And they’re off…

Three hundred and something riders showed up at Ashton Court, Bristol at the weekend to tackle the Bristol Bike Fest Merida 12 hour enduro around a 5.5mile course made out of bits of the Timberland Trail, some of them running in the opposite direction to the norm and all juggled around into a different order.

The race format lets you race as a solo or in teams of two, three or four which made for a wide variety of speeds out on the course. With large sections of the course being tight, wiggly singletrack the ability to pass or be passed cleanly was pretty important although there were a couple of nice wide climbs for a bit more elbow room. Good weather beforehand meant that the course was dry as a bone and rock-hard. The local trail builders had been out fettling up the course for the race, so there were a couple of bits of loose rock but it had pretty much bedded in by the end. The course was bumpy and unrelenting, though – there were very few stretches that didn’t demand pedalling to maintain speed so opportunities to recover were few and far between.

Light mid-race snack

After a briefing by race organiser Paul Newman, the event kicked off at 10am with the usual start-line scrummage and lots of people charging off at a pace unbefitting of a twelve-hour race. It was easy to spot the solo competitors, they were the ones saving their energy and spinning easily along the opening sections…

The atmosphere was generally pretty chilled out, with trackside campers encouraging all and sundry, the band warming up and the dirt jumpers trying not to miss their landings on the rather windswept jumps. Running the course through the Mud Dock food and beer tent was a nice touch, although the tasty cooking smells were rather distracting.

With the dry course, lap times were fast – the top teams were clocking times in the low 20s and the fast soloists were generally staying sub-30. In the end local team Bike Bristol proved unbeatable on home ground, clocking up 28 laps in the Team Competitive category, ahead of Team Shred on 27 and Bristol University on 26. In the Team Fun category it was What Mountain Bike Slack Bladders out in front on 25 ahead of Northern Ferret Club and Bristol University 2, both on 24.

45 soloists were split across Competitive and Fun categories. In Competitive Rob English and Ian Leitch both scored an impressive 23 laps (that’s 126.5 miles, fact fans). Rob was slightly quicker, though, and took the win. Merida’s Michael Wilkens was one lap down for third place. Special mention to John Ross, who rode 22 laps for fourth place on his Spot singlespeed. In the amusingly-named “Solo fun” category it was Dave Ethell, Glenn Campbell and David Arthur in the top three positions with 20, 19 and 18 laps respectively.

The event and course seemed to be generally well-received although the bumps probably made for a few sore bodies on Sunday morning. We’re already limbering up for next year… Full results are available from Timelaps.