There is usually a fun category if you’re worried about your pace, but it’s generally not a problem,I had to let a few faster guys past me this weekend.

If you’re near swinley then swinduro is a good shout, not too technical! & this year they are having camping & kids races, as well as xc & dual slalom it seems !

https://www.swinduro.com/

Edit there’s even a gravel race. & An old skool MTB race.
Actually had no idea so much was happening at swinduro, Tristan is taking on a lot, there’s only one way to find out if it will be Glastonbury on bikes or Fyre festival, gonna sign up!

Picking the right event is definitely the best way to enjoy it. Sure if you mention location plenty of people will advise what events are less serious and more fun to get the most out of it.

For dipping your toe in the enduro water the Swinduro is about as tame as it gets.

If you’re worried about pace, just enter fun, or grade yourself (I think they ask when you enter to put yourself down as 1-5, 1 being fast, 5 being slow) & be observant to faster riders. You will know after the first stage if you’re likely to be caught.

If you’re the catching rider, you can always leave a bigger gap at the start too, but the stages are mega short anyway.

Nation series standings:
https://www.rootsandrain.com/series1083/2019-bemba-national-enduro-series/standings/

And some info about round 3:
http://southernenduro.co.uk/champs2019/

Questions?

No seeding on Saturday now?

No 2 reasons:
1. Main reason not enough day light for 600 riders.
2. None of the other BNES rounds have seeding.

Practice stage 1,2&3 in the morning before the mash up, you can d them in under an hour.

Well that was fun! Managed to stay upright for all seven stages but stage 2 wasn’t pretty(or fast)! It looked like the medics were busy all weekend. Hope everyone was okay.

Did the lites on Saturday and it was brilliant. Stacked it into a tree on stage 4 had time to put one run on it but was way off pace. Great laugh.

Well done @scottfitz it really was the best organised event I’ve done

Marshals and medics did a great job, it was super dry and loose out there.

Cheers to everyone that came 900 racers was a real challenge. And 100 ladies between the 2 races is incredible.

great weekend & great trails

results were definitely not my best but spent a great 4 days camping with the family at a brilliant campsite down the road, kids had a brilliant weekend

top work scott, crew & all the marshals

kids play area was great idea too,

my kids loved the unicorn

Another round of the Welsh Enduro Series done. Conditions were perfect and the trails at Llandegla running fast. 32nd out of 74 in Masters was a big improvement over the previous 2 rounds for me but I have to admit to being a little disappointed. My runs were all good for me, maybe lost a handful of seconds through little errors but nothing significant so it’s a little disheartening to be 54 seconds down on the Masters winner. Still, I’ll be in Vets next year so maybe it’s not so bad – would have been 23rd of 55 Vets, but still 45 seconds off the winner. Despite the slight disappointment, another great day out. Looking forwards to Round 4.

Cheers Tim. Definitely a different kettle of fish to Foel, certainly playing to my strengths more. Hope the first ride back went well and you’re healing up.

BNES 4 rounds done 2 to go, standings so far:

https://www.rootsandrain.com/series1083/2019-bemba-national-enduro-series/standings/

Hey, I’ve got a couple of entries for Ard Moors Sprint, if anyone is interested in taking them off me? They cost me £130.20.

Pmba Kirro and fair city left for me this year . Had a mixed one this year , had my best result and one of my favourite days on a bike for ages at dunkeld then a nightmare practice day at tweedlove last week which ended up with me not racing on Sunday . Looking forward to the 2 left as they are good days out .

What a top race, hats off to Charlie, loop wasn’t massive but stages were all great

Big dump of rain on Saturday night turned sections & the whole of stage 2 into a mud chute

I crashed a lot!

Great fun tho

Thoroughly enjoyed the WGE at Eastridge at the weekend. Stages were decent, atmosphere was friendly and the mash up format is good fun – nice to be able to put a run down knowing you can have another crack at it. I’ll definitely be doing more next year.

Our plan was to do four runs in the morning then stop for a cuppa and go back out to do 4 more.
Stage 1 I caught someone and took a few seconds to pass, then stage 2 I had a messy run.
My shock had been playing up (turns out it’s a warranty job) so I was getting lots of pedal strikes and chain slap. Second run down 2 my chain came off, then on 3 I managed to mangle my mech and snap my chain. Gutted.
I pushed back up to 3 so I at least had a time recorded for all stages and really enjoyed the chainless run so I did it again. Somehow managed to find 7 seconds.

Just about sneaked into the top half in class so very happy considering.

I’ve not seen them anywhere.

I managed to do all six of the BNES series. Each race was great, but it was a serious amount of commitment in time, cost, logistics and effort to do them all.

As a thoroughly mid pack rider, I don’t think I’d make the commitment again.

I was never in it to win it, and obviously the quick boys and girls were much higher up in the points table and deservedly so, but the distribution of the points system throughout a category with a large number of entrants seemed to not really encourage people like me who made up the bulk of the pack to attend multiple races.

It was a great experience though, I’m glad I did it, and would recommend others to do so next year; but I think I’ll stick to the WGE or Southern series next year, with maybe a couple of interesting Lakes / Scotland put in to the mix as I feel like it, rather than making the huge BNES commitment again.

Thanks to all those that were involved in organising the races.

On a side note – have the organisers asked for feedback on the series anywhere?

Was sure I’d seen the BEMBA final points somewhere (with my token 4 points for taking part in 4 races!) but can’t find it. May be getting confused with the SW Series (where I got more points 😁) but thought it was on Action Sports Timing’s site.

I think the National Series worked well piggybacking existing races. However, I did both the WGES + BNES combo weekends and all four races felt compromised a little as a result, so not sure I’d do the same next year…one or the other for me.

I’ve heard rumours of potentially more races in the series next year so I’m thinking the organisers felt it went well generally.