kianny. “Pic Paradis was where we gained time. We lost a bit of time in Happy Bay taking a wrong turn. In Bellevue on the way back we fought hard to keep third place. It was a nice experience.”
Mountain biking’s hard-core elite, a rogue’s gallery of usual suspects from both sides of the island, turned out for this race billed as a shorter more doable race compared to the 60 and 70K races of previous editions. But with the inclusion of the Pic Paradis ascent, this was still a hard race for the 17 teams entered.
Pic Paradis took its toll on Dean Hodge Jr who partnered with Trinidad’s Jason Costelloe, one of the fancied teams to win, slowing them down to sixth place overall (3:13:24). Elsewhere on the course, Michael Bacon who teamed up with Frits Bus was forced to retire with back pain leaving Frits to finish alone.
Among the prizes the winning team won two round trip tickets from sponsor WINAIR for the Extreme Duo mountain bike race in Curacao. The Extreme Duo mountain bike race is now in its eighth year in St. Maarten.
“We are proud to be a sponsor of sports events and cycling in particular,” said Baker Tilly representative and co organiser,” Erik van Engelen who also organized the first event in 2012. “Congratulations to all the teams.”
