Andes Pacifico 2015 Final Results – Video

Date Feb 16, 2015

The 2015 Andes Pacifico was a knock down slugfest between the two top contenders; Nico Lau and Fabien Barel. Fabien won days one and three while Nico took two and four and by the finish line, over two hours of stage racing, Nico took the win by 35 seconds.

Fabien was in a solid position to take the win over the hard-pedalling Nico Lau, when disaster struck on stage 15.

Fabien’s undoing was a mishap with some loose tape on the course. Fabien crashed hard when the course marking material threaded into his rear wheel, melting on the rotor . While the tape remained in his cogs for the rest of the race making Fab’s top gears unusable, he only lost 6 seconds combined in the final four stages. Alas the 52 seconds lost in the tape debacle cost him victory.

Nico opted to start before Fabien so he didn’t know about the marking tape mishap until Fabien rolled across the line. Image courtesy Cube Bikes via Facebook.

Whistler locals did extremely well despite the debilitating heat, with Chris Johnston, Dylan Wolsky and Seb Kemp finishing 3rd, 13th and 17th respectively. Seb had some great stages with three top ten finishes, including a 5th on stage 12. Of the 63 who began the event, only 41 crossed the finish line four days later.

Third has to be sweet for Johnston who broke his elbow at Andes Pacifico in 2014. He was incredibly consistent finishing fourth on day one and then third for the final three.

Day 4 Results