Enduro weekend in Italy

A long weekend riding enduro in Italy looks a little something like this! I didn’t want to deal with carrying my heavy DSLR camera, and since my (and my buddies??!! ) GoPro’s both stopped recording video after 18 seconds every time  (WTF??!) I cant make an edit of the trip, so these are just screenshots from some of the short vids and some iPhone photos. Some parts of enduro are just unbelievably epic and others are pure torture!

We arrived Friday afternoon and went out for a couple of hours on the trails around my friends house.

The sun was out, the trails were really easy and flowing and it was a pretty mellow ride to learn the bikes a bit as neither of us had ridden them before.

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Saturday morning we awoke to rain and thunderous clouds but we met up with a group of local Enduro riders and with mild trepidation set off up into the mountains anyway!

One of my oldest friends and our gracious host for the weekend, HH!

MAX

Simon getting a little sketchy!

Just a quick word about the new alpinestars Tech 7, since I have now had a bit of time with them. I wore them both days without any problems, there was literally zero break in time and they were comfy from the first moment to the last. I haven’t tried them for MX yet, but I highly recommend them for enduro. Maybe I need to figure out the right technique for it, but with a knee brace they are a little fiddly to get them tight at the top using the velcro before closing the top buckle. Once they were on they were brilliant, light and low profile. I never fell over, but the sole was a little slippery on some of the wet roots, rocks, and muddy slopes, but I dont think any material or pattern would grip on those surfaces. I heard there is an Enduro specific version coming soon with a grippier sole which may be a bit better for the muddy parts but I was fine with these ones anyway. Overall I never really thought about them while I was wearing them, beyond thinking how well they gripped the bike, which is about as much as you can hope for I think. I was very happy with them and received a couple of comments from guys we were riding with about how good they looked.

This was the start of Simon’s nightmare. It was so steep and wet and slippery it was ridiculous.

I was going to take a photo of him hitting this hard steep left turn but instead he ricocheted off a rock before the corner and shot off the path ending up about 10 meters down the hill with his bike!!

Amazingly I rode up this without too much difficulty on the freeride!!

The 125 smoker was struggling up here. It is hard to explain how steep and difficult this trail was. The photos really don’t do it justice.

Finally at the top of that section and the sun came out, perfect!

Max happy to have made it.

And at long last, after going through his own personal hell on multiple occasions, Simon made it up.

With it’s low seat height, light weight and brilliant torque, the KTM Freeride was perfect for the mad trails we were riding and I was really glad not to be on an EXC. It went up some of the climbs with relative ease where almost every other bike and rider really struggled.

And some shots from my Go Pro from the 2nd day to finish off…

HH slipped off the path and within seconds was way down the hill.

I preferred it when the trails were like this and you could pin it and drift around the corners!

It certainly has it’s moments, but I am still not sure if enduro is actually really fun! You do feel great at the end of the day though despite being fuckin knackered!

I am already looking forward to the next ride!!!