Can you have a successful enduro in an area of forest just 500 m x 500 m? Well, 340 riders descended upon Gnar Bike Park to find out. It was time for Round 6 of the Hope PMBA Enduro.

The beauty of enduro racing is its diversity and this event certainly broke some new boundaries. With 18 stages in one day, Round 6 of the Hope PMBA Enduro showed just how much fun you can have on a small section of hill. The push up track cut right up between the stages so heckling and good natured banter was the order of the day. With short stages and intense racing, any mistake was costly so it was all about putting down clean and smooth runs – or just going wild and full gas. Check out the awesome video and a rundown of the day.

HOPE/PMBA 2016 – ROUND 6, GNAR BIKEPARK from Whitenosugar Productions on Vimeo.

3rd place senior Joe Harrison takes us through the day: For the sixth round of the Hope PMBA Enduro Series, the venue was fresh and the trails had never been raced on before, located just off the M6 in Cumbria was Gnar Bike Park.

The format had completely changed for this event as the stages were so short, so to get any decent stage times they were all repeated three times, meaning there would be eighteen individual stage times. I have to admit I was very sceptical about this race because it was so different to what I was used to and even after riding the stages once for practice I still wasn’t convinced, but on the last practice run I did I found my flow and knew I just had to concentrate on the stages because they were good fun!

PMBA Round 6-23

Racing kicked off at 11:30, and it all seemed like carnage with every rider going up the same track to the stages, but once everyone was at their allocated start stages everything was running smooth, I got to my start stage which was stage five and I couldn’t wait to get into it. The first lap for me was like practice again because the stages had dried up so much from an hour earlier and I was a bit too cautious I think.

PMBA Round 6-8

I got back around to stage five again to start my second lap, when I got there a bit of a queue had formed, thinking nothing of it I was stood there chatting about the stages with the rest of the group I was riding with, only to find out shortly after that the stage had been red flagged due to a serious crash and the medics were waiting for the helicopter to carry the injured rider to the nearest hospital.
Get well soon Ian Cation! (organisers note: Ian Cation was released from the hospital Monday afternoon, nothing was broken just very sore. Big thanks to the medics, and especially Great North Air Ambulance)

PMBA Round 6-46

Racing was underway again and for the next two laps I was feeling really good on the bike and the stages just kept getting better the more they dried out! By the end of the third lap, I had managed to knock six seconds off my stage six time, bringing it down to under a minute.

PMBA Round 6-4

After a short wait for all of the riders to get back and hand their timing chips in, the results were ready, I managed to do enough to get the third spot on the podium in seniors with only the Breeze twins ahead of me, even got thirty quid out of it! Happy Days!

PMBA Round 6-8023 PMBA Round 6-8010

Huge thanks to the organisers, marshals and all the volunteers and Gnar Bike Park for turning out to being an amazing venue, and thanks to TCH Factory Racing for all the support this year!

Full results can be downloaded here


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Words: PMBA Photos: Nick Moor