4 Events, 1 Bike - Jared Rando

At the recent Australian National Championships Jared Rando was looking for a challenge, so he decided to race 4 different events without changing a single part on the bike. Read on... Jared tell us what your plan for the National Championships was?

Coming into the event I was a bit bored with DH racing, so I thought I might try and do something different, I was thinking of what I could do, I did the Downieville race (this race has essentially become the all mountain World Championships) for the first time last year and had an awesome time. So I thought why don't I try that at the Nationals? The same concept except for all events. The idea was to do 4X, XC and DH, I ended up doing pump track as well, all on the same bike, with the same set up for the whole weekend.

What bike have you chosen for this event?

Basically I didn't think too much about it, I had a Trance X and a Reign X on the wall, so it was going to be one of those two! I ended up going for the Reign X because I thought it would be more fun on the downhill. Plus, the Reign is not that much heavier than the Trance, it is basically the same bike I raced Sea Otter on last year.


Obviously, being the National Championships the XC field was of an extremely high standard, what was the 'plan of attack' coming into the race?

I just wanted to do it and didn't expect to do well by any means, I just didn't want to finish last on the first lap, which I managed to do, just! I think next year I might do some more dedicated training and see if I can at least hang for a little bit.

Jared officially finished 24th, which was last, but even racing and finishing in the Elite Men's category, at the National Championships, on the technical XC course at Eagle, is an achievement by itself. Jared, no stranger to both 4X and pump track racing fared better in these disciplines. Jared finished 6th in the 4X and top 8 in the pump track. Jared tell us about your 4X and pump track races?

Yeah I was happy, I was actually pretty surprised with the pump track, the bike got around really well. Obviously a hardtail is best for pump track, but I ended up not even touching the suspension or tyre pressure for it because it was in between the 4X qualifying. So I rolled up and lapped around, the 4X was pretty good to, the course was a bit skatier than most so I managed to make a few moves!

Jared flatted on the first corner of the track during his seeding run for the DH was so looking for a better result in his final, unfortunately after a week of hard use, on a rocky track with a tyre orientated more towards XC and trail riding not all went to plan. Jared made it down the top part of the track before flatting in the rock garden, even running 38psi in the rear and 35psi in the front could didn't stop him flatting. In the end he finished 48th out of 67 finishers. Jared explains his final run:

I ended up flatting near the bottom in the rock garden, I had a good run up until then, I was having fun, but coming out of the rock garden it started feeling a little squishy on the back and by the time I got into the open it was dead flat. I did what I could, but I was still pretty happy with the time considering (Jared posted a 2.18.76 which was 16.4 seconds behind the winner).


"The people's champion" is how I heard you being described, happy to live with that tag?

Ha ha, I don't know about that, it's a bit much! I am just trying to show people you can get out and race on whatever bike you have, you don't need to have the ideal bike for the situation. So many people ride a bike like the Reign X or Trance X and in the end you can race on them, these days people get put off from doing an event by not having the 'right' bike. You just have to go out and do it, I would like to thank long time sponsor Giant Bicycles for letting me do that!


With the popularity of all mountain style races rising expect to see more people embracing this concept. The specifications of Jared's Giant are below:

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