Tall Tales is a collection of our favourite crazy bike-related stories from our favourite riders, racers and industry legends.
Everyone has that story that they wait until the end of the night to pull out when the anecdotal oneupmanship starts to get into the final round. Tall Tales is a collection of our favourite bike-related stories from the best in the business.
This week’s Tall Tale comes to from a small island archipelago off the coast of West Africa through the eyes of Anka Martin.
Photos by Sven Martin.
Back in 2011, before enduro was the cool thing to do, I was invited by Fabien Barel & Fred Glo to go on my first proper adventure race. It was the Urge Cabo Verde Enduro, a charity event to benefit the local community, packaged neatly as an invitational race. I said yes without any hesitation, but what quickly followed was a frantic Google search. Where in the world is the Cabo Verde Archipelago?
This was the race that got me completely hooked on the whole blind enduro stage racing format. The wilder the better. I had never experienced anything like this before it it sparked a desire keep exploring & discovering off the map destinations where known existing trails were simply not necessary, actually rather avoided.
It was to be a week filled with sketchy trips, small planes, overloaded trucks driving narrow cliff-side roads & rusted ferry vomit-inducing journeys on stormy rough seas. Each day’s racing was to be held on a new island. We went through all of the above before the racing even begun. Day one dawned, it was hard to even get some food in never mind keep it down, we set off not quite knowing what to expect.
As it turned out, it was a massive hike-a-bike to the top of Pico do Fogo Volcano and I mean a proper, bike on your shoulders, hike a bike with pumice underfoot, so one step forward meant two steps back. This went on for bloody hours & I was like, well this is enduro for you I guess. We finally got to the top of the almost 3000m summit, start of stage one. There was no tape on the volcano slopes, actually no trail even, you just had to wing it to the bottom where some sparsely hung tape was pointed out, which then would guide you down a mix of old trails and goat paths to the finish by the sea.
With no start order, we drew straws to see who the (un) lucky first person would be, and of course it was me. So you have to understand, this was the first time I’ve spent time with legends like Nico Vouilloz, Weir, Jerome Clementz, Fabien Barel, Sabrina Jonnier, Tracy Moseley, Rowan Sorrel and a bunch of other cool cats in the biz & now I have to be the first one to race down a bloody volcano, with no trail, while they all watch where not to go and what not to do. Perfect.
After a lot of line speculation, suggestions & input from everyone, I dropped into the steep pumice volcano completely petrified. It was mutually decided that we would all traverse to and turn around this one big stick then point it straight and free ride down. Everything looked a lot easier from the top, needless to say, the rocks were bigger, the slope steeper and the traversing a struggle but the fact that I was skidding down a volcano was mind blowing.
Once I let go of my ego and brakes, did a few turns & grasped what the actual F*** I was riding down, the biggest smile appeared on my face & stayed there all week. After everyone saw me struggling on the traverse another group decision was made (this time without me) where it was agreed they would no longer bother struggling to traverse around the stick, everyone would just bomb it straight down from the top.
I loved every single second of the week (except the bad coffee, if that’s what it was) and that moment was what got me totally hooked on blind racing. Of course I was the perfect example of where not to go for that first stage, but what I realised & loved most was that blind racing was also a great leveller & it was something that I was kind of good at.
This was also the beginning of many amazing & long-lasting friendships and the beginning of many new adventures. An experience of a lifetime. Oh, and the legendary singer; Cesaria Evora invited us to her house for drinks, how cool is that? Pretty epic & something that I’ll treasure and remember forever.
