it certainly does. ever since newton copped the apple to the head people have done one of two things: play with it or try to avoid dealing with it. last weekend nat and i sort of did both: it’s called gravity enduro and it is supposed to provide a fair measure of gravity assisted downhill fun mixed with an acceptable yet painful amount of gravity induced suffering on the way back up.
enduro. that’s just how it is. groms (under 15) could give the long grind up to the downhill start a miss and get a shuttle instead. and they only had to complete three stages, not four.
queueing is the new enduro. the photo above is also remarkable for another reason: there are actually three aqua / magenta nomads at the starting line. when have you last seen such a magnificent sight?
we didn’t really have a good day. for some reason the shock on nat’s bike collapsed which made for some very uncomfortable riding. good thing i was following her and i always carry a shock pump with me (actually that’s probably pretty stupid on a race run but it came in very handy this time around). it still ruined nat’s run.
being the racer she is nat decided to run stage 1 – the downhill – again which was easy for her to say (using the mum shuttle) but i had to cycle up all the way again. at that point my legs went on strike and my race became a matter of pure survival.
sadly on the second run nat’s shock collapsed again (who is maintaining nat’s bike anyway?) so it’s a good thing i was there to fix it a second time; naturally nat was pretty disappointed. but hey, it’s enduro and it isn’t over until the dimensionally challenged lady does her sing, so we were off to the start of stage 2, perfectly perched on top of an unpleasantly long and steep fire road. gravity, you know, it’s a b…h.
good thing nat had brought a dad to push her (and his own) bike up the steep road. did i mention i had to ride stage 2 twice? as soon as i had followed nat (and one of her friends) down i was on my way back up and then made it to the start of stage 3 by the narrowest of margins: i was the last person at the start before the stage closed.
anyhow, nat managed to score another podium finish. go girls (nat and her friend amelie)!
i’m sure nat also learnt a valuable life lesson about resilience and overcoming adversity which as far as i am concerned is half of what enduro is all about.
the other half is fun, of course.
ps: disappointingly i didn’t score a podium. i mean following the groms & fixing nat’s bike didn’t really help my stage times but there must have been a mass breakout at the local retirement village – i haven’t seen so many ‘supermasters’ queueing up at a race start. still great fun though.