Video report from last year’s Superenduro at Puntala Resort

Are they marked trails outside the race times?

That’s the next thing we’re working on right now, it requires careful management politically and a lot of votes come from enduro motorcycle riders – they love finding freshly open trails and tearing them apart, so that’s something we’ve got to be careful of. It’s forbidden to ride motos in the woods, but walkers and horse riders will also use the trails, so the political work is to make sure that there’s strong control over keeping motorbike riders out and making other dedicated horseback trails so we can ride the trails all year round. Hopefully the trails will have signs and from there bring it on.

So this will be the first round of the Enduro World Series this year. How did you come to be holding it?

There’s partly down to a relationship built up with the organisers. I don’t think Puntala Resort was being considered at the beginning – there was more of a central European market to consider, so something closer would have been ideal – but at the same time the organisers had to rely on an organisation that had experience and they had seen that I had been willing to throw resources into it and that my events had always been a success. We’ve seen the numbers for Superenduro races here grow from 100 to 200 in the first two years, and for the 2013 event it was sold out in the first 48 hours – 450 people, and we’re trying to open that up to 500.

You must feel pretty proud that you’ve got the very first Enduro World Series event?

Yeah, personally I’m very proud of it. Having been awarded this event means being considered up to standard with international events as well.

So can you give us a description of Puntala Resort then?

Yeah, we’re talking about a resort and an area, a horseshoe of hills inland for about 30km. The hills are almost 600m at some points, and the valley ends up in a beautiful long sandy beach. The resort is at the north side of this in the pine woods – it’s pretty big, enough for 3,000 with restaurants, supermarkets, entertainment and facilities…it’s a family-friendly resort. At the same time it’s an infrastructure that’s left under-used in the shoulders of the seasons – so organising a big event at this time of year comes quite easily. It has a very particular area, which is an open space in the pine woods where we will host the event, catering to teams, journalists, expo industry members… Yeah. The resort is on the beach, so sleeping there you can hear the sea. I sleep very well there! And from there you can walk to the first singletrack.

When the Enduro World Series event takes place, the season will have barely started. It’s a month into the season, so there’s four weeks beforehand for riders to come and test out the trails while enjoying the seaside.