 
Photos courtesy of Mark Alker
www.singletrackworld.com
|
The venue for this years ‘Enduro6’ (now called
EnduroPLUS) was changed from the usual Trentham Gardens course to Catton
Park near Tamworth, a course that has previously hosted rounds of the
National Points Series. Catton Park is regarded by many as a fairly flat
circuit and, while it’s certainly less hilly than Trentham, anyone who has
ridden more than 3 laps will confirm that it’s definitely not flat!
Ross and I had teamed up again for this event although
a near disaster ensued on Saturday night when Ross realised that he was
unable to get a hire car. A quick set of phone calls followed before Bill
Wright stepped in and lent Ross his car for the weekend with strict
instructions that Ross was to drive it like he owned it. Ross turned up on
Sunday morning having done the 2hr London to Tamworth drive in 1hr 40
minutes…
It had rained slightly on Saturday night and the
weather early Sunday was still looking a bit undecided. The course was very
greasy in places, the clay soil hadn’t taken kindly to the rain and Ross
quickly swapped to mud tires. The event is run under “parc-ferme” rules
meaning that there is a large Pit Zone and each pair of riders is allocated
a 6’ by 4’ space where they must store all necessary kit for the 6 hour race
– tools, clothes, food, chair, umbrella, sense of humour. The Pit Zone
contains toilets and a water tap and racers are only allowed out of this
Zone if they are on the course racing. We were ready in our little space by
9.45am, waiting for the race to start at 10. By now, the sun had started to
appear and by lunchtime, it was a blazing hot day and the course began
drying out rapidly. I’d pre-ridden the course on Saturday so knew what to
expect and Ross had already made it clear that he wasn’t doing the Le Mans
style run at the start so I lined up just behind mountain biking legend and
former 6-times World Mountain Bike Champion Ned Overend who’d come over from
America at the request of the event sponsors Specialized and was racing with
his son as part of a publicity team. Also present was British Olympic rider
Nick Craig and several other big names from British mountain biking. Ross
and I were going to have our work cut out…
The 800m run to the bikes was over fairly quickly and
I came into the pit area just behind Nick Craig to pick my bike up from Ross
and ride out onto the course. We’d decided to ride double laps of the
5.25-mile course thus giving each of us an hours riding followed by an hours
rest. I completed my 2-lap stint in almost exactly one hour and handed over
to Ross. I spent the next hour eating energy food and talking to Ned Overend
who, although he is 55 (over twice my age), was still managing to ride a lap
almost 5 minutes faster than either Ross or I were able to. By the time I
started out on my 3rd and 4th laps, the course had dried out considerably
although a lot of the singletrack sections in the woods had the consistency
of plasticene, which made for an energy-sapping ride. The long draggy climb
at the back of the course seemed to be getting longer and steeper with each
lap too but at least it was warm and sunny and Team De Laune was only just
outside the top 10. We had a race-long battle with the guys in the next Pit
Area to us as well. One of them was about 1 minute quicker a lap than either
Ross or me, the other guy was about a minute slower so we were neck and neck
for most of the race. It was only when one of them had a mechanical in the
last 15 minutes of the race that Ross was able to get past putting us in a
creditable 12th place out of 84 teams in the Men’s Pairs race. We’d
completed 12 laps between us in a time of 6.05.52. Each of us had ridden 6
laps 32 miles 2750ft of climbing And annoyingly enough, Ross got the fastest
lap time, 9 seconds quicker than me! Note: my first lap time includes the
800m run at the start.
|
Lap |
Rider |
Time |
|
1 |
104, James Lyon |
00:32:39 |
|
2 |
104, James Lyon |
00:29:01 |
|
3 |
103, Ross Fryer |
00:29:12 |
|
4 |
103, Ross Fryer |
00:28:52 |
|
5 |
104, James Lyon |
00:30:09 |
|
6 |
104, James Lyon |
00:30:45 |
|
7 |
103, Ross Fryer |
00:29:16 |
|
8 |
103, Ross Fryer |
00:30:57 |
|
9 |
104, James Lyon |
00:30:04 |
|
10 |
104, James Lyon |
00:31:46 |
|
11 |
103, Ross Fryer |
00:31:06 |
|
12 |
103, Ross Fryer |
00:32:05 |
|
Rider |
Laps |
Fastest |
Average |
Total |
|
103, Ross Fryer |
6 |
00:28:52 |
00:30:14 |
03:01:28 |
|
104, James Lyon |
6 |
00:29:01 |
00:30:44 |
03:04:24 |
James Lyon |
