The newest buzzword in mountain biking is ‘enduro’, everyone’s talking about it. From industry executive to weekend warrior, the entire mountain bike community seems genuinely excited to have a discipline that showcases the sport in its modern form and an event format that gives the rider a good ride around a variety of trails without too much pressure to climb at speed.
The only trouble is… That not everyone is entirely certain what this new format actually consists of. Well, we’ll tell you the standard format in brief: competitors climb to the start of each stage in a limited amount of time (organisers usually leave you plenty of time so that the climbs are reasonably casual); once you reach the start of the stage you wait until your designated start time (unless you arrive late – then you’ll be penalised..); you are timed on the stage; then you pedal to the next stage start. Usually there are three to five stages, mostly consisting of singletrack/natural trails, spread over the course of a day.
This means that you get a good social aspect whilst on the climbs, at feed stations and if you are lucky enough to get some ‘hanging about’ time before your start times. You also get to be timed on a range of trails, with the accumulative time taken at the end of the day to decide the overall winner of the event (or, between you and your mates).
Like the sound of it? If you do, you’d like to give it a bash and you live in the south then the announcement of the 2013 X-Fusion/Enduro1 series will be of interest. The best bit is that there is even a non-competitive category at most of the races so for those who wouldn’t normally race you’ll be able to get an idea of the event and whether you’d like to get more involved.
Paul Haysom wrote a report for us from one of the 2012 events, check it here if you’d like to get a bit more of an insight into the events.
Here’s the X-Fusion/Enduro1 2013 series info and dates, from the organiser:
In 2012 we had a great cross section of riders from complete newbies to racing, old DH/XC sweats coming out of retirement along with some of the countries current top riders. The main emphasis is, and always will be, to get those weekend warriors into racing for the first time and for it to be an informal and friendly series that allows you to be competitive if you wish or just have laugh and a good day out riding with your mates, the choice is yours!
So we will be having four races with three to count towards the series titles.
Race 1: 17th March. Great Wood, Quantock Hills.
An awesome start to the series as this is a stunning area with a great network of trails.
Race 2: 16th June. Forest Of Dean.
We return to the Dean for 2013 as it offers the rider everything in terms of trails and stages and hopefully it will be a bit drier!
Race 3: 15th September. ‘Sprint’ Enduro, Aston Hill.
A bit of a showcase race for Enduro but sorry guys and girls this is a competitive class race only as it will be technical and physically demanding with tight timings. We want to promote this as a race for spectators to come view, cheer and mingle with the racers and see what all the fuss is about. One completion of the course then in for a short break for maintenance and fuel up and then out for another shorter loop. Hopefully we will have some great demo bikes available to try and we are working with the CTC to hopefully bring some fun elements to the day.
Race 4 : 13th October. Swinley Forest (TBC)
Back to Swinley for the grand final. Everyone had a real blast this year and it proved a great area to ride and race and a fitting venue for the final.
We have some great sponsors again this year and more fantastic prizes for the series winners so get the dates in your diary and we look forward to seeing our Enduro regulars along with hopefully, lots of new faces.
Full details can be found on our website.
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