TRIALS RIDERS IN EXTREME MODE
By John Dickinson on 14th Jun 07
The Erzberg Extreme Enduro was dominated by the Brits led by feet-up merchants Tom Sagar and Wayne Braybrook
TIME was when there was trials and scrambles and nothing in between - and life was simple.
Then scrambles morphed into motocross, then therewere Enduros, then there were Hare and Hounds and then there wereExtreme Enduros. Everything, really, to keep off-road fans happywhether you want a simple Wednesday evening bimble round a field in agentle club trial or whether you want to risk death by extremeexhaustion in one of the super-marathons.
The Gilles Lalay was in many ways the forerunnerof the Extreme event and while this French extravaganza, which wasbased in the forests around Limoges, sadly is no more, the mantle hasbeen taken up by events such as the Italian Hells Gate and the AustrianErzberg...the 2007 version of which just happened to take place lastweekend and do you know what, this most extreme of Extreme events wasdominated by, guess what...British trials riders!
The irrepressible Tom Sagar was runner-up (behindPolish trials rider Tadeusz Blazusiak, and wasn't his win a turn-up forthe books?) tough-as-boots Wayne Braybrook was fourth, the supremelygifted Paul Edmondson fifth, Lancastrian character Paul Bolton seventhand Yorkshire quiet-man Mark Jackson 12th. Going a little further downthe order the one and only Justin ‘The Daddy' Wilson was 22nd this year(and he knows his way round a trials bike) with David Myers, a Cumbrianclub trials rider until he took-up enduros just last year, well in thetop 100 in 67th. In amongst the hundreds and hundreds of Continentalriders at the Erzberg the Brits ruled. How awesome is that!
In some ways this is almost like turning theclocks back. The ISDT (International Six Days Trial) was the forerunnerof what eventually turned into the ISDE and it was an event in whichBritish riders on British machines used to dominate. And in the main,although the ISDT was a speed events, run to strict time schedules, itwas the trials riders which dominated the teams. Sure, I accept that‘back in the day' riders tended to be more ‘all-rounders' than today'sspecialists, the trials boys could still show the turn of speed whennecessary.
The off-road world then split into three and weeffectively had riders who were either specialists in trials, motocrossor enduro. Trials arguably whizzed down the specialised route much morethan the other two disciplines. Trials became more of a circus act thansport while motocross, considering how the bikes changed so radicallyarguably changed the least - Supercross excepted. Some tracks haven'tchanged much in 30 years despite machines now sporting three-times thesuspension travel and more than twice the horsepower.
Enduros, which started out as cross-countrychallenges epitomised by epic Welsh events, used to be won and lost onlong, tough, moorland stages but gradually became more or less totallydependant on the motocross-style closed Special Tests. It stands toreason that in theory, motocross riders ought to have the advantagewhen it comes to switching sports to Enduro but with very fewexceptions (Ryan Voase springs instantly to mind) this just doesn'thappen.
In the top echelon, Rob Sartin was one of thefirst riders to make the switch in recent times and he went from beinga top trials rider to an even better Enduro competitor. Later, in the1990s, when John Shirt and Wayne Braybrook - both regular Nationaltrials winners at the top of their game, made the surprise switch toEnduros they both achieved success very, very quickly. So quickly infact that when they were picked to represent Britain in the ISDE therewas much discontent from the hard-core Enduro fraternity - and you canwell understand why!
Since then we have seen a steady flow of trialsriders make a virtually seemless switch to Enduro, making their mark inNational standard events almost immediately. But never has this been sonoticeable since the advent of the Extreme Enduro. So dominant are thetrials-savvy Brits (don't forget that David Knight was British ExpertTrials Champion before he made his switch to Enduro) that they (we?)can dominate the top ten of a major International event. Tom Sagar isjust the latest in what is becoming a long line of trials riders towind-up the world.
It just isn't working the other way, the ‘crossersseem to have a huge problem making the jump across to anotherdiscipline. Come on guys, if the wimpy trials boys, parping about ontheir toy bikes at zero mph, can dominate the tough world of ExtremeEnduro, I reckon it's about time you came out fighting...