At the weekend I raced in the Bluegrass Classique Enduro series in the pretty Alsasce region of France. There were 5 timed stages raced within a 30km loop which started at the top of a mountain 800m above the town. Stages were 10-15 minutes long, almost all on loamy forest singletracks full of dusty switchbacks, swoopy bombholes and tree roots. Since there was no practice of the course allowed, everything was ridden blind, a real skill in itself to go full gas when you don’t know whats coming but there was nothing too scary and it was loads of fun to ride.
The higher sections had some nasty little sharp rocks perfectly positioned to deflate your tires as you were in full swing. I flew down one such section on the first stage passing half a dozen guys fixing punctures and thinking to myself ‘be careful or you’ll get a puncture’, sure enough 2 minutes later my front tyre went pssssstttttt. I chose to ride on the flat, wildly sliding out on the corners to the bottom but in hindsight on such a long stage fixing it would have been better. The race was more or less over, I lost 6-8 minutes.
After that I was there for fun. Stage 2 had a 3 minute uphill pedaling part which I attacked like a maniac so that my lungs were almost popping out of my mouth, xc race skills were not going to go to waste there and I clocked the fastest time on that stage. The race finished with a 40 second sprint in the town centre, jumping wooden pallets and riding skinnys over a pool of water to the finish where a live band, dinner and a dirt jump contest awaited. A great race, well organised with really nice trails and friendly chilled out atmosphere.
Overall I was 7th but some geeky results analysis shows if you discount the puncture stage I was 2nd fastest. Gutted! time to go tubeless.
