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Photo - Chris Birch:
Most will be aware that Chris Birch, the current NZ Enduro champion, past NZ Trials Champion and Mountain Bike rider, has made the major move to the UK to pursue his dreams.
Chris has a really great Website: that you may wish to bookmark.
And you can >Send Chris An Email: of support.
Hi
After finishing second in E2 at the second round of the BEC I’ve been on a bit of a high. My next race was the first round of the European Enduro Champs in Poland
The enduro was held in and around the city of Lublin. The practice area and park ferme were both in a small park right in the middle of the city. The enduro test was also held within the city on a bit of land surrounded by high rise apartments and shops
The first check was incredible, we started on a big platform and were cheered off by hundreds of spectators out of the square and onto a main road. At the first set of traffic lights a cop waived us through the red light and after 5k on the road we turned off and tore across some park land. We then dropped down onto a boggy grass strip beside a canal. We followed this for about ten k, occasionally crossing concrete water ways and ducking under road bridges. We then popped out of the canal and rode down a dirt track to another park, they didn't want us to rip up the grass so they had taped off a trail following a winding foot path up into some woods which took us to the first test.
The start of the test was pretty impressive. Sitting on the bike in the chute all you could see was twenty meters of straight bulldozed clay leading into a big ski jump, beyond that you couldn't see any trail, just high rise apartments and about two thousand spectators! All the tests were really good fun, both the motocross test and the enduro test were basically mx tests, but they flowed quite well and the bulldozed jumps were quite safe.
Out on the trails it was generally pretty boring, lots of top gear dirt roads and dusty straight trails. There were some pretty decent bogs that were trapping some of the Euro’s, not the Welsh or Kiwi’s though, we know our bog’s!
Unfortunately my Saturday was cut short towards the end of the first lap. I was loosing compression and the bike was running pretty rough. I got to a big tunnel under a railway line and didn’t make it out the other side. I sucked some water in and with the compression already low there was no way I could get it going. I spent the rest of the day at the van rebuilding the motor for Sunday.
On Sunday I had a much better run, It was difficult to push as hard as I needed to in the test’s as they had changed so much during Saturdays race. I only made one mistake and that happened in the final test. I went into it behind Kelly Patterson and I was determined to catch him. After the second corner there were two big bumps, I hit them way too hard and did a big hand stand on the bars. I came down hanging onto the bars but my legs hanging down the side dragging behind, By some miracle the bike dropped into the rut at the next turn and I threw a leg over and got going again! Very lucky.
I ended the day in eighth which was ok, but I was hoping for a bit more.
Travelling and racing in Poland was a brilliant experience, it was a very long but enjoyable drive out there. Three of us in a Transit van bombing through the night. Through super accurate packing we managed to cram three bikes, three people, three sets of gear, gas tins, tyres, camping gear and a moose board into a short wheel base tranny with enough room for a bed as well. It was a good set up as it meant we didn’t have to stop for rest and got to the race without being totally shattered.
The roads in Poland have to be experienced to be believed. There is only one bit of motorway and the rest is knackered. The huge amount of trucks leave big ruts in the road that the trucks regularly pop out of and leap about the road. In places the roads are just seal poured on top of WW2 pavers. This doesn’t stop the locals going flat out though!
I couldn’t believe where they were letting us ride, and although it wasn’t much in the way of a technical single track loop it was still good fun.
Roll on Italy in two weeks time!
