I’ve had to ask for a refund for PMBA round one at Gisburn as I’m in for a hernia op next Friday.  Gutted.

Dreading the time off the bike after getting fit to race. Hopefully will get somewhere near full fitness in time for the mega.

May end up at Kiroughtree with my refunded ticket in September…

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2ovt2N4]randr-photo-10077948-2000px-by-c-jarman[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Race number on again yesterday, Southern Enduro series at Milland. Practice went fairly well with not too many mistakes, stalled on one section of stage 2 but it went fairly OK overall.
Racing, onto stage 1 and the track had been churned up by 300+ people hitting the first section and i lost my footing in turn 2 and stage 1 was a write off… Nightmare… lost 12 seconds or so… GRRRRR.
Stage 2 went worse ! i’m not even sure how…. but it did.. I went into a tight left hander, but there’s a high line and a low line, i took high, but lost my wheel on the step which is the low line, dumped me on the floor, bent my brake up to over vertical, i got back on and struggled my way down. But stage 2 was crap.
I was sitting there thinking i’d completely lost any ability to sit on a bicycle, let alone ride it and debated chucking the towel in.

But onto stage 3, which ended up being decent and funny at the same time… You get a lot of hecklers, who’ve all completed their E-bike races, so there’s about 40 of them on a jump or two… as i came to it, the cheering and bells ramp up and i hit this jump a bit faster, did it OK and nearly stacked it into a tree, went past them to a few “oooooh” comments but got to the bottom happy.
Stage 4 and 5 went fairly well and without any real incidents… A bit of cheering and heckling on 4 made me laugh again.

Spent most of the stages having laughs and banter with the oldies as i knew a couple of them from riding and previous days, so we were laughing about who’d hit what tree, clipped a root or had of course fallen over.

Got tot he bottom and had a couple of beers under the gazebo, i was spent.

29/31 (or 28th maybe) isn’t exactly setting the world on fire, but the 2 mistakes seemed to cost me 30s which would have given me 2 more places. But that’s how Enduro goes, you pay your money on the stages and sometimes you win, sometimes you hit the deck.

All in all, top day out with great organisation as always from Scott at Southen Enduro… 🙂

i kept my eyes peeled for you yesterday Weeksy, but didnt see you. Briefly saw your lad tho.

I was business as usual… propping up the mid-table. Finished 33/60 in Veterans.

As you say, stage 1 was so blown out. rest of them seemed to be ok. Kept rubber side down.

EDIT: oh and in that pic, why are you going round the little tree drop 😛

good to see you… lots of fun but the back is a bit stiff after the HT

@stevextc you did ace on the HT mate 🙂

Off to tweedlove this weekend, weather is looking damp!

Shame as was going to take the family if it looked sunny

you did ace on the HT mate 🙂

Well alive… technically I came first in the over 50’s HT… but technically I also came last 😉
I’ve got another 50 mahoosive trees to cut and move in hurtwood Friday so going to try and rest a bit. I did get offered a free Rogate day today but age is catching up quickly 🙁

Off to tweedlove this weekend, weather is looking damp!

If they put Hammertime in as a stage which they may well do you’ll have fun.
It was slipperier than a greased pig yesterday.

If they put Hammertime in as a stage which they may well do you’ll have fun.
It was slipperier than a greased pig yesterday.

No context of Glentress slipperiness, but I rode it the day before & was surprised how much grip it had, but then I’m fairly sure areas of the FoD are the some of the slippiest places on earth to ride in the wet.

We’ve gone up north now for a few days in the Cairngorms, but will be back for the weekend to race.

No context of Glentress slipperiness, but I rode it the day before & was surprised how much grip it had

My mate had also ridden it the day before and said it was mega grippy.
Then she really struggled to get down it yesterday after the rain.

If it rains a lot it’ll be grippyish again. Its just goes polished and slick after its been dry then has showers on it.

Anyone fancy a bit of Tiverton then ?

18th June

South West Southern Enduro Series #2 – Tiverton – Adults Ticket

Less tech than Milland, more pedally…. tight and/or fast singletrack.

So at the grand old age of 40 im doing my first ever bike race. Myself and friends are doing the welsh enduro round at Llanfyllin. What i cant decide is what to wear on my head, i feel pretty comfortable with a normal trail lid, but then a part of me thinks i might wear my full face for extra protection for getting over excited. Might do the training laps in a trail then race in a full face. What is everyones choice?

Tweedlove are making full face a requirement this year at their three main enduros (not a requirement on the fun and beginner ones). Convertible ones are fine – chin bar off for transitions, back on for stages.

It’s not a bad call, I reckon. I’ve been using a convertible for the last couple of years and will continue. See a lot of folks with well-vented full face helmets too (makes it harder to stuff your face/fuel between stages though).

Where it’s not mandated, comes down to personal choice (obviously) but it seems a sensible enough precaution if you have a suitable helmet to use.

Isn’t the WES mandatory full face? Seemed to think it was last year though could easily be wrong

Isn’t the EWS mandatory full face? Seemed to think it was last year though could easily be wrong

Yes, I’m pretty sure it was.

If they put Hammertime in as a stage which they may well do you’ll have fun.

Course is out

https://tweedlove.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/YT_INTL_COURSE_23-FINAL.pdf

Welsh Enduro my mate had to sign a waiver for his kids as they went with xc based helmet 2 weeks ago. Everyone had FF apparently. This was at the Dyfi round

Course is out

Rode all the stages today and they’re really good fun ATM. Perfect conditions and loads of grip.

Shame it’s predicted to piss it down on Friday.

Haven’t got it pissing down, but have got it raining an annoying amount for the next few days.

Motivation is dropping to be bothered, especially as it’s been minus figures & snowing in the deeside valley all week 🤦‍♂️

Might just go home and spend the weekend in the sun, riding dry trails.

Can’t say I’m disappointed to be missing out having seen the course. I’m not a fan of Glentress and it looks to be the same as last year, but with the best stage (B Side?) removed and one new one added?

At least they’ve used a bit more common sense on the transitions this time.

Well that was mad

Woke up at 6am to rain on the tent…
Wasn’t starting until 11, plenty of time to get cold,

Stage 1 wasn’t too bad , grippier than i thought it would be
Stage 2 -hammertime- had everyone nervous… Was like porridge, with sniper routes, made it down somehow
The rest was fun , stage 5 was probably the best , felt like pinball and nearly lost it on a few slicks roots.
Big grin by then end
I think quite a few bailed this morning but they missed out, the rain mostly finished up by midday

Good work. That looks challenging!

WES national champs at the weekend, weather looks brilliant so I’ll be taking the whole family!

Hope the campsite doesn’t get too rowdy!

well national champs was scorchio!
trails were steep and a lot of fresh cut, had it rained (or even just normal welsh dampness) it wouldve been absolutely lethal- so nany newly exposed stripped roots

as it was it was baking hot & dusty
biggest challenge was getting enough water down you and sticking to the shade on the climbs

only criticism was that the route itself and some of the stages were a bit short for national champs- they’d probably need a water atop then too.

but having a campsite next to a beautiful swimming stream/pool & glorious sunshine made up for that

as for the race i mamaged my usual 3/4 of the way down the field

Excellent job…. we’d have been there if not at BPW/everywhere. Glad you had fun though.

only criticism was that the route itself and some of the stages were a bit short for national champs

Yep, I’d heard a couple of rumours it wasn’t much of a loop so I decided to sack it off & do some South Wales riding instead of driving for 3 hours to get annoyed.

Then one person I know who did go got a bit ranty about it. ~22km & ~900m of climbing? For a 2 day event? What the f*ck? I’ve done Mini Enduro’s in a day bigger than that, and then to charge £80 for the privilege of 9 minutes of racing? 😆 🤦‍♂️

I’m finding it increasingly hard to be interested in racing in the UK now, with the direction pretty much all the organisers are going.

Honestly, I think it’s a joke that National Champs was run on such a short course (winning time of 7.30), and it clashes with an EWS so none of the top dogs are there anyway. UK Enduro really needs a proper organising body.

I am particularly disappointed because I only entered after messaging the organiser who assured me it would be a bigger loop than last year’s event. £80 plus £20 camping for a small event isn’t ideal either.

Trails were fun and camping spot was nice, but I won’t be giving Welsh Enduro any more of my money.

Yea, the total winning time of 7 1/2 odd minutes is a bit of a pi55 take.

Graythwaite was great, had a really enjoyable weekend there. Bit frustrated on the Saturday with some stage closures and long waits meant I didn’t session a few of the bits that would have made me some decent time. Still, the weather was great and the stages were good.

Ard Moors this weekend should be great as long as this weather holds out. Seems to be uncertainty about impending thunderstorms this weekend.

Graythwaite was an interesting one. It would have been horrendous if it rained, but it was a great event. Each stage offered a different challenge and my race time was 18+ mins. It’s a shame that’ll be the last one as it is a decent venue.

I somehow avoided any closures in practice, potentially because I went out late and didn’t ride the stages in order. I was chatting to the marshall on 7 and he said there were only 10 mins left in practice but he didn’t want to close because there were still so many people out on course. I think they’d underestimated the length of the loop.

I walked stage 5 on Friday and predicted red flags. I actually enjoyed the stage but it was high speed and high likelihood of some big crashes.

UK Enduro really needs a proper organising body.

this is the problem

No one wants to step up and take on a national series, BEMBA had 2 flags at the ‘race village’ (about 8 stalls including the ice cream van) but really didnt feel like a national event, especially when there is sooo much riding to be had at Dyfi
And lack of big names due to EWS was a silly mistake- who did the scheduling?

Campsite was great, but they only let us know a few days before that it was an extra 20 quid to camp there- I was taking the family so was already looking at paying for a campsite with some decent facilities

Come back Parr, all is forgiven!

Anyone else racing Southern Enduro this weekend at Tiverton ?

Yep, for my sins.

Nice one… i think it’s a bit less tech than some, but i guess we’ll find out on Sat evening on track-walk. For me, the less tech the better in some ways as some of the Southerns can be quite challenging for me 😀

Yep, it’s very much just single track type trails, nothing tech at all.

3rd place for me, less than a second off the win & all caused by my own, lack of racing rustiness. Far too safe all day 🤦‍♂️

Spent most of the day queuing up the transition, or at the top of the stages. Last 45 minutes of practice I think I got more clear space than the first 1hr45 😆

anyone riding AE forest this weekend and camping friday night, could you do me a favour @ sign on :0)

by the time i’ll get there for practise i’ll be setting off on the sunday late with the pro’s, as a midpack, i should be going early doors

Sadly not doing Ae

Would love to be though!

Anyone jumping in for the Southern Enduro at QECP on the 16th July then ?

The youngsters have all just entered, so i expect i’ll be getting roped into it 🙂

Are transition cut-off times still a thing in enduro, or has that fallen by the wayside?

Was looking at the Ard Rock schedule, and it appears like the epic has it’s roots in the idea of a total-time enduro – which feels like it should be viable, would appeal to a subsection of riders, but that hasn’t really developed here I guess due to access laws?

Boltby, Hurtwood, Ardrock