If you enjoy the heart-pounding thrills of hard enduro, then you’re going to be thankful for this onboard video that Sherco factory racer Mario Román recently posted to his YouTube channel. In it, you get to ride along for the entire 2022 Red Bull Los Andes event in Chile, which took place in the middle of October. 

As you’ll see, it was pretty … intense, we’ll say. Román calls this video a spicy onboard in his title (if you’re watching this with Spanish-speaking family and that’s a concern, it’s bleeped), and there are several moments where things get pretty heated.  

The course is tough—but then again, it’s Red Bull Los Andes. Steep hills (both up and down) with tricky, rocky ascents and descents are the norm. Man-made obstacles range from pits of chopped firewood to piles of discarded, knobby tires from heavy equipment, as well as some dilapidated and crusty car carcasses. Still, all that stuff seems to be no big deal to an experienced rider like Román. 

While the first lap runs pretty smoothly, the parts that really seem to try his patience are when he starts lapping backmarkers. There are a lot of competitors in this event—and several of the areas on the course are very narrow. So narrow, in fact, that it's difficult to pass riders who have stopped along the way. Since there are so many steep uphill segments, if one rider loses momentum and isn’t able to get up the hill, they need to either find a way to get up, or else get a tug up with a rope deployed by the Los Andes course marshals.  

That last bit provided some controversy at this year’s event, with some riders alleging that crew weren’t providing rope assistance in the same order that riders arrived on the scene. In this video, there’s one point where Román gets bent out of shape because that happens to him. However, the rider who briefly gets ahead of him has the grace to pull aside and let Román retake the lead, as it should have been to begin with.  

In any case, all is apparently well that ends well, because Román went on to help his Sherco Factory racing team sweep the podium at this event. Román stood on the top step at the end, followed by teammates Wade Young in second and Cody Webb in third.  

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