News | Steve Parr announces the end of the UKGE
Today there was an announcement that shocked the UK enduro community, the UKGE will be no more in 2016! The UKGE is the UK’s longest running enduro series, and has held successful races all over the nation, attracting riders and sponsors from every corner of the land. It was hoped that the UKGE would become the UCI official national series, but when British Cycling pulled the plug on Enduro at the start of the year the future for UKGE looked shaky.
Rumours have already started of another series set to take up the challenge, only time will tell. ENDURO Magazine would like to thank Steve Parr for all his hard work and dedication that truly put UK Enduro on the map, seting the standard for all others to be measured against! Best wishes for the future Steve!
“After five years of the UKGE I have to announce there will be no sixth year in 2016. The series started off slowly and built up to something massive. It took over my life, morning, noon and night. At the start of 2015, I became homeless with our first born expected in April, this was what can only be described as troubling times for Liz and myself. This is in no way an excuse for my handling of the PR associated with UKGE, it is the hard facts, I am putting my hands up to making a complete mess of the situation. Maybe in the near future people will look back and think it was visionary, only time will tell.
All through my years of organising events, it has always been my goal to put rider’s wishes first, if they ever said I had done a bad job, I would have stopped. At heart, I am a racer, always have been and always will be. It is what we live for – great racing! The UKGE team has brought you amazing races across the country and put enduro in the UK at the forefront of every Mountain Biker”s thoughts. So, thank you to all who have made the five years amazing, and so much fun as well.
I am going to take this opportunity to say a massive thank you to all the sponsors that have supported the series: the Forestry Commission, for letting us host the races, and to the happy faces we see at so many races. Charlie Williams, for his outstanding contribution to the series – he has bought all his years of racing in Europe into developing the stages. Last but not least, anyone who has helped prepare stages over the past five years, especially the “Trail pixies;” Dominic Pearce, Ed Wright and Richard Marsden. Next year sees me hitting the big Five 0, so it is time for me to go racing and spend some quality time with Liz and our beautiful baby girl, Imogen. The UKGE team will be doing possibly two events in 2016, one of these will be a week long bike festival, the other remains a close guarded secret! Get yourself along to round five at Dyfi and say goodbye to the original and still the best series for Gravity Enduro in the UK.” – Steve Parr
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