It was a bitter fight for the women’s first place TdN, with the 14 sections pretty much unchanged from Friday other than by the rains – which was plenty of impact. The creek had become a river, with noisy rapids in many sections. It was a long hard day.

Here are some shots from the event. The stand-alone boulders are from in section 14 back in the town stadium.

In the end, it was Spain with a two point lead over a very disappointed Great Britain female squad. The TdN points were awarded based on the best two scores from each section for each team. GB was ahead at the end of the first loop by one point, but fell behind on loop two. It was the German team who captured third place. They had some excellent performances, but were too inconsistent. The French were the next in line for podium duties with fourth place scores. Only the Italians improved their scores from loop one. Portugal took last place among the 10 teams, although one of their riders is as spunky and determined as any you’ll see.

The USA riders finally got their gear from the airlines. Sarah and Caroline put up scores almost as good as their individual rides from Friday. Clearly, the new scoring system favors having more riders than the minimum — as everyone has a bad section ride from time to time. Congrats for keeping us in the hunt!

Now for some news you can use! Either we’ve been in the woods or the beach and totally isolated, or this is new news! While hanging out near section 5 between loops on Saturday, we saw a new pre-production trials bike with a name from the past. That is right — a new Ossa is in the works. Marc Colomer (former TdN world champion from Spain) was testing the new Ossa TR280i – with Toni Bou and Jeroni Fajardo, of the 2010 Spain team, providing some playful competition as they practiced. The entertainment from those three experts was great – and the mystic of the new bike added to the excitement.

Marc would ride the unofficial “section” and then,the Ossa technical wizards with their interface and laptop computer would surround him, quiz him & plug in. I am guessing they were trying to see if the fuel and ignition systems “mapped” correctly. Watching Marc practicing in a rocky stream bed, the new Ossa was as ridable as a GasGas. But its totally different in most ways once you’re under the seat. Some unusual features of the new Ossa are an engine where the cylinder faces toward the rear, the fuel tank serves as the front engine/frame support.and the air box is located above the engine.

Ossa had a trailer, tent 7 banners in the paddock – so they were not as secretive as you might think. But the website reveals nothing beyond the logo. We will have to wait to see the final version. Hmmm. Will here be an Ossa available for closer inspection at TTC in the near future?