WORDS & PHOTOS:
Andy McGechan, bikesportnz.com
Husqvarna Hard Enduro
YEARBURY AGAIN
THE TOUGHEST OF THE TOUGH
nly the bravest dared to enter and only a
few survived to finish, but that was perhaps
to be expected from an event called the
Husqvarna Hard Adventure Enduro.
This year’s third annual running of the extreme
motorcycle event was again a brutal affair and
the similarities didn’t end there either, with the
same hard-as-nails rider who won it last season
winning it outright again – Cambridge diesel
mechanic Dylan Yearbury (Husqvarna TE300).
This last man standing” affair, in untamed
forestry land between Tokoroa and Taupo,
offered up plenty of drama and the 23-year-old
Yearbury was not immune to misfortune, which
made it even more surprising that he could
celebrate back-to-back wins in this stern two-
and-a-half-day test of man and machine.
The event kicked off on Friday afternoon
with a “prologue”, a series of sprints over
man-made obstacles, including tractor tyres,
concrete pipes, metal skip bins, a narrow
beam “tightrope” and wooden ramps, with a
few sharp-edged boulders thrown in for good
measure. Results here determined the starting
order for the following two days of forest riding.
The event was designed to be tormenting,
offering up tracks with varying degrees of
di culty, depending on whether a rider was
graded as Gold, Silver or Bronze calibre.
Riders navigated the course using a Global
Positioning Satellite (GPS) device mounted on
their handlebars and even that didn’t prevent
some riders getting a little lost at times.
“I can’t believe I won again, after the series of
misfortunate events I suffered this year,” said
Yearbury.
“I lost my front brake when a nut came loose
and the brake fluid escaped. Fellow racer Chris
84 KIWI RIDER
Birch from Glen Eden stopped to help me fill
the cylinder back up with water, as a stop-gap
measure, and then bleed the brakes, and that
got me to the end of the day, when I could
replace the oil.
“The next day (Sunday) the bike simply
stopped because I had gotten dirt in the fuel
filter. I cleaned it out and I was away again,
but I had lost a lot of time. Then I got barbed
wire wrapped around my rear wheel and this
time (another fellow competitor) Tony Parker
stopped to help me.”
Twice more Yearbury was lucky to receive
assistance from his rivals – Wainuiomata’s
Jake Whitaker helping him scale a huge log
and Helensville’s Tom Buxton assisting him
on a hill climb – these actions epitomising the
camaraderie that exists between these battle-
hardened dirt bike riders.
“We all want to win, but we’re all mates too.”
Overall runner-up to Yearbury was Whitaker
– who remarkably finished just 49 seconds
behind after more than 12 hours of riding –
followed by Buxton, with New Plymouth man
Parker and Hamilton’s Phil Singleton rounding
out the top five.
Best of the Silver-graded riders was
Cambridge’s Beau Taylor, while Whitecliffs’
Cody Corson topped the Bronze rider list.
“There was a massive variety of terrain that we
covered, from mud, rocks, forest streams, steep
hills, log cut-overs and bits of road... it had
everything,” said Yearbury.
“It was to be expected though ... it’s in the
name of the event, ‘hard’ and ‘adventure’ and it
was both of those things and I’m feeling pretty
sore and worn out right now.”