Sunday was enduro day at Uitkyk estate. The day was beautiful and the trails awesome. The field was nearly 140 strong with a growing number of teen racers and a few more women.
Meurant has cut some very lekker XC type trails into the side of Simonsberg a but further West and higher than the Delheim and Muratie tracks. The initial climb was around 400m and 9.5 km long. This led to an hour long wait for a start at Stage 1. The trail traverses the upper reaches of Simonsberg before it gets really steep. The tracks are narrow and threaten to subside down the slope - put a wheel wrong and you'll be off and on a fall line ticket to over the bars. The surface was dry but grippy bar those collapsing bits at the side. I let some air out of my front tyre for added grip.
Stage 1 was long and had some lovely bits in it - not too many speed robbing corners and a bit of variation ie dirt and rock gardens. Unfortunately the 30 second gap I left the guy ahead was too little and I caught him 2/3 down. This led to a follow my leader game that I lost when i crashed hard OTB right behind him. Never a good idea to follow a rider too closely as you can't see the trail; properly especially at speed. The guy seemed oblivious to my presence behind him although he must have known he'd been caught. I learned a lesson but I'm not sure he did.
I picked myself up and checked the bike which was 100% - sadly I wasn't - damn, those ribs again but minor compared to previous knocks. I got going again only to be stymied by the same guy just before the tag. He'd fallen off the trail and was slowly picking himself up....
Still a great stage - nice and long and fast in places with concentration required every step of the way.
After another 200m climb it was time to try the freshly cut start section of stage 2. This started in a burned out forest and by the time I got to it had been churned up nicely - nothing like steep, rutted dark soil with rocks hiding in it. This is where my toothy front tyre came into its own. Every corner I hit it bit beautifully. This was my best stage - about mid pack.
3 started at the bottom of 2 and was all hard pack jeep track and whats left of the bush tunnel. This was fun in parts - a fast section for 50 plus speeds and then the super baked and slithery bush tunnel. Here my tyre and technique deserted me and I lost much time with a big mistake. Not a great stage IMO but it takes all types to make an enduro.
Stage 4 was a combo of a Delheim enduro stage that went much longer. Mostly hard pack end ending with a fun swoopy section full of small doubles and the odd table top back in the direction of Uitkyk. I missed the tag point and had to stop and run back to get a time.
This comedy of errors saw my worst result in an enduro to date but somehow it hardly mattered. It was a beaut day with a fun bunch of peeps on some trails I had mostly never seen before.
There was 27 km of riding with about 900m of elevation gain, so longish for a local enduro...
