So, come on then, who did it, who loved it, who got soaked, who got lucky with a late start time and got a sunny loop, who crashed and burned, who bottled it at the slippy drop at the end of stage 4 :oops:?

Me, started not long after 1 and got soaked the whole bloody way round, super slippy, but great fun! Man, do I ache today……

Was going to go but bottled it due to the weather.

How did they run it? Use existing DH runs or completely new trails? What was the uphill ‘transition’ stage like?

Hoping they’ll host another next year.

Yeah, weather was quite ropey but stages acutally held up really well.
Stage 1 was in the bike park, lots of man made tables, big bermed corners and ending at the uplift point.

Stage 2 was freshly cut in the forest and was a good mix of steep sections and flatter off camber sections. Slippy but good fun.

Stage 3 also freshly cut in the forest, simialr to stage 2, steep bits, off camber bits, bit of a downhill fireroad sprint in the middle.

Stage 4 was back in the bike park (after a hideous trasition into a headwind over the ridge line, made it with 30secs to spare!) couple of tables then off to the left before the bridge over the uplift, through some tight tress and then some tight sweitchbacks, some rocky bits and a quite nastry drop onto slippery roots with a, still pretty nasty, chicken line!

No timed uphill stage this time but trasitions were quite tight due to the boggy ground and strong wind. Not going to lie, I pushed pretty much every uphill ont he transitions!

Sounds good, did you ride up the uplift track or up the bridleway?

Out team didnt do this due to a combination of things/other races that w/e plus disappointment of Aston. Was it a lot more gravity orientated than Aston Hill? I’m hoping that was a one off.

Transitions were mostly on the bridleways and most of the uphills were push ups for me. Im sure a couple of the more sprightly rode them but way too steep for me.

And yes, much more grvity than Aston, only a couple of very short climbs on the stages, honk up 4 or 5 peddle strokes with the saddle down rather than put the saddle up type of thing. Not massively fast, other than stage 1, but some good steep bits and some very tricky off camber bits. Prob a good mix of what an enduro race shoudl be IMO. Some big ol table tops to contend with on stage 1 too, including 1 which had me very very close to going over the front, still no idea how i didnt, terrible landing right on the front wheel, freaked me out a bit for the rest of the stage 8O.

Liked the format too, practice in the am then race runs in the PM. Only real complaint (ither than me riding like a spanner) would be stage 1 being pretty short, cant win em all though.

Again sounds good, one for next year if they do it again.

Balls, sounds like we missed a good event! Practising the stages? Thats a new one for Carlos – he seems to change the format each race!

That is a good point superfli a short format/race description before each round would be good. I’m sure they used to do that on the website be for each round.

Sounds like this was better than the last round
aston is 45 mins from me but ukbp is a few hours!

Sounds like the first stage was on the track They spent forever building (big wide thing with the horrible wedge shaped jumps that rode like a sack of sh*t) and the last one was the original HSE DH track they have been working on again.

I hope the series keeps going though, although I do think some more thought in venues and stages is required for next year.

It hard to sign up for a race if you don’t know the format.

Its a great series just needs to be a more if about the race before it and quicker results would be good too.

I have all ready said I want to every round next year, Superfli you in?

Agreed. There are a just a few niggling issues that hold it back from being a great little series, which is a shame.

I’d like to try and do a few more of them next year, if the venues & formats are a bit more stable (and not quite such a gamble if the weather turns bad).

In not to bothered about the weather, I always think it a good leveller. All rounds this year were muddy/Wet, Fod & Quantocks were worse than Aston hill and they are meant to be good in the wet.

Generally I would agree, Triscombe is pretty good in the wet (as long as you don’t mind everything stained peachy orange) if they stick to the well used tracks.

I only did the Quantocks race this year myself, the others all clashed with silly work events.

I think yesterday was the first time I didn’t actually enjoy riding my bike in a looooong time. Thought the format was odd: practice in the morning?? What’s all that about! I’ve done the other 3 rounds and this was the most difficult – mainly because I set off in the middle of the downpour – which made conditions rather, err, tricky…

Main problem I had was not being able to see – so much mud, so much rain, made my clear bike glasses impossible to see out of, but you have to wear them for each of the stages. I was so wet I had nothing to dry them with. Gloves muddy from falling off – exactly the conditions that Hans Dampf don’t work in.

I have enjoyed this series – Quantocks was an eye opener, FoD I really enjoyed, Aston Hill was an odd format and too intense, but yesterday: nope – didn’t enjoy yesterday.

I do like riding the stages blind – but not literally. I suppose I could have stopped after the start of each stage and taken my glasses off, but we have to wear them for a reason.

I appreciate the effort that Carlos puts in to organising these things, and for making the courses hard (in the dry!) but the timing system and the length of time it takes to get the results out, and then all the revisions is what I find a little disappointing – if the time recording could be improved, I’d be much happier – well, a little – much happier if we had a dry event!!

I did a Mini-Enduro at Eastridge – all electronic timing, results out that night.

Haven’t decided whether to do next year – I live in Warwickshire so each event means a long drive.

Yes Scott I will be up for all the rounds next year. Just hope they dont clash with anything, although we can change a team member per round which will help.
Yeah a better description of what to expect format wise would be nice. The weather cant be helped, it seems really unlucky with this years weather for the races, considering the great summer we had!

Hopefully they won’t clash with any of our races I have email carlos and chris from mini endure the dates. They also don’t clash with any UKGE races.

I enjoyed yesterday and agree the stages were good enduro stages. Whole event could have done to be longer but you cut your cloth….

Think Carlos really needs to get an electronic dibbing sytem. The one at the Tweedlove POC was brilliant for example

I seriously doubt the timings captured yesterday will be worth the wet papaer the were written on :-(.

I did 3 this year and will continue next year but now it is becoming established a few tweaks would move it onwards and upwards (even if it costs a bit more

– Electronic timing
– Overall time limit on route not between stages (easier to adjust in adverse weather)
– No set time between stages just dib and go at start with 30 secs min between riders
– Print out of timings available at end (more events than ever now do this.

Anyway, reagrdless – well done Carlos. The vents are great and mainly local to me so I am generally very happy

Hmmm, not sure I agree with you there Taz, I actually like having a set time for each transition, keeps things even for all. Prob wouldnt mind them being a bit less tight than enduro 1 but then Carlos has never made a secret of wanting this to be a series that challenges fitness as well as descending ability.

Electronic timing would be good, provided it worked right. Good thing about the current approach is its pretty fool proof. Did the Modraker one on Exmoor aand think 2 of the 5 stages didnt have times in the end, pretty bloody disspointing!

For me, rounds 1 and 2 were good, round 3 had too much timed uphillness, round 4 was good. Just hoping Scott’s herd have different dates for there races next year so I can do em all!!!! LONG LIVE UK ENDURO RACING 😀

I was dreading yesterday as have been to UK Bike Park in the wet before and vowed not to do it again! I went as have done the whole series this year…and enjoyed it in the end. It was a bit short but i know it was a challenge for Carlos to make it happen at all. Making the transitions was tough again and i was pretty chuffed to make them after Aston Hill. Conditions were definitely ‘challenging’!

I think set timing for the transistions is a good thing…. it values the climb but doesnt mean the xc guys and the natural climbers always win the race, it also prevents people pushing up a DH bike and killing everyone on the timed run.

IMO part of the essence of enduro really.

Wish I could get to some of these, they sound good.

IMO part of the essence of enduro really.

100% agree.

Anybody know if any pics are up anywhere? Didnt actually see anyone as we went round but then I often miss these things. Nothing on roots and rain yet.

Just to clarify my point re the time between stages

I 100% agree the transistions need to be challenging enough that a gentle pootle is out of the question.

The issue with Sunday was the times were calculated based on dry transition times. The haul from stage 3 to 4 would easily have been 15 mins faster in the dry.

Basically resetting everyone’s off times at each stage to allow for a totally different transition experience becomes a logistical nightmare.

Having an overall time to complete the whole event makes people push hard enough between stages whilst allowing an easy last minute adjustment if (when) the weather goes bad

When we planned the race this year I had two times sorted pre event one with wet times and one with dry, when we released the times the Wednesday before the race we looked at the weather forecast and made a judgment call. To be fair we where more we put more effort in the stages than the transitions.

The way we/I looked at it “Gravity enduro”

Gravity= all stages start at the top of the hill and all end at the bottom.

enduro= long challenging stages making the most of the elevation, pushing riders to there limits but keeping them as fun as possible, stage times were 4.30mins, 6.30mins, 6.30mins & 6.30mins.

That’s my take on the format anyway. I go and race for the fun time bits down not the transitions.

Scott – To be fair, I know it was the first one for you guys but I think you absolutely nailed it. Been to lots of grvity enduro’s this year with much more elevation to play with that werent anywhere near as good (mid you, weatehr hepled, think yours was the only fully dry one I did!). Im not the only one saying that either, massively looking forward to the promised series for next year, you’ve got a load to live up to 😀

you’ve got a load to live up to

No pressure then 😯

Edit: also some things have change to the original plans. hopefully can release dates and venue/s by the end of November.

No pressure then

S’your own fault! Should have done what I do, suck at everything and set the bar nice and low…….

Race 4 results are up. No series results yet…