Beaumont Wins Mini Enduro at Eastridge

Eastridge has very long history of mountain bike races dating back to the early days of mountain biking in the UK.

Past winners here read like a who's who of mountain biking in the Uk hosting regional championships, national and national championships both XC, Dual and Downhill from the 90's and the 2000's but as with any sport the riders wanted more and so did the farmer who owned the field to the point it was too expensive to use.

So its been quite a few years since Eastridge had hosted a race and with the change of owners of the finish field a deal was done to get the old field back and host a Mini Enduro race at Eastridge.

Car park filled up quite on Saturday morning.

This news spread fast through the shire and a great turn out of ex winners were present and racing on the old tracks.
The stages used a mixture of downhill tracks with stage1 using the old 92 Downhill track, Stage 2 is big log and went all the way down to poo corner all named by the locals, stage 3 was an extra bonus stage with a flat out top section which dropped into a tight technical steep decent to the finish which seemed to be everyone favorite of the day and stage 4 was old 98 downhill track into the finish field.


The mini enduro's are designed to be one day turn up and ride the stages in the morning and race in the afternoon, well thats the idea but on Saturday morning a lot of riders turned and were off up the hill to check out the stages. By lunch time the early morning riders were back in the finish area talking lines and egging each other to go back out for another lap.

Saturday open training day

Sunday - race day the weather was dry and sunny practice went well and racing start at 12.30pm with fastest riders first and Mark Beaumont being the first rider down into the finish field with live timing and a big screen to show riders there stage 1 times.

From Stage 1 it was push up the field to start the 10 mile loop around the forest.

Flat grass corners got to love them.

Tucking for the win?

Dropping into the old field

Eastidge is a rocky place and punchers really played a part in the day.

The Trailhead Shop in Shrewsbury were on hand with a free mechanic to fix everyones bikes, from ripped off mech hangers to lots of punched tires.


The Results:

Pro

Senior

Master

Veteran

Grand Veteran

Under 17

Hardtail

Women (with Ace Components)

Mini Enduro Eastridge Results2014

Random locals

Hippy Rich

Mop Head

Jim Buchanan (Mr Enduro-mag)

Representing The Trailhead

Big John

I won!

The next mini enduro is in the Forest of Dean in November, check out www.minienduro.tv for the info.