While 5 000 riders tackled the annual Telkom 947 Mountain Bike Challenge 25km and 55km races in Johannesburg this past weekend, a small group of 85 mountain bikers opted to head north of Johannesburg (west of Pretoria) to tackle the 2016 Hakahana Enduro Championships. What was the attraction? Here, let me tell you…
By Sean Badenhorst
Photos by Dino Lloyd
For those still unfamiliar with Enduro, it’s basically a new take on how mountain bike racing started. You are timed on a series predominantly descending segments of trail (mostly singletrack). Once you’ve completed one segment, you make your way upwards to the start of the next one, either pedalling or pushing – there’s no real rush.
Actually, there is a real rush, but it’s the adrenaline kind, when you bomb your way down a segment as fast as you possibly can. Every sense you have is stimulated because you’re basically riding in the danger zone. One small error and at best you’ll lose time, at worst take a tumble. Enduro gives anyone a chance to sample a little bit of what downhill racing is, but with a slightly lower risk factor.
Obstacles at Hakahana include busy rock gardens, loose rock sections, slab rock, large rock drops, a wall drop-off, a variety of natural drop-offs, man-made jumps, berms, gap jumps, hip jumps, natural ruts and many corners, some cambered, some not, some tight, some sweeping…
There’s some pedalling too. In fact, many say that they’ve achieved their maximum recorded heart rate during Enduro stages. At Hakahana, you spend anything from two-and-a-half to six minutes in a high intensity place where choosing your line or direction is more important (and stressful) than choosing a career path. It’s basically a-thrill-a-second bike racing for intermediate to advanced level riders.
The Hakahana Champs was a two-day event – four stages on Saturday and four on Sunday. When there’s just one day of racing, it’s usually up to five stages of racing, so this was almost a double dose of action and I was fortunate to be one of those to gulp it all down.
I’m not going to go into detail on each of the eight stages, but I am going to say that Johan Vorster and his team did a superb job in preparing the trails, which offered great variety considering the gradient and terrain of the area. The conditions were a little damp at the start of Saturday’s racing following some soaking rain in the early hours of Friday morning. There were some traction challenges in places, especially on the round rocks in the shaded sections, but it dried out to leave us with perfect surface conditions for the rest of the weekend.
The great thing about Enduro is that much like downhill, there’s a natural sense of empathy. When a rider crashes or leaves the course at a tricky spot, everyone else feels that pain or frustration. When a rider cuts a tyre (as I did on SP3), everyone understands your disappointment. When a segment has a finish point that’s hard to spot, the riders that started ahead of you will shout to you as you’re approaching to ensure you don’t miss it, even though it would certainly benefit their result if you missed it and had to double back.
Once you finish a stage, you make your way to the start of the next one. Not everyone does the stages in the same sequence and certainly not at the same time, so the result is riders scattered all round the slopes either furiously racing their segment or moving slowly towards the start of the next one. It’s during those transitions where you chat to each other about your last run, analysing your own downfalls or excitedly describing a nervous moment – or few. It’s during those transitions where you build bonds that you would never be able to build at any other kind of mountain bike racing. That’s what makes Enduro pretty special…
You don’t have to be a hardcore gravity nut to enjoy Enduro. You just need a reasonable level of confidence on a bike and a desire for some fresh excitement. There’s a hardtail category and B lines on all of the obstacles that may seem a little scary. The guys from Pyga even hold free Enduro skills sessions at Hakahana from time to time.
Who won? Well, on some level, everyone that entered scored a little victory at some point during the weekend’s racing. But from a results perspective, young Wade Prinsloo (LCB Racing) had the weekend of his life, winning four of the eight stages and claiming the overall title in a total time of 26 minutes 13 seconds. It was his first Enduro crown and highly unlikely to be his last… The ever consistent Hilton Frost (Pyga), the overnight leader, finished second just one second back, with Martin ‘Fietsman’ Zietsman in third in 26:58.
Elja van Urk was the top woman, her total time of 32:30 placing her an impressive 26th overall. Louise Kotze was a close second in 33:08 with Larise Venter rounding out the podium in 34:17.
A nice bonus on Saturday morning was the presence of New Zealand pro racer, Wyn Masters, who was in South Africa for the GT Good Times tour. Wyn rode two stages blind, clocking the fastest time overall on SP1 (he went a bit off the route on SP3). His SP1 time of 4:11 was 12 seconds faster than that of Hilton Frost’s 4:23! What impressed us more though was that Wyn rode almost all the way up to the start of SP1 on some seriously steep, technical sections. Inspirational stuff and a great addition to the weekend’s event.
View the full picture galleries from both days below:
2016 HAKAHANA ENDURO CHAMPS – Day 01
2016 HAKAHANA ENDURO CHAMPS – Day 02
2016 HAKAHANA ENDURO CHAMPS RESULTS:
Overall
1 Wade Prinsloo 26:13
2 Hilton Frost 26:14
3 Martin Zietsman 26:58
4 John-Michael du Preez 28:18
5 Justin Steyn 28:20
6 Dylan Raffanti 28:32
7 Fransua de Wit 28:43
8 Vincent Barbier 28:48
9 Cyril Spence 28:59
10 Nicolas Verrier 29:00
Overall women
1 Elja van Urk 32:30
2 Louise Kotze 33:08
3 Larise Venter 34:17
4 Wendy Odendaal 38:19
5 Sonja Engelbrecht 39:53
6 Michelle Reynolds 40:47
7 Claudia Gnudi 50:41
Senior Men
1 Wade Prinsloo 26:13
2 Hilton Frost 26:14:
3 John-Michael du Preez 28:18
Sub-veteran Men
1 Martin Zietsman 26:58
2 Justin Steyn 28:20
3 Dylan Raffanti 28:32
Veteran Men
1 Grant Engels 29:26
2 Dion Retief 30:46
3 Paul Venter 31:10
Master Men
1 Bruce Mead 32:59
2 Guy Wentzel 35:32
Grand Master Men
1 Roger Hartley 32:06
2 Joe Diana 40:35
Hardtail
1 Jason Geldenhuys
2 Paul Venter
3 Kevin Knoetzer
For detailed, full results, go here: http://www.elitetiming.co.za/results/
Hakahana Trails are open most weekends. Visit the website for details at http://www.hakahanatrails.co.za
