Penmachno Enduro – Race Report
With winter finally settling in, the final gravity enduro event of the 2014 race calendar took place this past weekend at Penmachno.
Tucked away in a valley near Betws Y Coed, North Wales, Penmachno perhaps isn’t your typical gravity enduro venue, but this was something a bit more special. Held to mark the opening of two brand new sections of trail, which were graciously funded by Conwy County Borough Council as well as the race itself. With just a £15 entry fee, the proceeds of which went to the trail maintenance fund, it goes without saying that the event was sold out within hours of being announced. Organised by Borderline events and held as an extension to the PMBA series, this was the first ever mtb race event to be held at Penmachno, and credit where it’s due, a second will have a lot to live up to!
Race day started early on Saturday, with some hardy campers even having stayed in the field the night before. The weather, though typically Welsh and wet the week leading up to the race, was as good as it could ever have been for a Welsh race in November – glorious sunshine!
The format was simple – a 7 mile loop with three timed stages, compulsory practice in the morning, and race in the afternoon, so 14 miles overall. Wrist-band timing chips meant that competitors could specify their own start time and ride with their mates, which is always good, and added to the friendly nature of the event.
Penmachno is known for it’s natural-feeling, rocky singletrack and having to work for your reward, and the race stages were no exception to this. Stage one started off with a flowy singletrack descent for the first half, into a short fire road climb, and into a long rocky traverse for the second half. Needless to say, this stage was hard work and required some serious pedal power! Many riders found this stage tough, and anyone with a good level of fitness was going to do well here, and in many cases, this was where the race was won or lost. Though most were glad to have this stage out of the way first.
The second stage started high up, and was about as long as the first, at about 7-8 minutes, but definitely had more of a gravity component, which many riders were thankful for. It started with a pedally, but fun, singletrack through some dark woods, which soon became flat out high speed, and though not massively technical, was a lot of fun. This shot the riders out into one of the two new sections of doubletrack, which links together two older bits of trail. It’s fair to say that the new sections aren’t exactly in keeping with the rest of the trail, but with big flowy whoops and some opportunities for some air-time, this is no bad thing. Riders then dropped into an old section of trail; a rocky traverse with a few drop offs and a bit of a pedal into a big left hander and the final straight, which saw riders smashing it down hill at high speeds down the tight singletrack to the timing gates. This stage was a lot of fun, and saw riders grinning like lunatics while sliding with wheels locked up into the timing gates.
The final climb brought riders to the top of stage three, cutting out a lot of fire road and gaining a lot of new trail, the stage started at the second new piece of doubletrack trail. Similarly to the other new section, this started off in the woods with lots of big whoops and jumps, took the riders into the open with a quick succession of whoops which some of the faster riders were able to double up, if they had the legs left for some pedalling! A short pedal followed and brought the riders into some more jumps and a pair of huge sweeping berms which spat the riders out at high speed over even more jumps and over the fire road into the final section of original singletrack. This was the most technical part of the trail, starting off with a steep rocky chute into several tight switchbacks – threading the needle comes to mind here, with lots of riders struggling to maintain speed. Sprinting out of the final corner, riders had to pin it along the final straight, a technical rocky singletrack (there was lots of this stuff!). A real test of fitness, a lot of pedalling was necessary for the riders to make sure they carried enough speed to clear the rocky undulations, which caught more than a few tired riders out, resulting in this section seeing more than it’s fair share of crashes. A short final uphill made sure riders were well and truly done by the time they reached the timing gates and marked the end of the race, a real test of fitness!
On to results then: Ride.io’s very own Emyr Davies took the win in the Pro Men category with a cumulative time of 18:12, but just pipping Ems to the post with the fastest time of the day of 18:08 and a win in the Senior Men category was local rider Sam Beesley. Heading up the female category was young gun, Martha Gill, with a rapid 21:13.
An awesome day was had by all and saw both local pinners and riders travelling from far and wide to enjoy the unique trails at Penmachno. Credit has to go to the organisers, all sponsors and of course Conwy County Borough Council, for putting on a stonking day of racing (and the after-entertainment), and all I can say is, when is the next one?!
Words – Sam James
Pictures – Anthony Woodhouse – http://www.
For more on the new sections at Penmachno, and the trails generally check out – www.penmachnobiketrails.org.uk and if you are riding there, be sure to shove a couple of quid in the donation box, it’s all for the good of the trails after all.