That Time I Went Full Enduro

Sometimes you gotta go huge to discover where your limits are.

- Gloria Liu

Thupthupthup. A flat trail tyre makes the saddest sound when you’re walking your bike down a hill.

Minutes before, I had psyched myself back up for the fifth and final stage of a small enduro race in a tiny town 15 minutes from my home – in other words, the most important event of the year.

Unwilling to admit how much this race mattered, my friends and I had been pre-riding the course stealthily for weeks. Race day brought the heat and humidity characteristic of that time of year, making the rocks sweaty. I’d struggled all morning over rocky sections I usually cleaned, each dab causing more panic as I pictured those seconds piling onto my total time.

I decided to salvage my day on the final stage. At the start, I cleared my head, swiped my timing chip, and charged down the trail. I couldn’t believe how fast I was going.

Too fast. About 90 metres down, my back rim went kunk! on a rock. The tyre deflated – and so did my new-found positive attitude.

My enduro career had started with more promise. The previous summer, on a whim, I’d tagged along with some friends to a two-day enduro and won the second race. I leapt into my friends’ arms, elated, when I saw the result. I had found my thing. In enduro, riders are timed on stages that are primarily downhill, with neutral ‘transfer’ stages in between. It is a test of the best all-round rider, not just the fittest.

This made sense to me. Suddenly, I made sense to me. I’d always been more inclined to descents. As a kid, I amused myself for hours by repeatedly riding up my parents’ steep driveway on my blue banana-seat bike, just for the exhilarating whoosh of coming back down. On the trail, I gravitated toward steeps, rocks, chutes, and lippy takeoffs. Enduro rewarded daredevilry, and I liked that.