SUNCREAM
AND
GORE-TEX
WORDS AND PHOTOSMATT WRAGG AND DAVE TRUMPORE
This weekend's race has a very different feel to some of the recent Enduro World Series races. The race will be seven stages spread over 50km, with 1700m+ of climbing, but the gradient is fairly mellow and the transfer times are quite relaxed - as races have been getting notoriously harder and harder, this is step towards a more inclusive race than we have seen in a while, a return to a more trail riding feel. The idea is that this should be a more social affair, giving riders time to chat to their mates on the way up to the stages. With the smaller hill the stages are pretty short, so riders should be able to go flatout all the way down. It's set to be a very physical race and to ride this kind of terrain very fast is going to take big lungs and a lot of upper body strength to keep the bike moving. And with a short race any mistake are going to be more costly than ever...
Matt Wragg • Age: 32 • Years Shooting: 3 Maybe best-known as a long-standing member of Pinkbike's European editorial team, Matt is also a successful commercial photographer. As the first English-speaking photographer to follow and document the nascent European enduro scene, he was shooting enduro well before it became a marketing buzzword or a shade of blue. Today he is still one of the few photographers to make his living following the discipline and has built up an enviable client list that includes many of the top teams and brands in the world.
I put in just one day during the building of stage three but I do know it am looking forward to seeing how the superstars and my club mates MADMTB ride it. Two more sleeps....
Some squidy mounting right there. Although, she'll probably be faster than me still.
Is Richie Rude listening to music while smashing the trails?