Following last months successful first round of the WP Gravity Enduro in Jonkershoek, the series moved on to Contermanskloof for another great day of racing.
It would come at a price though, as yet again the timing demons popped out of the woodwork and spoiled the party. With high hopes of a second successive smooth sailing event, some data got lost in the cloudless blue skies it seems, and no results or winners could be announced, unfortunately.
On a more positive note though, the green wonderland that is Contermanskloof during winter, delivered four killer stages, one of which was specifically built as a one-off for this event. Riders faced a total of 17 km, of which 6.1 km was timed, with a total elevation drop of 768 m.
Yet more good news is the great turnout of riders for this event, topping out at 115. That is a fair amount more than round 1, and very promising for the future of the sport. KZN young-gun, and last event’s runner up Keira Duncan, traveled down to Cape Town to see if he could claim the top spot this time around and with Matt Lombardi currently racing EWS overseas, things looked to be in his favour. However, at the time of writing this, no official results have been released…
Stage 1 was a prime way to start the day with a fast open top section into some tight, tech corners. Easy to overcook everything, so it was a great way to get into a rhythm. We opted to do stage 3 next before it got too blown out by all the riders. Expected a lot of people to go off the track here so wanted to avoid following the wrong lines. Rad to ride a new stage and once again a mix of loose tight corners and a flat out bottom section. Stage 2 was a bit of a pedal fest… Lastly, stage 4… definitely the highlight of the day. Had some decent length giving you enough time to get into a good rhythm. Really loved the variety of riding on the trail, good mix of natural, fast, rocky, berms…etc. felt like a proper enduro stage!
Niko Velasco
After a late start to the race, we headed off and got the option to do the stages in any order of our choice. Knowing this I headed off to start on stage 2 (Super Tubes) as it was not too technical and a nice warm up stage before the others. The new berms made for huge amounts of fun and it’s not often you can ride a trail where you are G-ing out in the berms because of the speed. Stage 3 turned out to be a highlight for me, involving some natural off camber turns which we don’t often see locally, and was a good challenge to stay cleated in! The longest stage was stage 4, starting all the way from the mast and was definitely my favourite stage of the day as it involved a bit of everything, gradient, jumps, rocks and really good flow. Lastly was stage 1. Not very technical, but a stage that you could easily throw the day away with a silly washout due to all the flat corners.
Dave Hogan
You know, it happens almost every year, every time I ride the Contermanskloof Enduro. It slays me that I do not ride this trail system more often. Granted, we are spoiled for choice in Cape Town…I mean we really do have the pick of the country side. But Conters really does test and deliver, from the flowing to the steep, to the fun, to the nerve racking at race pace…The Starkes have truly created a fantastic trail system (and some tasty beer too). Sunday’s event was great fun, being able to be part of such a large race field was superb. It’s exciting to see our ‘mates racing’ style of riding growing and gaining the traction it deserves! We have some exciting times ahead I reckon…
Andrew Savage
Thank you to all the riders that came out to race this round of the WP Gravity Enduro series. And also to the sponsors SRAM, Mobii, Heli Vac and Encore Safety Management without which these events will not be possible. Lastly, to Robert Starke for providing us this awesome playground to ride our bikes through.
