Dissapointing two days at the welsh

The welsh two day enduro always takes place on a Thursday and Friday in late June and i travelled up late Tuesday hoping to build on my good result in Hungary at the last round of the European championship. Looking at the results from Hungary i realised that my enduro special tests were quick but there was room for improvement on the motox tests. so i had been practising on the mx tracks at rogershill raceway trying to get abit more aggressive on the mx corners and jumps.

I think this may have led to my mistake on the first test at crossgates because i came into a corner too aggressive and tryed to use the berm on the outside but the berm gave way and i went through the tapes into some loose logs and fell off. it took me a while to get the bike going again and the next rider on the test Tom Braddock went past before i got moving again. Obviously my time was well of the pace and with only 4 more tests over the whole weekend it would be hard to make time back but i would do my best. On the other two tests on day1 i struggled along with many other riders to work out how much grip was available on the grass.
On day 2 i had hoped for the rain to come on the first test but it didn’t and my time wasn’t bad but i still felt well off my potential. The rain did come for test 2 though, most of the E1 class riders made it onto the test before the rain started and by the time us in the E2 class reached it was tipping it down! I got a feel for the grip at the start of the test and started to go gain confidence and push on. I caught and passed two expert riders but as i was coming back down the hill towards the finish i gave my Gasser abit to much gas and lost the back end on the off camber
The only decider left was the tight check at the end of the day. All the riders knew it could be tight with the rain and were going for it. Me and Jamie Padgett set off together and over-toke each other a couple of times until i binned it in some fast ruts and smashed my roll offs out of my goggles. I pushed on for the rest of the check being caught by my team mate ash woods who was flying. i saw a few riders stuck on a hill up in front and managed to weave through as quick as possible. I ended up losing a minute and was gutted not to stay on time but pleased with how i was riding at the end and felt fit enough to do another lap.
I’m now looking forward to gbxc next week then the knighton enduro

Brad king – enduro and hare scrambles on GAS GAS UK EC250 – www.freewebs.com/bradking25 – supported by K4OFFROAD, TALON, STEVE PLAIN M/CS, MICHELIN, GAERNE, NAU, RENTHAL, MOTUL, KRIEGA, ROGERSHILL RACEWAY AND RUSH RACING.

Tags: enduro, european, gbxc, goggles, king, tip, tips