Thursday, May 29, 2014

Enduro Philippines

24 - Bato - Bandera, DRT, Bulacan Friendly 
Enduro Race (Invitational)



Our good friend Marvin sent me a message inviting me to a friendly enduro race in DRT, Bulacan. I did not know how to react because racing is not on my mind or has crossed my mind since I started mountain biking. Then I got curious, I asked Marvin "What is an enduro race?"

Track Reading


Here is what I got and let me enumerate it:

1. Enduro racing is all about technical skills and having balls made of steel, you need to be stout - hearted if you want to succeed in this field of biking.

2. It is composed of a liaison (LS) and a special stage (SS).  A liaison stage involves a lot of climbing. All participants will be climbing together and will be given a certain amount of time to reach the special stage. If a person fails to reach the SS in the allotted time, he will be thrown into the ravine with his bike, JK! If the LS time limit is 60 minutes and you reach the SS at 61 minutes, the extra minute will be added to your SS time.


3. The special stage is like the 15th and 30th of the month, it is payday for all the hard work that you have done! This is pretty straight forward, you descend as fast as you can and be the champ if you have the fastest time.
Bikers are given a minute or more of interval to avoid chaos in the trail.

4. Enduro racing involves a lot of LS and SS, in 24-Bato-Bandera there are 3 LS and 3 SS. Please send me a message if I got it all wrong or if I missed something.


The race is on a Saturday and our friend Marvin invited me to a track read or track familiarization 2 days before the event (Unfortunately I was not able to join the event as I was still recovering from muscle fatigue.) We parked at the Bandera exit and headed to 24 (Bente kwatro) with our bikes and we did a little detour at the 24 falls as seen on the photo above and continued going up.

That was my first time in 24 and it was a nice and challenging experience. I have been to Bato - Bandera trail via Jampol Quarry (Dubai to some bikers) and I am not ashamed to admit that I walked most of the descents that time.

24 was the first stage of the race, the LS was gruesome it was a 2 hour mountain climbing and buhathlon experience. The terrain got steeper and the air got thinner as we reach the top. The SS 1 was a single track with a 25 - 30 foot ravine on the right side. The SS 2 and 3 are almost the same with steep technical descents, a v - shaped trail and it won't let you get away with a slowish speed IMHO, the terrain will encourage you to descend with a bit of speed as slowing down will only make your rear tire wash out and lose control. I remember talking to myself as my rear tire was washing out while I was trying to slow down on a steep descent "Am I going to be on my brakes the whole way down?" Hell no! I released my brakes and immediately got back the control of my bike.

Photo courtesy of Marvin Mendoza.









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