- Five days of racing, six days of camping,
all inclusive; This is the Andes Pacifico!
(energetic music)
Okay, before we get started, what is this race all about?
(bike grinds dirt)
This event is an Enduro competition, or a trans-race,
where each day is made up of mixture
of liaisons and special stages.
The liaisons consists of truck travel, climbs,
and hiker bikes, and the special stages are time sections
of the race, where the racing happens.
It starts at over 3,500 meters
and descends westward towards 10 valleys
and over five days to reach the Pacific ocean.
The winner is the rider with the lowest aggregate time
of all special stages; This year the Andes Pacifico
has 12,000 meters of vertical descending.
That's a hell of a lot, but as we travel through the race
stage to stage, valley to valley most of the riders
are unaware of the hive of activity
that goes on moving a campsite.
Alright, it's quarter to nine, everyone's had breakfast,
they're all heading off now, getting in the trucks
and heading up to stage one of their big day.
Now, what happens to all of this? We're moving camp today,
so what's the logistics of how to move
all of this to the next camp? I'm gonna take you through it.
Alright, it's all going off already.
There was a big tent there, that's packed down,
we've got this beer tent to move,
we've got the clinic to move, we've got stands,
we've got workshops; all of this has to be moved.
The media crew have the hardest task:
They are the first ones to leave camp
because they have to get up to the top of the stage
right down to their preferred spot,
so, where they wanna take some photos.
They're the first ones on the mountain.
Alright, this little village behind me of yellow tents
is where all the riders in the event are gonna be sleeping.
They're all getting ready to head out,
they're packing their bags because we're moving camp,
so they're getting everything pretty
in these big, green duffel bags, carrying them up,
dumping them so they can get transferred
in a huge truck to their nest stage.
The great thing about this is: No stress.
If you've got everything in this bag out of your tent,
you just dump it here, forget about it,
go and do your racing, get back to camp, you head back,
it'll be in a pile like this, pick your bag up,
go find your number, your tent,
which is the same number that's on your bike.
For me, it's number 12.
Hang on a minute, there was a massive shower block here,
I had a shower here this morning,
it's all gone, it's just a muddy mess.
(claps) Stuff happens here very quick,
cause they've gotta get to the next campsite,
so they can set it all up; there's still boxes.
It'll all get cleaned up, it all gets cleaned up.
Okay, so there's 109 staff, to the dot,
and that's not including media.
Now, you need somewhere to put all those people,
and there's 158 tents that get made
every time they move camp; look at that, a city of tents.
But what about all these tents?
Who's gonna pack these up and put them in a bag?
I don't like doing that.
All the riders area ready, all the bikes' on the back,
four bikes per truck, four riders in the cab,
plus the driver, and they're gonna convoy
40 trucks up to the next stage.
And by the looks of it, they should've left 15 minutes ago,
but you know, athletes, we all run a bit late.
Alright, this whole convoy is lead up
by this beast right here, he's the kingpin of the thing,
he gets all these 40 trucks to the right spot.
Everyone follows in convoy with this,
but before they leave, they've gotta check each individual
rider's number board on the back of these trucks,
so they can tick them off to know
who's out there on that stage.
40 trucks carrying 120 riders.
(cars drive)
That's only 35 minutes late, that's pretty good,
could've been an hour; athletes tend to run
on their own time, and they don't leave camp
without everyone in those trucks.
Once the riders head out to their day of racing,
it is time for us to head to the next camp
and see how they set up the next site.
Two and a half hours drive down the highway,
then you come to this: This campsite is...
This campsite is number three,
and it's an empty field, we've only got a few tents here,
they're the ones there; You've got medical tent,
another tent which I'm guessing is for the workers,
and in this complex right behind me is as shaded area,
some green grass, and they've got about four hours
to get everything ready and built, before all those riders
are coming off these mountains, back to camp to freshen up.
I see no showers; I see one pool
that's the size of a sardines can
that I don't think 120 people are gonna fit in.
There's nothing here...
Where's the kitchen? It's not set up.
Four hours, see how fast they get set up.
Ay, our bags! Oh, these are not the bags,
those are the tents and the beds.
So they're gonna set up all the tents right now,
all up in here, it's gonna be
a village of tents, soon, with all those beds.
Right, a little update: The medic is coming.
Slowly but surely, everything's coming together.
This whole campsite is gonna be turned into a small village.
(truck horn honks) Exciting update!
We're all gonna be using these
throughout the whole time we're gonna be here;
This is the ablutions, it's the toilets.
It's now five past three in the p.m.,
and everything's starting to happen, the buzz is coming.
Very slowly, but surely, this is gonna be a little village.
(truck struggles)
And a little truck nearly got stuck.
Keeping this chaos organized is these lovely ladies.
They keep everything under control,
from logistics, to all the riders,
to everything that goes on and happening around camp.
Without these ladies none of this would be running smoothly.
(upbeat music)
So, let's talk about day by day numbers;
Four barrels of beer a day,
10 horses for the media,
400 eggs in a morning,
12 Chilian watermelons a day,
600 liters of water,
Staff in the kitchen: 13, divided into three teams.
Two trucks to carry the whole kitchen,
that's a hell of a big kitchen sink.
The bag truck has arrived with the goods,
let's see if my bag's arrived.
So what they're doing is they're placing all the bags out
in numerical order, so starting from one
all the way up to 125, which is a lot of bags.
All those tents are looking good,
they're coming together very nicely!
Every single one of these tents has a number,
and that's the number that's on your number board.
So, mine's number 12, so I'm gonna grab my bag
and then I go find my tent, number 12
is somewhere in there, set up tent; Bit like home,
really, home from home, that yellow tent of mine.
(claps) The major, the major, major kingpin
to this whole thing that fuels those riders
when it comes off the mountain is the Beer Truck!
Beer Truck, it's this: The Beer Truck!
And obviously, when they're a little bit hydrated,
they can grab themselves another little bit of hydration,
which is this beer, and it's free; How cool is that?
(gasping) Beer, beer, beer, oh my god,
beer, where is it? There it is!
(gasps and yells) (rhythmic music)
So the day started at 9:00a.m.,
well, let's just say 9:30a.m., okay,
and there's still guys coming in.
It is 9:00p.m., that's a big, big day,
out there in those mountains,
racing three stages; It's insane.
So, it's the end of a big day for the athletes,
but the day is still young; These guys start working
right now, these are the mechanics,
it's like a race pits, look how big this is!
Everything gets done here, all the athletes
bring their bikes if there's something wrong with them,
they come here, drop her off, they change stuff,
they sort out their brakes, if it needs bleeding
or if it's snapped a chain; anything that needs doing,
these guys are at hand to give these athletes
what they want, to get their bike fresh for the next day.
But take a look a this, this is a humongous setup.
So there you go, it's behind the scenes
of one of these massive, massive Enduro races,
like the Andes Pacifico, from the mountains
they caught all of this all the way down to the ocean side,
to the Pacific, which is pretty insane;
You know what the most insane thing is?
See all of this, right now? Within less than 10 hours,
this is all getting packed up
and going to the next campsite.
Thank you very much for watching this video!
Hopefully it's given you a little bit more of an insight
of what goes on with a massive event just like this,
there's a lot of dedicated people behind the scenes,
that you guys don't even get to see;
You only get to see the athletes that race this race.
If you like this sort of content, don't forget
to hit that globe to subscribe,
cause you're missing out on some rad stuff!
If you wanna see some racing where Neil
actually took part in this race, click just over here!
Don't forget: hit the globe to subscribe,
and give us a thumbs up, like,
and I'll see you in the next one, see ya!