On The Pegs P 34
On The Pegs P 34
BLANC-GONNET WINS UTE CUP BY FOUR MONTHS !
Colorado ’ s Ute Cup two-day trial is one of the premiere trial events in the country . Held on the Rainbow Trail near Salida , this year ’ s Ute Cup featured a 20 mile loop along picturesque alpine vistas .
GasGas North America ’ s Daniel Blanc- Gonnet topped this year ’ s event after winning a tie breaker with Pennsylvania ’ s Logan Bolopue . Both Blanc- Gonnet and Bolopue cleaned each day of this year ’ s event . The tie breaker was age , with the win going to the oldest rider . Blanc-Gonnet won the event by four months over Bolopue .
“ Going into it , I knew that the best way to win the Ute Cup was just to clean the whole thing ,” said Blanc-Gonnet . “ That ’ s usually how it goes . This year it was pretty dry up there . It was almost fire dangered out . So I didn ’ t really have to worry about it being slick , but definitely the loose soil and the rollies and the high altitude definitely played a part into it . So when we got there , obviously Logan and a couple other pretty decent guys and a lot of people that actually won the Ute Cup before were there . I knew that I ’ m one of the younger ones , so I got to clean it . Going into it , it was going to be a big mind game . I rode with Logan . Pretty much watched him the whole time . We just went back and forth , switched off sections . By the time we cleaned the first loop , we were not sure if the tie break was going to be age or if it was going to be time , just because we didn ’ t really look up the rules . So we started racing each other . We weren ’ t even walking sections at that point . We were just riding them . We ’ d just not even take our backpacks off . We ’ d just look through the section and then just go for it . So it was getting kind of sketchy there for a while . I was holding on for dear life . There was a couple times where I was pretty close to dabbing , but I was not going to give it up . But in the end it came down to both me and Logan tied both days , both clean . I won on the age tie break , but I ’ m only four months older . I was hoping it wouldn ’ t come down to that , but it ended up coming down to that .”
2018 UTE CUP RESULTS 1 . DANIEL BLANC-GONNET ( 0 ) 2 . LOGAN BOLOPUE ( 0 ) 3 . MICAH HERTRICH ( 4 ) 4 . NIGEL PARKER ( 4 ) 5 . MARK MANNIKO ( 6 ) 6 . JEREMY FARBER ( 20 ) 7 . LOUIS BOLOPUE ( 26 ) 8 . JAMES ZUROSKE ( 42 ) 9 . HAYDEN FRANKLIN ( 45 ) 10 . JUSTIN JOHNSON ( 46 )