Scottish enduro pinner Michael Clyne is aiming to take the 2019 Enduro World Series Masters championship off his own back.
Racing a full Enduro World Series as a privateer is mostly unheard of, let alone going for the biggest scalp of them all, the championship overall.
That is exactly what Michael Clyne aims to do, and he’s going to be checking in to let us know how he’s getting on throughout the year.
After a winter of battling Scottish mud, Mike heads to a super dusty Rotorua for round one of the 2019 Enduro World Series.
After 40hrs straight travelling, arriving in the tourist honey trap of Rotorua, seeing bikes of every kind, heroes like Wyn Masters and Greg Callaghan trotting about, I didn’t need the local smelling salts to get my senses sparking again.
First job was to get the bike built up and ready to rumble. Amazingly I had zero issues. After a luscious 12 hour sleep, day one was to be a track walk.
Heading up into the jungle is an incredible experience for first timers. It so thick, teeming with life and provides an impressive cacophony of noise from the various critters. Note to self, don’t crash off track.
Stages 2 and 4 look to be typical 3-4 minute push hard keep it lit-style of tracks. The compacted loam trails look to have lots of grip, but due to the hard and buffed surfaces, it will be a task to find edges to corner on.
Some of the high lines into berms beggars belief. Nearly every steep technical corner has 4 options… and each corner requires a different best line. It ain’t always the wide line that’s the fastest or safest choice.
Walking tracks you have no comprehension of whether a line is a good idea or not. For me it settled my mind that there’s nothing to worry about. It lets you see the typical style of corner design and drop height in features you’ll be faced with. Very important if you let loose and forget which track you are on.
Stage 3 was split across 4 trails, but really is one style of jungle pump track split in the middle by an open balls-out dust bowl motocross-style trail. I reckon it will be 7/8 mins long and with the advent of the Queen Stage (this round’s crux stage being awarding the fastest category stage winner extra series points) and I imagine this is the Rotorua’s Queen Stage, will prove to be pivotal in this race of typically short tracks.
Stage 1 and 5 are in a different area, off the lift-accessed Skyline Bike Park. Providing a mixture of bike park and natural tech, but all full of dust. As far as I could see, this race has Sam Hill written all over it.
Practice started in overcast warm and muggy conditions, with a touch of moisture on the ground. Fluid management was definitely going to be a thing for us British riders.
With practice of stage 1 and 5 to be done on Saturday at the Skyline Bike Park, about 3500ft of climbing was left on stages 2, 3 & 4 at the Redwoods Forest.
I got to the top of stage 2 pretty late, with 30 mins left before it closed (this year they are being real strict about 1 practise run only) to find none other than Sam Hill in front of me. Got talking to him and it has to be said he’s a real nice bloke with time for everyone.
Yes I jumped on his tail, and yes he was out of sight 30 seconds later.
Stage 2 was a real pumpy aggressive track, with some very short but energy sapping flat and uphill sections in it. The track is maybe 4-5 minutes long but it’s hard work. Grip felt OK on it, with a mix of concrete, deep silty dust and greasy loam. A true test of ability.
On stage 3 I took the option of the shuttle truck at £5 a head for the access on this one. This is the longest stage of the race, and was given the accolade of Queen Stage with the category winners of it, getting extra series points for being top dogs. It’s a real brute of a stage at maybe 8 minutes, with all the pedalling at the bottom.
Interestingly the middle is a wide open motocross-style dust bowl with jungle pumptrack sandwiching it top and bottom. The trick here is to just relax and ride, there’s far too much trail to remember. The bottom section, before it gets pedally, has some pretty hardcore sections in it that you really want your arm strength at 100% for.
For a stage 4, I opted to ride up to get a gauge on transition time for race day (no shuttling on race day in this area). I got to the top with 2 of my category danger men ready to rumble. Nigel Page and Michael Broderick. Mr Broderick is nursing a separated shoulder from a few months back, so not really feeling the tracks well today, and Nigel Page was quick to point out that according to social media, I’ve already won the series .
Now that’s what i call quality psychological warfare. I really hope it doesn’t turn into egg on my face.
Back to the trail riding. The top of stage 4 is quite pedally, but I found it not bad if you pumped in the right places. Eventually it turns into a full on pumpy DH track with some steep corners. It is truly rad. One of the best trails I’ve ever ridden. One big sting in its tail though a 180 degree hairpin bend with a very long trail centre style sprint at the bottom that’s going to hurt somewhat.
After seeing Sam Hills effortless grace on the trail I know who’s gonna win the weekend. As for my category lets just say its still wide open. Anything can happen.
