After the dust and mud of the the first season of the SixSixOne Gravity Enduro Series has settled it seems that the fledgling format has found its wings and will moving on from a successful first season, with dates being announced for 2012 but locations yet to be confirmed.
The first series went off well, with decent rider turnout despite awful weather plaguing a number of venues. The format proved to be a game of experience as well as fitness and skill, with Rob ‘Box’ Cooksley of Bad Ass Bikes managing to take the overall win from a talented Elite field, despite racing in the Masters category.
In the women’s field, Helen Gaskell dominated from start to finish taking first place in each race she entered, taking the overall women’s title as well as the Elite crown.
The success of the first season and the racing format as a whole seems to be catching the attention of the UCI who, while ditching the 4X format for World Cup races, appear set to pick up the Gravity Enduro format in one way or another for 2013. They’ve been iniviting organisers of current gravity enduro events to contact them with a view to establishing a UCI Enduro Calendar, with races in the form of multi-stage races, day races or mass start races.
We had a quick chat with organiser Steve Parr about how the year went:
“Series went down a storm with the riders who attended, well done to all of them for racing in such shite weather! 2012 is looking good, with some big names moving away from DH into Enduro. Some venues will change, no Kielder for defo, possibly a second in Shropshire and one in the Lakes (TBC). Lots to do over Winter, as well as get myself fit to race a few Enduros…”
He added:
“We need more staff on the ground [for 2012], for start marshals, stage take down and marshals. The task is slightly different to a normal DH role, in that stages on Sunday are only live for a couple of hours and Saturday is all about mobility or a roving role, anyone interested in offering help please get in touch by email steveparr66@yahoo.co.uk”
The proposed dates for next year are below:
Rd1 – 24th 25th March
Rd2 – 28th 29th April
Rd3 – 26th 27th May
Rd 4 – 4th 5th August
Rd 5 – 1st 2nd September
Check out our video from the second round at Kielder for a taste of last year’s action…
http://vimeo.com/25054399
We’re looking forward to another year of racing in what is an excellent format, so get in touch with Steve if you think you can help out – and in the meantime, let us know if you think having the UCI involved with this sport is a good thing…
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So i’m hoping to have a bit more spare money next year so definitely going to enter some of these. Lakes and Shropshire for sure. Time to get training!
Cheaper next year please. The one I went to was a good event but a little pricey for what it was. Think this has something to do with number of marshalls needed but hopefully more people and sponsors will mean a bigger and better-value event for next year.
Great to see this format taking off. I agree with a few others that its very pricey, from my understanding the price reflects the more expensive (but more accurate I believe) timing system. My personal view is that for 90% of the riders so long as the timing system creates a level playing field then it doesnt need to be that high tech or accurate. The dibber system at the inners enduro’s works absolutely fine, although some of the marshalls had it in their hand I would suggest the simpliest and fairest way to do it is just to stick the things to posts so you dib in yourself. Hope to see lots more of these races cropping up in the future.
Yeah its expensive, but they are basically collating 5 DH runs back to back and sorting out a proper pit area, commentary etc.
I’m training for next year, and not on a hardtail for this series!
So are Singletrack supporting this series next year? You guys were conspicuous in your abscence for most of this season’s races which seemed odd for a media sponsor?
Hi FBK – We did as many as we could – two of the events clashed with other events that we were also sponsors for – and the last one was during Eurobike _interbike silly season ;]
We supported the event through banner ad’s on the site and adverts in the magazine – We’d love to be at allof the series (and taking part rather than just filming as well) but there’s only so many of us and so may weekends.
Cheers
Matt
Is missing out June and July an attempt at getting better weather? 😉
Missing out June and July is for 2 reasons, 1 the weather, historically has been shite in those months for the past 3-4 years, secondly, most important, most of you disappear on holiday.
Yay!
Sorry but some-one needs to say it:
any change in the ludicrous price?
i want to do these races but its such a rip off, i could do a DH race weekend for less with the uplift included.
Are they still marketing at 2 days full riding, despite it being on a track that you can ride any time for free?
Price won’t change, i’m afraid, if you think its a rip off don’t come.
Sorry to be blunt, but the cost to put these events on is huge eg – £7,000 timing, £3,500 medics, £2.50 per rider FC, £800 toilets,£600 trophies,£350 skips,£400 barriers, this does’nt include our fuel or time spent organizing.
Go sit in your uplift queue and wait for your 2 timed runs on Sunday, we’ll be out riding all day 🙂
The stages are all laid out ready to ride for Friday, so if you come on Friday, thats 3 full days riding.
Pretty sure you can ride most DH tracks for FREE as well