This weekend saw Min and I travelling down to Mt Buller for the first national round of the new Australian Enduro series, a trip that proved to be well worth the effort. Set to bring some exciting racing to this years calendar.
The Rock shox Enduro challenge saw Elite XC and Downhill riders signing up to see how they match up against each other, and not to mention a couple the catorgry’s world champs.
Arriving on Saturday just after lunch I had enough time to quickly check out the race village, which was pretty quiet with most riders out practicing, then it was off on foot to check out some of the course. The prelude was set to kick off at 3 so I was un able to get around all the stages but still enjoyed the variety of tracks on offer in stage 5 and 6.
Stage 6 was used for the prelude race. A short course with a bit of everything and finishing down a flight of stairs right into the heart of the race village. The results setting the start order for racing on Sunday. It was also a great way for all the competitors outside of the elite catorgy to see the Pro’s in action.
Mt buller’s weather turned it up a notch on race day, producing the perfect alpine climate with plenty of blue sky. Racing started at 9am with Jared Graves heading out first, the results of a solid ride the night before in the prelude. His form was unwavering through out the whole day he was clearly the rider to beat.
Ryan De La Rue a local trail builder was fast all day, getting amongst it setting the second fastest time on stages 2, 3 and 4. However unfortunately giving up 9 seconds to a flat on the final stage pushing him into third overall for the day by only 2 seconds to Downhill racer Troy Brosnan. With the stages spread out all over the mountain and only my legs to get me around I decided it would be best to take in the action at stage 1 and 5 on race day. That way I could see the elite’s roost down the trails a couple of times and also take a look at the rest of the fields including the younger generation of riders set to make their mark on the sport in years to come.
Luck seemed to be on the spectators side at stage 5, a slight glitch in the timing software saw pro riders Sam Hill and Mike jones having to ride a second lap of the stage.
From here it was back to the race village to see what action Min had been watching, check the results and get something to eat other than the muesli bars I had been using for fuel out on the trails.
The top 10 elite was filled mostly by the pro’s, with XC racer Paul Van der Ploeg landing 7th place in his first entry for the enduro format. International rider Jerome Clementenz had a casual start to his Australian racing with a comfortable 9th place. Peta Mullens, who is carrying great form across a number of race formats, took out the elite women’s categorynumber of race formats, took out the elite women’s category.
After all the racers had finished up for the day it was time for presentations, plus a huge amount of giveaways provided by the sponsors ending what was an awesome weekend of racing and a very well put together event.
I look forward to getting back down to Mt Buller to test out the trails for myself some day soon.
