Cannondale British Enduro Series Round 3, Afan South Wales
With a recent spell of decent weather on our island known as the UK, fingers were crossed it would last through the past weekend, so Si Paton and his crew could host a dry weekend for the third round of the British Enduro Series. Afan’s long established and popular MTB venue in south Wales was the venue for the race, offering plenty of miles of trails to race on it was interesting to see what the team marked out for us to race on. The weekend turned out to be a mixture of everything, trails, weather, atmosphere and one common thought shared…..No one likes Midgies! The little blighters were out in their swarms to feast on human flesh this weekend.
Stage 1 – 3-4 mins depending on fitness, flowing trail to begin, tighter tecky cut through some trees, bus stops then a pedal to join the 4X track before a bloody long finish straight on the grass field.
Stage 2 – 4-5 mins here, what was two stages for another enduro event held here earlier in the year had been merged into one longer stage this weekend. Quite fast and flowing to begin, a rocky outcrop to pedal over then try to pump, pedal, and maintain speed down, over and around plenty of rocky corners and little drops.
Stage 3 – 2-3 mins setting off from near the arena on bermed smooth trail before pedalling up to road crossing and dropping into some fresh wooded trail, this section was used in years past and I remember it well, as we all had to run down it then, as the mud was too deep to ride through! Thankfully it made for a good natural section to race on this year.
Stage 4 – 2-3 mins, on the opposite hillside from the arena and the tape could be seen from there also. The open hillside where a new trail was chopped, dug and cut into it. Some steep switchback turns and flowing cross-camber sections, luckily the weather didn’t destroy it on Sunday, just leaving it a bit greasy with ruts to rail in a lot of places.
Stage 5 – 3-4 mins, starting out on frustrating gravel trail centre track with flat corners that had to be ridden with care, a fresh cut and rooty section through the trees before dropping down steep chutes to finish.
Stage 6 – was a repeat run of stage 1 on Saturday, just this time you had been out pedalling and racing for over 4 hours so you had to summon your last ounces of energy to finish yourself off for the weekend.
Results-wise there are a lot of fast Welsh riders about nowadays, so plenty of them occupied podium spots here. Juniors was won by Kyle Havard, Seniors; Charles Jones, Masters; Hywel Silvester, Veterans; Andrew Titley, Elite women’s top three were Becky Cook, Martha Gill and Claire Bennett then Elite men’s was pretty-much dominated by Leigh Johnson, who was followed by Matt Stuttard and Sam Shuckmsith.
For myself, I managed to only have one small crash through the weekend and so bagged a 9th place in elite, so I was happy to be in the top ten and mixing it up with guys half my age; literally! A shout out to my teammate James Allaway whose chain jammed in seeding leaving him to battle through Sunday’s stages catching riders in front and managing to get up to 10th in masters, and to Adele from the Cannondale Girls team who, from a Track racing background got stuck into enduro and got 2nd in the open Women’s category, well done.
So another round in the bag for the British Enduro crew, who are putting on good events, surprisingly however, numbers weren’t as high as I would have expected and experienced in recent years but not really sure why I presume it’s down to the number of regional race series on offer this year and people preferring to stay close to home. A massive shout out must go the marshalls, volunteers and organising team for who without races just couldn’t happen, but this race in particular where these guy and girls were standing for hours on end being engulfed by biting midgies whilst we came and went, THANK YOU. Next round is at the old Eastridge venue in Shropshire in August, that month is officially supposed to be summer right? So hopefully a dry weekend will await us, hope to see more of you there.
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Words: Aiden Bishop Photos: Doc Ward
