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My lad fancies something along these lines, he’s in Dorset I’m in Yorkshire, so anywhere mid way ish would be good. Something not too serious and hardcore would be good to cut our teeth on I reckon.
What would you recommend?
When you say first timer, do you mean reasonable rider first race or beginner rider? Enduro racing is pretty straight forward and no experience needed, the format is easy to follow and fairly chilled out, if you are worried about being caught ask the person behind to leave you a bit more time.
Some organisers used to grade their different venues to give you an idea of difficulty. Not too good for you but good for your lad try Southern Enduro, the National they run at Minehead is well run but can't speak for the other venues but they cater for 'grass routes' I believe. Also take a look at Western Bike Events who are based in South Wales, looking to do some of these next year. I have done some other events that have been run by the organiser and they've been good, their venues were graded last year if I remember rightly.
I cannot say about organisers much futher North as I am Dorset based too
I’ve only done one enduro event and it was The Ex. Fantastic weekend and great riding. Really well organized and included all food.
check out https://www.sientries.co.uk/
and filter on mob enduro on cycling menu on left.
pedal hounds / (welsh) valleys enduro / welsh enduro maybe suitable. plenty of YouTube videos of the few years of these events
Look for something with relatively short stages so you're not having to deal with overtaking. From my experience Bolby was much nicer than Ard Rock as it was easy enough to just have a chat with those in front/behind at the top so you/they could leave enough of a gap. I'd recommend Boltby if it wasn't already sold out.
Thanks guys, I’ve been riding 25 years my lad only a couple but no Enduro experience for either of us. Ridden lots of the Welsh trail centres, BPW etc. Few things there for us to look at and The Ex looks good. Boltby is in my area so might try and have a look at that the year after this. Distance isn’t a problem for either of us as we have at least two trips away a year mtbing.
If travel is not an issue, I think there's still spaces in the Hamsterley Beast this year.
Boltby is a good choice but I've done anything further south so can't compare.
The family PMBA up a Kirroughtree was pretty chilled too.
Has anyone done the Yorkshire Mountain Bike Marathon? My lad isn't ready for an actual Enduro but we might be able to enjoy this as a family.
@Mugboo I’ve actually done The Yorkshire mtb marathon about 5 years ago. Think the format may have changed but at the time it was either a 54 mile route ( same route twice ) 27 miles and a shorter option. I didn’t do any training and bonked about 2 miles from the end. It was a chilled day out though and we all enjoyed it. Actually now you’ve mentioned it I may see what’s happening there this year.
Got a nice burger and beer at the end and it’s set in a lovely location.
Has anyone done the Yorkshire Mountain Bike Marathon? My lad isn’t ready for an actual Enduro but we might be able to enjoy this as a family.
I've done it a couple of times and it's mainly a nice countryside xc ride but with a couple of harder sections if it's muddy. The timing is atrocious though.
the Yorkshire mob marathon has a few tricky woods section if wet, but overall its a nice XC loop day out, think I'll do it on my gravel bike/hardtail this year if timing works,