My first race in 18 months, and possibly the most technical enduro stages I’ve ridden in the UK. Personally I was struggling a bit after two weeks off the bike and a week of illness.

I struggled on the second half of stage 3 and the steep bits of stage 4 – was cursing my size and weight, 16 stone is hard enough to bring to a halt when travelling forwards, let alone when sliding sideways down a 45 degree slippery, loamy slope. Cue lots of swearing and dragging bike from under tape.

Stage one was all too short, but a good one to get your eye in. Stage 2 was great at the top, and a good test of fitness (I failed) with a bit of a slog at the end.

I imagine everyone will quote stage 5 as their favourite. As with others, I felt I’d properly got my eye in by then, but I also think it had the best flow of any stage.

If anyone has any photo/video of number 61, would be great to see.

Really good to get a taste of some of the apparently myriad downhill trails in the area. Planning a trip down to co-incide with watching the BDS at Combe Syd in April, so combined with an all day route around the rest of the Quantocks on the Saturday, should make for a good weekend.

I hope the Sport category riders who were following the 150 competitive riders weren’t completely put off by the mess they found – bit of a shock for your first race, I imagine.

I went off at 171 and yes, it was proper slippy and cut up by then! Pity about the muddiness really, it made sections of stage 3 and 4 pretty much unrideable (for me anyway)and made the tranistions much tighter than they would have been otherwise. Think alot of people on the sport class were struggling, with quite a few dropping out. Must admit I was surprised how stteep and technical it was, I guess in the dry it would have been alot easier.

Still, great day out and its amazing how fast you can run downhill with a bike in mud when the stopwatch is running. Think I stacked it 5-6 times in all but only OTB once so happy days! Worst moment for me, taking a chicken run round a drop on 5 and then stacking it into a tree stump on the chicken run! Also managed to come flying out the side of the tape at the bottom of stage 5, hopefully wont get any penalties for that!

Looking forward to doing one of these in the dry!

Oh, and big thanks to 169 for being so helpfull when I was overtaking, especially as I stacked it into a tree just after going past on the off camber section on 4!

I now ache in all kinds of strange places. 🙂

Great day – loads of fun and some pretty sketchy stages to say the least, but to my mind, that’s how it should be, nice and technically challenging or else you may as well go “round a field” XC or CX racing…. 😉

Really good organisation, great atmosphere and only had a little lie down on stage 4.

Sharki – any chance you got pictures of rider 96?

🙂

ha ha! what a chore! I loved it.

3 & 4 got a bit silly and by the time i got to them (132nd rider) they looked like someone had been round with a six foot wide rotavator…i kid you not! Technique to get through these was via a vaguely controlled fall down the hillside whilst trying to hang onto your bike.

Carving down stage 5 ski-style was a blast and all in all i’m chuffed i made the effort after doing a couple last year. Massive respect to all the volunteers for making (most of it) happen and to Carlos for making it happen at all. So she do we get live timing Carlos? 😉

See you all again at FOD. 😀

So I noticed a few people snapping pics at the weekend on the stages (sharki?) are these on the web to view anywhere?

Why don’t Roots & Rain do these events?

It’s listed on there, so I imagine images/results will appear in due course:

http://www.rootsandrain.com/race1747/2013-mar-17-x-fusion-enduro-1-1-great-wood-quantocks/

🙂

Why don’t Roots & Rain do these events?

Just checked and it IS listed ( http://www.rootsandrain.com/race1747/2013-mar-17-x-fusion-enduro-1-1-great-wood-quantocks/ )

…but nothing uploaded (??)

EDIT: beat me to it! 😳

Why don’t Roots & Rain do these events?

Just checked and it IS listed ( http://www.rootsandrain.com/race1747/2013-mar-17-x-fusion-enduro-1-1-great-wood-quantocks/ )

…but nothing uploaded (??)

EDIT: beat me to it!

You might have to ask carlos to get them on there for the results
and bug the potographers to post there pics.

Pics going to R&R tonight, normally do them on a Sunday night but I was a bit knackered after riding the course Saturday and then walking most of it to get pics on Sunday 🙂

Photos are up – some crackers in there!

http://www.rootsandrain.com/race1747/2013-mar-17-x-fusion-enduro-1-1-great-wood-quantocks/photos/

Some good pics!

Any of the sport riders anywhere?

page 3, 4 rows down, far right. Rider 102.

About sums it up!

10:39:16 – no idea who it is but cracking photo!

Cheers for the pics. Here are the ones of me looking panicked

http://www.rootsandrain.com/photos/423172

And

http://www.rootsandrain.com/photos/423212

I’m glad I found this thread. I was one of the last sport riders (10 from the end) and thought I was well out of my league on the descents. I bottled all the big drops and managed to crash into a few trees. My fitness is good so that was ok, just had no faith in my tyres or skills on the timed stages! Looking on Strava I’m not last on any sections, so that was my achievement for the day ;-). The mud by the time we rode it was pretty much unridable, especially stage 4.

Reading this thread though may have convinced me to enter the FOD event but we’ll see.

And if anyone has photos of 190/191/192 then they’d be gratefully received!

I imagine the guy in the RAF jersey has been ordered to run laps of the airfield!

rocklord28 – Member
I’m glad I found this thread. I was one of the last sport riders (10 from the end) and thought I was well out of my league on the descents. I bottled all the big drops and managed to crash into a few trees. My fitness is good so that was ok, just had no faith in my tyres or skills on the timed stages! Looking on Strava I’m not last on any sections, so that was my achievement for the day ;-). The mud by the time we rode it was pretty much unridable, especially stage 4.

Reading this thread though may have convinced me to enter the FOD event but we’ll see.

And if anyone has photos of 190/191/192 then they’d be gratefully received!

You will have passed me as I was last to but one to finish. My fitness is zero at the moment but I thought I would be ok and enjoy the timed sections. I could not get any speed up for the jumps or drops, the ones that were attempted I wished hadn’t.
Gravity dropper would not drop, stage 4 with the seat full up was just terrible. But I booked a place for FOD when i got home.

The results and more photos are on the website now. I came 28th overall which I’m pretty happy about!

Amazing, I still managed to come well into the top 20 despite having an off the bike crash on 4 of the stages 😯

Not bad.

Well done hob nob. I’m similar I crashed on all except 1 and 2 and I came to a stop on section 2. Also had 2 crashes on section ?. So overall not too bad. My mate came in 17th

Ace I was last , oh well. My name is spelt incorrectly so it’s not really me 🙂

Loads of people didn’t complete it anyway, it was a tough race, to be honest I wasn’t too bothered as it was a lot of fun.

It’s difficult when the trails deteriorate, there’s been a couple of innerleithen rounds where rider 150’s basically riding a different stage to rider 1. Luckily rider 150 isn’t usually competing against rider 1 😉

Why enduro is the best racing- you can do absolutely **** and still have a great day out. The top boys compete amongst themselves, the middle compete amongst themselves, the bottom are in it to survive, and everyone’s achieving something on their own scale. Mint.

I had a very wobbly day – right from the off i felt way out of my comfort zone – off camber deep mud & roots. My excuse was that the course was cut up by the 130 odd riders who went before me. Unfortunately, three of the top 5 riders were also well down the running order. So, i’ll just have to face up to my lack of skill 🙄 there’s always next time ….FoD booked!

Wow! Some fast times in there, especially stage 2 (don’t have much memory of that one :-)) …getting there was hell!

Crashed on just about every stage, big off on 4 (I remember landing in some rhododendron bushes and trying to scramble up a steep muddy section to get back to my bike … seemed like it all went into slow motion then) so well happy to finish inside top half.

That was a very tough event (for me) didn’t expect it to be so hard, still very good fun tho’ and looking forward to next one. (hopefully will stay on the bike more!)

Cheers.

What was the reason for all the crashes? Excess speed, or just inability to stay upright?

Hmmm, 50th – kinda what I expected, but not as good as I’d have liked. Relatively pleased with the times on the two stages (1 and 5) that I had the least issues with. Had a chain off and stick in the rear mech that cost me a lot of time on stage 2, and repeated stalls/excursions on stages 3 and 4.

Room for improvement, then. Already entered FoD, hopefully I’ll have a bit more fitness then (expect it to be less tech than round 1)… but then so will everyone else!

For me the crashes were mostly because I hadn’t really prepared myself, (can’t really expect to just turn up and ride well without putting in some sort of training beforehand …and I hate training and just haven’t been inspired to ride out in this crap weather lately!)

I was going too fast (for me) to read the terrain properly and then being so fatigued (and leg cramps)from the transitions just made it worse, (could hardly hang on for stage 4 and 5) I was totally exhausted at the end.
The conditions (mud) made it pretty tricky and I wasn’t expecting it to be so tough (up …and down!)

I did the mini enduro at haldon and I found that hard enough.
This was a big wake up call!

Prepare yourself or suffer! Or take it easy? … but how can you do that? 🙂

I’ve entered the QECP Gravity Enduro in July – hopefully the mudfest will have abated by then!!

What was the reason for all the crashes? Excess speed, or just inability to stay upright?

In my instance, a few reasons. Riding like a nob, trying to ride a trail blind & quick, some very steep & muddy sections that were horribly cut up from other people riding & crashing all over them and my first race in 6 months…

Frustrating as the big crash I had on stage 4 lost me nearly 10 places, as the times were quite tight. A top 10 would have been awesome, all things considered.

To be honest my reasons are the same as hob nobs really. Just read the trail wrong, and went to quick into the corners. I could have ridden any stage the second time, and got a full run in.

I was really pleased with coming 78th on such a tough event 😀 It was my first ever race and I did it on a 100mm travel xc hardtail.

After seeing the results I feel a lot better about the rider behind overtaking me on some of the stages as he finished in the top 10.