Race Report: Northern Downhill Descendant at Danny Hart's Descend Bike Park

Last weekend saw the Northern Downhill (NDH) kick off their 2023 season with an amazing Enduro race at the North East’s premium bike park Danny Hart’s Descend Bike Park. With 7 races in their 2023 calendar, this race was straight into a steep, technical and fast 3 stage enduro race.


NDH offers a vary varied race calendar, from fun enduro’s suited to new starters to mountain bike racing, to their TT races which are a one stage, similar to downhill racing format of race, to their far more challenging Descendant Enduros which are more directed at the seasoned racer looking to challenge themselves and race against some very fast and capable riders.


Sunday’s race was a 3 stage enduro, with the stages starting right at the top of the bike park. The racers had the chance to practice the stages in the morning with the timed runs in the afternoon. All the stages were reasonably mellow at the top, stage 3 was more rooty and rocky with a fiendishly tricky rooty corner into the lower park. Lower down in the bike park and the trails became way more rowdy, especially stages 1 and 2. Carl and his team taped of a varied course towards the bottom that varied from slight uphill hard on the pedal sprints to steep rocky and rooty technical sections. In order to keep this a more enduro feel, instead of a gravity defying multi-stage downhill race day, some of the bigger bike park jumps and drops were avoided.
154 riders battled it out on the day, and overall the day ran as smoothly as always. With a multi stage start due to the winter hours, most riders had completed their races within 2 hours.


The fastest rider of the day was Michael Tait (19-29) in a total time of 5:18.89 closely followed by Sean Robinson (40-49) in 5:23.26 and third fastest went to Ruaidhri Forrester (19-29) in 5:25.57. Michael took the stage wins on stages 1 and 3, but was beaten on stage 2 by Ruaidhri. Some close racing there for sure!


There were 6 females racing on the day and with so few there was just an open category. Hollie Vayro took the fastest female on the day (39th overall in the entire field!) in a staggering 6:19.04, second fastest went to Katie Melville in 6:40.27 and third fastest was Suzanne Fox in 7:18.45.


It was great to see some of the Vets breaking into the top 10 fastest riders and keeping the young guns on their toes, the two Vets Sean and Brad sure are seasoned and experienced racers, get in lads!! Podium prizes were supplied by Start Fitness and Kingdom Bikes UK.




Overall this was a brilliant race in the North East of England at Danny Hart’s Descend Bike Park. If you’ve never been, then it is an essential destination for a great days riding. Sue, Paul and the team running the bike park will sure look after you. On race day, they were feeding the riders with bacon buns, burgers and all sorts of refreshments to carb up the racers. For more information on the bike park, head over to their facebook pages here or their website. They offer all day Uplifts and also cater to riders wanting to push up and explore the plethora of trails in the park, which are constantly being upgraded and enhanced throughout the year. Their next sell out race is on 12th February.


Next up for the Northern Downhill is their Chopwell Funduro, more geared towards newcomers and novice racers, but this always attracts some faster riders too. The Chopwell race takes place on the 26th February, to enter hit this link or head over to their website or facebook.


That’s a wrap for this report, I hope to see you at the next round. For the full results and more photos head over to Roots and Rain