After a 19 hour day on Friday hiking and eating unhealthy German food on our annual work day out in the Black Forest, I had 4 hours sleep before jumping on the train to Delemont in the Swiss Jura for the Equinoxx Enduro race. There are sometimes days when it is impossible to find race mode, this was one of them. Any negative impressions from the event were probably down to sleep deprivation, I spend most of the day feeling like a zombie unable to focus at all!
The Jura is a mountain range running through France and Switzerland towards the Alps and although the mountains are relatively low level, they can be very steep. The area is mostly covered in forest with lots of limestone rocks underneath so the mountain biking is pretty technical. The race was a 30km loop with 1200m climbing, one bus uplift and 7 timed stages of 3-10 minutes.
The terrain took some getting used to, its unusual to have such a combination of forest trails with roots as well as sharp greasy rocks. The stages somewhat blur into one by the end of the race but there were a few that stood out. Stage two was fairly horrible beginning with a pedally descent before coming into a really technical rocky climb/traverse that seemed to go on forever. I normally love technical climbing but this was aweful, I’d say unrideable! The slippy uneven rock slabs ran along a ridge so that if you slipped there were big consequences and everyone I talked to had to run sections. When I finally came to the descent section my flow and rhythm was gone and ended up running down some of the steep rocky switchbacks there too. Not fun, was glad when it was over.
After that it got a bit better, everything was rideable and I was getting used to the terrain. Then stage 6 came along. The first few minutes were xc style in the forest (good xc though, hard pedaling with lots of rocks and roots!) before a short climb dropped us into an incredible long descent through the forest. This was insane, so much fun that my tired brain suddenly found the energy to focus and ride properly. The ground was damp and the slightly greasy mud full of small stones, the trail was as steep as the horrible one in stage two and if I’d have stopped I might not have ridden it but the momentum was there and it just got better and better. Super tight steep switchbacks one after the other with occasional rock drops took us down the hill, each time I wondered if I could get around the corner, it was a case of weight as far off the back as possible, turn the bars and slide hoping not to land on the next bit of trail 3m below. Each time the corner was perfectly built to catch you as you slid around. Brilliant.
Stage 7 was a slightly downhill flat out 2.5 min sprint back to the starting area with two racers starting alongside each other – a chance to satisfy the rider on rider competition that I miss with Enduros. I lined up against race winner Lorraine Truong (Norco World Enduro Team) and she got the hole shot as we sprinted absolutely flat out across a field before going into the woods. I was on her wheel through a twisty rooty singletrack before we hit a big swampy puddle and I got stuck! I lost 50m there but clawed back to almost close the gap before we finished with exploding lungs and pumped full of adrenaline.
The Race was based at a farm with showers and bike wash provided, and afterwards an evening meal and beer on tap served in a big wooden barn surrounded by hay bales. Its really cool to go to a fairly small local event and see so many passionate people getting involved to put on a cool event. I finished 2nd and am looking forward to another race in the area in a few weeks where I intend to sleep more beforehand!
cool video of the race here.