could have repaid that, and it’ s also made me a lot more comfortable admitting that the result did matter to me all along, rather than hiding behind the line that it never was going to be an issue either way.
THE TEAM AND BIKE The CFMOTO 450MT went amazingly all week, and the TFX suspension held up to everything the Carpathians threw at it, holding its own against purpose-built enduro bikes in a class where that’ s genuinely not a given. I was hardening up the clickers more and more with every day that passed, trusting the bike further each morning than I had the one before, and by Day 4 the tentative rider from Day 1 felt like a completely different person. None of that happens without the crew around it, though. The CFMOTO service guys weren’ t just there for the emergency brakelever swap on Day 3, they were there every single service point, checking the bike over, talking through what I was feeling on the terrain, making small adjustments that added up over the week without me really noticing
until I looked back at how different the bike felt by the end compared to the start. That kind of quiet, consistent support is easy to overlook in the moment because it just becomes part of the rhythm of the day, but it’ s exactly the reason I never had to think twice about the bike itself, even when everything else in my head was a mess. And the wider Kiwi team out there was awesome to be around, a genuinely great spirit between all of us, everyone helping each other out all week regardless of who was chasing what result, which matters more than people realise when you’ re four days deep into something this hard. I was overwhelmed at that finish line, for more reasons than the result alone. I’ d just completed arguably the toughest race in the world and finished on the podium, but I’ d also lost my Gran during the flight over to Romania. Her funeral was happening back home while I was out there racing the final off-road day of the event. I’ m not a woo-woo kind of guy, but I can’ t help thinking there’ s some kind of correlation there? This one goes out to you, Gran. xxx
34 KIWI RIDER