Round 3 of the National Enduro Series headed to Fox Creek.
Over a sunny weekend in the picturesque Adelaide Hills round 3 of the National Enduro Series was run by the Inside Line Mountain Bike Club. It was great to see that the trails were totally different from the last National Enduro race held there, it always makes it more fun when the trails are fresh.
Fresh trails had everyone cheering.Fortunately the weather was on the organisers side, the trails can get pretty wild at Fox when there is rain about so this was definitely a good thing!
In total the distance was about 21 kilometers (Strava anyone?!) but the fire road climbs added extra challenge. All in all this took the top guys about 2.5 hours to complete, for the more casual racers the time increased as they hung out with their mates on the transition stages.
21 kilometres will do that to you…The rewards were worth it though and their were happy faces to be found left, right and centre.Mmmm hero grip, yes please!The grip levels meant the corners would really be railed.
Results:
1. Christopher Panozzo
2. Ben Cory
3. Dave West
4. Simon Buzacott
5. Cameron Ryan
Christopher Panozzo took the win ahead of Ben Cory by 10 seconds before a trio of fast locals filled in the next three positions, all the riders agreed the conditions were great and the selection of trails was fantastic.A�Stage 4 (Duck and Weave) seemed to be a favoriteA�among riders. To keep things interesting the last stage (Steep) had a big pedal at the end which saw everyone using theirA�last bit of energy. At the time of writing we didn’t have access to the female results but head to the Inside Line website where they will shortly appear no doubt!
Elite Men’s winner Chris Panozzo with an interesting line, it obviously did the trick!Former Junior World Downhill Champion Ben Cory puts his bike handing skills to good use and took second place.Eyes on the prize, 3rd place for Dave West.Believe the hype or should (that be Buzz!) Simon Buzacott in 4th place.Cameron Ryan looking stylish on his way to 5th place.Sometimes you just need those carbs…!Get it in, getting your finger into the timing chip reader is harder than you think after pedaling like a rider possessed!Ex Local Jackie Schapel making full use of the riders ability to turn the unlucky (depending who you talk to) number 13 plate upside down.A legend of the mountain bike game, Micheal Ronning put in a strong showing and almost cracked the podium in the process!The whole weekend blurred past, that’s a good thing!Hunched over for that optimum race positioning!A lot of locals (Matt Kelly pictured here) came put which was great to see.
That wraps up round three of the Enduro National Series.
Images/Report: RFPhotographics (Facebook here or follow on Instagram @rfphotographics).
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A good turn out enjoyed the beautiful weather and track improvements.
Hard to believe Round 2 of the South Australian State Series has been run and won! Time flies when you’re having fun… It was to Eagle Mountain Bike Park, host of multiple state and national rounds over the year, for round 2. The track had received a few changes for this race, most notable was the new finish area, riders were now taking a much straighter line into the final hip jump and therefore much more speed. We saw a few riders get unstuck come finals in the corner after the jump, Conor Clancy was one who was on a flyer before he decided to introduce his head to the ground. Another common comment (there’s a tongue twister for you) was that the way the track had been bunted really helped the flow so kudos to the tireless trail pixies who did that!
The new finish section meant riders were coming into this hip jump hot!A few interstaters who have been hanging around the fine state of South Australia rocked up to show us they are no slouches on a bike!There were a lot of the boys in blue out over the weekend, a popular choice!The riders really have to concentrate at Eagle, the track is very unforgiving.Foot out flat out!Henry Blake charging.‘I believe I can fly…’ Kaneophoto sending it!There were a few flash rigs getting around the pits over the weekend.In fact there were quite a few new rides on display!
Eagle on an enduro bike, a scary thought for some but no sweat for Simon Buzacott!That tongue placement!Remy Morton boosting! He will shortly be heading overseas to continue with the world cup series, good luck Remy!The top part of the track was relatively fast as always.There was a good spectator turn out, noise always helps!Jackson Davis absolutely sent the final step down, the crowd loved it!I wonder what Connor Fearon was thinking? ‘To take a selfie or not?!’The middle section of the track was relatively unchanged.Possibly the only image of Cameron Ryan ever taken with his front air in the air but not turning down!13 on the plate, unlucky for some but only if you’re superstitious!Riders sent this slight gap and then were hard on the brakes for the following corner.Sussing lines, these council workers, sorry race team were hard to miss in their fluro kit!Varying amounts of facial hair, all giving the thumbs up for the weekend!Getting nice and personal!Conor Clancy before he met the ground!Red goes faster right….Remy Morton rides ridiculously fast for his age!Taking the win with pure World Cup speed Connor Fearon was always the one to beat.The style was on show and the sun out! Good times.My arms went this way and my legs went this way… RFphotographics explains!Ian ‘Buffalo’ Jones, another rider on a shiny new steed this weekend.A very successful comeback for Curtis Dowdell this weekend.Plenty of support!Pow pow! Locked and loaded, let’s hope Connor Fearon can get the same result in Fort William! Pull the trigger…
See you at the next race!
Images: Downhill247 and RFPhotographics (FacebookA�hereA�or follow on Instagram @rfphotographics).
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Always cool to have your name on your bike/components!
Are your eyes glazing over? Is your mouth open and drool running out like a waterfall? If it is already you may just be eating some donuts or you’ve just seen this beast in front of your eyes! If you’re not you will be after casting your eye over Troy Brosnan’s fresh new Specialized Demo race bike. Put together by his ace (or should that be race) mechanic Aaron Pelttari (look out for an interview on Downhill247.com real soon!) we were fortunate to have Kaneophoto shoot it before it got packed up bound for the UK and more specifically Fort William.
Now….. Troy was good enough to let us get some shots of the bike and show them to you guys but with a condition, we can’t show you guys too much of the bike as there is some trick prototype stuff going on! So we are going to show details but there is a good reason you wont the bike layed out fully in front of you! A sneak peak if you like…
Are you looking at the winning bike for the upcoming Fort William World Cup? Quite possibly…A nice looking narrow wide 36 tooth Renthal sprocket.There is neat rubber protection and well thought out cable routing/guides all over the frame, schmick!An air shock is now in the mix, more and more riders are making the switch. Will this be on the bike for Fort William, one of the longest, most punishing tracks on the circuit…?! We will just have to wait and see.More little touches! Troy is running a tubeless set up., this helps lower rotational mass and increase protection from punchers.A real touching tribute to a dear old friend of Troy’s and the whole Brosnan family, who are all animal lovers.You have to admit from what you can see it is tasty enough!
Well wipe the drool up that’s a wrap! Now we can’t wait to see what Troy can do on it at Fort William.
We have been getting to know Five Ten’s latest offering, the Impact VXI, well over the past months. Read on…Image: kaneophoto.com.au
We have just finished up our long term testing on A�pair of Five Ten Impact VXIs and we want to share our impressions with you. First off, if you’re new to the sport and haven’t heard of Five Ten then expect to hear a lot more about them, it is fair to say they revolutionised the flat pedal (more about that later) shoe market when they burst onto the scene. Initially known for their rock climbing shoes, it was this technology that when applied to the mountain bike world really got people talking.
Looking at this shoe in particular we tested the flat pedal model, there is a clipless version also available if that is your thing. With help from the most famous flat pedal rider in the world, Sam Hill, as well as his friend Brook MacDonald, Five Ten went about designing something that was even more improved from the previous highly regarded Impact shoe. The first thing you notice when you take them out of the box (we got the black and red model as the pictures show) is their lighter weight, coming in at approximately 400 grams per shoe you notice the reduction straight away.
How did they feel? Great, there was no issue with strange sizing or anything along those lines and they felt good from the first wear. We wore these all day long (sometimes on the bike sometimes off climbing mountains taking photos, etc.) and they didn’t become any less comfortable.
The next question is; how did they grip? Fantastic! A reworked version of the rubber Five Ten used ensures these pedals stick like nothing else. Furthermore the dampening/rebound has been improved so you feel less of the bumps/fatigued, now we know that sounds like a long stretch and we couldn’t experience this first hand when it comes down to those tiny percentages they all count. With any Five Ten shoe you need to make sure your foot is in the right place as your feet grip so well it can be challenging to readjust your position (some might consider this a negative but the extreme grip far out weighs the negative if you ask us). The sole was quite stiff meaning optimum power transfer, some people might like a slightly more flexible shoe so they can ‘wrap’ their foot around the pedal but that is personal preference.
Lighter weight and improved rubber are the two biggest improvements of this new shoe.
It’s cool to see the front area of the shoe receive some reinforcing to help stop any damage if you get rocks flicking up or stub your foot. It’s worth mentioning the Impact XVIs are constructed from a material that is supposed to help wick water away super fast so you don’t have to ride in wet shoes the next day (nobody enjoys that!).
We have been downhilling, enduro/Trail riding, heck we have even commuted on them! There are no signs of wear or signs to say that longevity is going to be an issue. We have seen plenty of pairs of Five Tens that go for years, one common issue on older models was the glue holding the sole on coming loose but the sole now looks more integrated so we think this will be even less of an issue.
It may have been us imagining it but ankle support seemed marginally lower than the older model but a visual inspection shows this may not be true, that was the only real issue to note over the months we tested the show.
A definite favourite anywhere form a world cup to a local club race, Five Tens have been seen lasting for years.
In Australia these retail for $234.95 whilst that is a large amount when you see it if you think about how good these shoes are and how long they last the price tag becomes justified. The distributor is Lusty Industries so find them at your local bike shop or hit up their website at;A�www.lustyindustries.com
This is the part riders really care about, the ‘soul’ of the shoe if you know what we are saying. Five Ten’s rubber allows the sole to be super sticky and keep your feet on the pedals. Image: fiveten.com
Overall the Five Ten Impact XVI would be at the top of our list for a new riding shoe, light weight and grippy whilst still maintaining comfort these are a winner.
It wasn’t only the UCI World Cups that kicked off over the weekend! With almost as much hype, interest and fanfare the South Australian State Series run by Insideline started at Fox Creek. The track is an old favourite of the club and brings a smile to the face of many a rider!
They say a picture says a 100 words, lucky RFPhotographics was there to capture them, enjoy the images below:
Lucas Pitt winding through the trees.Jackson Davis is visiting from Melbourne and came out to race.The track used ‘Patto’s Curse’ has some reasonable sized jumps on it including this one at the bottom.Simon Buzacott got back from Crankworx Rotorua and no doubt has been riding some gnarly trails so the small bike wouldn’t have fazed him.The 2015 season looks like it will be an interesting one with fresh faces at the top of the podium. Conor Clancy being one of those.Yeeewww party shirt!Cameron Ryan took the win at round 1.It is always great to see the girls come out and race.A lot of people used smaller travel bikes, often these suit the conditions better.Photo G Matt Bird on the other side of the lens!
Conditions were dry and dusty.Sending it sideways!
To see all the times and results head over to insideline.com.au
Images: RFPhotographics (FacebookA�hereA�or follow on Instagram @rfphotographics).
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Everyone was super excited for race day! Some people were over excited, Brendan Fairclough was one such soul!
Well what a race that was! The first World Cup of the season really was full of twists and turns, highs and lows! It all started with juniors and there is a fair chance you were huddled around a computer some where watching the live timing to get an idea of how everyone was going.
All in all if you’re reading this from Australia chances are the juniors would be the highlight of the day for you. Two Aussies claimed medals and overall we did quite well. Remy Morton has had a few gnarly crashes this weekend so to finish in one piece is a win enough we think! He came in 16th, next on the list was Max Warshawsky in 7th, a few places ahead of him at his first World Cup was Jackson Frew in 3rd! Taking the win on the day was a super stoked Andrew Crimmins, carrying good form into this season we knew it would only be a matter time before he was up there.
Top 5 and two Aussies!Andrew Crimmins through the trees, we are pretty excited to see how he goes for the rest of the year!
Moving onto the women’s race and after the junior racing everyone was excited to see who would claim the victory. In the end it would be Emmeline Ragot, the diminutive French girl who took the win in front of her home fans, Emmeline tends to do well on the technical tracks and today was no different. For our own Tracey Hannah she couldn’t match her first placed qualifier, unfortunately a crash near the bottom of the course saw her in 5th place, still a remarkable effort. A big mention to Tegan Molloy for grabbing 10th in her first World Cup in the big league.
10th for Tegan Molloy at her first World Cup after moving up from juniors.Emmeline Ragot took the win, the only French rider to do so this weekend.
Okay so the final race of the day, the mens’ and who would have thought it, the winner was the first rider down. If you don’t know by now Aaron Gwin won, after being disqualified in qualifying he was pushed to the bottom of the results and therefore off right at the start of the day. He put in a super human run to win by 4 seconds, visibly faster than any other rider, will he dominate the season like he did a few years ago? Or was it merely one race like last year where he won the opening round before the rest of the field caught up?
A pretty sizable time gap at the top there…A long time to wait until the sweet celebration!
To write off the finals just like that though wouldn’t be justified! Loic Bruni claimed an excellent second at his home race, Mike Jones claimed his first podium in third (that off season training with Sam Hill obviously paying dividends), Danny Hart let everyone know he’s back with a fourth place on his new Mondraker and Sam Dale kept his good form from last year going to snare his first podium in 5th. Brendan Fairclough showed us he’s been training during the off season to finish 6th, Josh Bryceland is still recovering from his broken foot so claiming 7th was quite the accomplishment. Troy Brosnan in 8th was the highest Australian but we know he will be looking for more next race.
Troy Brosnan was the highest placed Australian in 8th.
Dean Lucas finished 21st, he now sits within the top 20 overall giving him ‘protected’ status in Fort William. Mic Hannah was 35th and Gee Atherton rode with a broken wrist to come in 5oth. Tough luck for Cnnor Fearon after a blistering qualifier, a crash and ensuing bent pedal saw him out the back in 71st, racing is a tough mistress…
Aaron Gwin sits in second overall, his low qualifier means Loic Bruni takes the overall into the next race.
Now there’s a gap until race 2 in Scotland for Fort William, the World Cup rolls on….
Images: Phunkt.com
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