The Enduro 6 continues to get more popular every year, and rightly so. It’s held in early May each year over a superb 8-ish mile course with 1000 ft climbing per lap, in the grounds of the stately home at Trentham Gardens, Stoke-on-Trent. The race starts at 10am and finishes at 4pm, and whoever rides the most laps is the winner, simple really. The fun all starts the night before though with a fast 1-lap nocturnal time-trial over the same course. It wasn’t very nocturnal this year, the fine conditions and bright sky meaning that the first riders off didn’t really even need lights, and the last riders to leave just before 9pm didn’t need to have consumed very many carrots.
As last year’s time-trial winner I found myself almost last off, with only Ian Wilkinson and Paul Oldham behind me. Showing fine form Wilkinson closed the 45 second head-start I had, to came past me about half-way round, he was not hanging about and in the end completed his lap in 30 minutes and 30 or so seconds. Paul Oldham also went quicker than me, 31:50 while I crawled in at 32:15 to claim my customary podium place. Bec finished second in the womens race while pretty much everyone else we know bottled out of the race, saving themselves for the main event instead.
As usual there were a million and one things to prepare next morning, all the kit for the duration of the race needed to be in the pit area by 9:45am and there was food to eat, bikes to prepare, more food to eat, and pit areas to move after I filled up someone else’s by mistake. When I say filled, I mean placed a tool-box and a few nutri-grains, but it still seemed to take a while.
The race began at 10am on the dot with a mercifully short run through the woods and back into the arena. I was determined to get a good start this time after taking it really easy at the start of the 6-hour at Plymouth and never seeing anyone again for the rest of the race, so put some effort into the run and pounded off on the bike. Tim Dunford and Ian Wilkinson, riding solo for the first time at Trentham, were already disappearing into the distance at speed, and it wasn’t long before top enduro-monkey J-C Van de Veckern also zipped past before charging up the climb at an impossible speed. When I say impossible, I mean impossible for me.
The first few laps went ok, consistently 42 minutes but as always it started to go a bit wrong after 4 hours or so. I started feeling the Hi-5 stomach coming on, and trying not to be sick was such a distraction that I kept forgetting my legs were actually working ok. Not as good as Ian Wilkinson’s though who lapped me on about my 6th lap, powering up the hard gravel climb in a big gear so fast I assumed he must be on a team after all. But no, he went on to win the event with 10 laps in a fraction over 6 hours, beating all but a small minority of teams in the process. Other riders continued to dribble past me, including a fellow from Loughborough University (I presume that from the word “Lufbra” written across his shorts) who kept saying what a good downhiller he was. I thought it would be mean to tell him how much he held me up on the last one but hey he beat me in the end anyway. Tim Dunford didn’t learn from his mistakes the week before at the Gorrick 100 and blew up trying to stay in contention, he only managed 4 hours albeit at a very high speed. Disaster struk for me on the final lap as Jack Peterson from numplumz.com cheerily cruised past. I lay down for a couple of minutes to recover before getting bored of everyone asking if I was ok, and tried my best to look vaguely lively all the way to the finish. When I say vaguely, I really mean vaguely.
Meanwhile in the womens race Jennifer O’Connor was in the lead, and in fact passed me on my penultimate lap, D’OH, beaten by a girl again. Caroline James was trundling round a little way back in second, and Bec was speeding up towards the end in third place.
In the pairs event, Barrie Clark and Paul Oldham beat Oli Beckingsale and Stuart Bowers by just 15 seconds after Beckingsale cramped at the end. Liam Killeen and Gary Ford were third, apparently after Killeen picked up a penalty for rding in the pits!
Out of People Who We Know That Probably Want A Mention, Matt and Ben came in a respectable 22nd (9 laps in 6:08), the Diproses managed 31st (9 in 6:28) with the mighty Richardson-Roach pair just behind, (9 in 6:30). Dave and Johte (I’m sure you’ll correct the spelling there Dave) couldn’t catch that lot, 34th (9 in 6:32) and Fffffffoulkes/Ffffffowler bashed out 8 laps, although Nick seemed to be lounging in a deckchair every time I passed the pit area. John Hill-Venning and Joanne Henderson managed 5th in mixed pairs (a respectable 9 in 6:13). And when I say respectable, I mean actually really quite good.
So that was it for another year, the race just gets better each time and next year it will be back no doubt with more entries and more pain. Hopefully not with more climbs though, the extra little bits this year were a killer.
Jon Webb
