The prologue track was flowing and quite fast
but time was easily lost with any small mistake.
Not long into day one I completely snapped
my bike’s gear-shift lever off (I usually have a
spare zip-tied to bike). After about 15 minutes
of riding flat out in 2nd gear, I came across
sweep rider John Lewis – a quick change of
shifters and I was back on track, having some
great dicing with other riders along the way.
It was only until about an hour after the lunch
stop that I realised I was probably in the lead – as
there were no tyre tracks to follow, so was totally
reliant on using my GPS to navigate the course.
I managed to get the jump on Nigel Smith at
the infamous “Broke Back Mountain” - a hill that
you cannot ride straight up and involves several
switchbacks with pivot turns and a slippery rock
face at the top. After 5.5 hours of riding there
were only minutes separating the top three.
On day two I lost some time not long after the
start with a GPS error, which let a couple of riders
SILVER OVERALL
1. Nigel Smith (Yamaha YZ250), 11:36:26
2. Mark Delatour (KTM 300EXC), 11:48:50
3. Warwick Batley (KTM 250XCF), 11:52:35
get by me. The great thing about hard enduro
is that you never know what happens to the
other riders, and there is always the chance that
the tables can turn to give you an advantage –
maybe the other rider takes a wrong turn, or a
wrong line forces him off the track and it takes
30 minutes to get back to the track again.
In typical Sean Clarke style we arrived at the
end to be greeted with a mini Erzburg. To start
with there was a steep off-camber rock face
for Silver and Gold rider to drop off, and then
a natural rock garden to grovel through to the
finish. After 11 hours of racing the top four did not
know what their final standings would be. I was
pleased with 2nd place in vets 40+ and 3rd in the
Silver class with only minutes separating us all.