Not Racing

If you ask Dirt Mag what two of the most important things in mountain bicycling are at the moment, I give you any money Mates Racing and Enduro feature highly. With The Woods being a bang on trend sort of place we knew this already. A such Dave W and I headed out into the dark dark woods to represent Pretty Sweet in a bit of Nightime Mates Enduro(TM).  Read on to find just how good it was...

And so it was that 10 of The Woods fastest/bravest/most rad riders rocked up on a cold January evening armed with stopwatches and slalom poles. The track was decided; two runs each down the two trails that run down the biggest hill in the area, with 15 minutes to get your shit together and get back to the top. Two friendly pensioners agreed to look after the timing so the rest of us could just focus on going fast. We cannot thank the timing team enough though, they made this whole thing possible.

There was talk of people changing tyres and getting in turbo trainer practise in the days before. Generally most regarded this as unsporting at best, cheating at worst. Generally it seemed the race was between the Twelve50 race team; Rick, Matt & Ryan, with the rest of us just trying to get as close as possible. Hats of to John P for taking on the somme like conditions on V-Brakes - Genius.

So, the tracks. Well to get a 4 minute run on a 100m hill there is going to be a lot of pedalling. Both runs consisted of mad sideways pedalling interspersed with gripless flat corners, one steep bit, some fireroad and a bit of wet grass slalom. Pretty perfect really.

Seeded tenth, and setting of last meant most runs where in the dark and alone, until I caught up with Joe, chain off. Someone get that boy a chain device. 18 months without a race had caused me to forget just how good it is. Gonna have to do some more of that. Basically it was ace, riding fast through the night before chatting my way back up the hill and getting the gossip on everyone's runs back at the start line, before doing it all again.

After an hour or so Rick & Matt proved the 'Enduro is an old man's game' theory by taking a 1-2 for Twelve50. Ryan showed he probably could have won with a ridiculous 1.55 on the final stage. All in all, a bloody sensational way to spend a sunday evening. Dirt are right, this kind of thing should happen more...

Results: 1) Matt 12:29 2) Rick 12:52 3) Ryan 13:13 4) Dave M 15:42 5) Phil 16:17 6) Dave W 16:27 

7) Dez 17:32 8) John P 20:01 9) Gaz 21:25 10) Joe 23:58

Yup, 12 minutes and 29 seconds of (mostly) descending for the winner.

BIG THANKS to everyone that came down to race, and to mum and dad for the timing.

There will be another