Enduro races are going to be the next big thing in the UK, loads of time on your bike, downhill stages, bit of lung busting pedalling, it all adds up to a fun day out in my book.

Liam Little raced this mass start Northern Downhill endurance event at Kielder at the weekend and sent over this report. Sounds ace.

All photos:www.CharlesRobertsonPhotography.com

This weekend was the first ever mass start ‘Megavalanche’ style race in the UK, which was held at Kielder Forest, the race attracted a good turn out including some enduro specialists such as James Shirley and Liam Moynihan, with a number of XC racers and British Downhill Series racers including myself.

The format for the race was similar to that of the Megavalanche with the seeding for the heat races using the first entered first on the grid system which unfortunately left me at the back of my grid. I managed to work my way through getting stuck behind a number of riders on the single track, but managed to get myself into 8th getting a place on the eighth row of the ‘A final’. Impressively in Liam Moynihan’s heat he started at the back of the grid but managed to get up into 1st and take the heat win with a massive gap.

On Sunday not a lot of riders practiced the track and most made there way to the top of the hill for the B final, it was a good start with a lot of elbow bashing a someone ended up on the floor right at the start. It was good to see some awesome off camber sprinting from the boys on the outside of the pack. Very impressed with Hamsterley boys Zak Hubery and Thomas Reed managing to make there way from the back up to 4th and 5th.

Then came the A final, there was a massive scramble and I managed to get a decent start and got past a few just before the first jump and a few more pedaling as much as I could down the flat out loose fire road.

Once we got onto the single track there was about five of us stuck behind one kid at the front and we were there until the start of the climb but as we started to go past the now walking rider who with a bit of a disappointing attitude was trying to push people off the track with his bike as we had to get off and try and push around him, after getting very annoyed and pushing past him I got back on and slogged up the climb.

Once we were into the next single-track section I was behind a rider but after a second attempt managed to get up the inside of him in a berm and got a decent gap.
I managed to pass around 16 riders and got up into 12th position. Well done to Michael Thickens with the win, James Shirley in second and Liam Moynihan in 3rd.

Really good, fun weekend, well done to the Northern Downhill Boys on a successful first ever UK mass start ‘Megavalanche’ style race.

A Results

1 michael thickens
2 James Shirley
3 liam moynihan
4 Chris Buchan
5 Keith Buchan
6 Charlie Williams
7 Craig Scott
8 Adam Nolan
9 Joshua Morris
10 David Bentley
11 Andrew Heaton
12 Liam Little
13 Marcus Jones
14 chris mumford
15 James Bell
16 Joe Young
17 David Pickering
18 James Dalleywater
19 Stephen Brown
20 Matthew Handley
21 Rob Pickard
22 Oscar Armistead
23 Dave English
24 Lee Baines
25 Ben Roberts
26 Nicholas Richards
27 Gavin Hancock
28 Henry Stam
29 Matt Chester
30 Tony Marshall
31 Neville Hebdon
32 Karl Eling
33 Robert Blackburn
34 Scott Turtle
35 Lee Baxter

B results
1 Harrison Carhill
2 Rick Ellis
3 David Gregory
4 Zak Hubery
5 Tom Reed
6 Chris Weir
7 Craig Caddow
8 Nathan Million
9 Neal Jarrett
10 Mark White
11 Phil Mclaren
12 Kevin Baxter
13 Nick Turner
14 Ben Gregg
15 Jamie Sharp
16 Blake Walden
17 Abe Watkinson
18 Chris Pickard
19 Stephen Coulthard
20 Graham Marshall
21 Kathe Pickard
22 Steven Johnson
23 Tony Child
24 Sam Snowdon
25 James Wilson
26 Leo Warwick
27 Trevor Francis

Liam Little