The grand finale- Gravity Enduro

I headed down to South Wales for the final round of the 2011 Gravity Enduro series at Afan Forest. I have been to Afan a few times now, for a couple of Dirt photoshoots and a ride earlier in the year.
I am no stranger to the wall at Afan, which i did a timed run down for a Dirt article a few years back. I have had people over the years refer back to that article and how they are still trying to beat my time. All i remember was how hard physically it was to put in a full run down the wall. It is good fun, but you don’t realise how many flat little sprints there are until you are against the clock.

So coming into the weekend i had a good idea that it was going to be a physical weekend, add to that the big loop to get to all 5 stages and it was definitely a challenge.

I will get the excuses out of the way now

I didn’t have the greatest of weekend’s racing. I put it down to the effect of being very busy with work (running awesome jumps and drops courses) and my lack of preparation in the form of a very messy stag do weekend and wedding of my old buddy Jonny Cheetham.

The stages favoured the fitter guys with only stage 2 having any serious technical parts.

Stage 2 was a new cut dh track that was like something out of the late 90s Dragon DH era. It was going to be where the race was won or lost. The other 4 stages were about riding fast and absolutely blowing your lungs out.

So stage 2 was a disaster for me and probably cost me the chance to win the overall Elite category for the season. I felt confident that i could put some time into everyone on it, except maybe Gary Forest who is really good DHer. So i set off on a mission. There was a quick sprint and tuck down a fast fire road and then you dropped in to the mother of all muddy, rooty bastard downhill tracks you have ever seen.

Within 20 seconds of hitting the hard stuff i had caught my man in front. A shouted rider and he kind of kept on going, not too keen to pull over and let me by. He dropped into a really steep, hard switch back and crashed right in the middle of the track. By then i was committed and had no where to go other than into him and his bike. I went flying. i could see a hose hanging from my bars, all i hoped was that it was from my dropper post and not a brake. So i jumped back on and it quickly became apparent that it was my front brake.

That was that, i struggled through the last 3 stages having to brake really early. In the pouring rain.

It was a disappointing end to an otherwise great year. I finished 5th Elite for the day and 2nd overall for the year. Well done to Gary Forest who took the overall.

Big thanks to everyone who has helped me out this year with some amazing kit.

Oneplanet Adventure- coffee and cake
Santa Cruz- Blur LTc, most fun bike ever and looks amazing
Fox Racing- nicest technical trail riding kit
Fox Racing Shox- 36s are the best forks known to mankind
Mojo- got the ‘know how’
Hope- lovely green brakes
Renthal- completes my wannabe mx fantasy
Continental- super secret tyre compound that i attribute both my wins to
Syncros rims- for putting up with my clumsy riding all year
Calypso Sports Anywhere- for making me a star in the app store

Photo- Barbara Sztyk