The Ezel Enduro 2017

The third instalment of the annual EzelEnduro went down this past weekend, delivering the predicted intensity and a record attendance with another new face on the top of the podium.

A shortened distance of 36 km and a reduced number of stages meant things were a little easier this year-round compared to 2016, however, the traditional EzelEnduro-sting-in-the-tail that is stage 4 and 5 still remained in place to separate the men from the boys. A brand new stage 1 eased riders into a fast and flowing introduction before heading off to stage 2 which was last year’s stage 1. Stage 3 wrapped up the easy side of things before riders traversed to stage 4, which included an hour’s hike-a-bike over some steep terrain to the top of the stage. The extremely rough and sometimes invisible, rocky stage took riders anywhere from 8 to 34 minutes to complete before heading back up the same mountain for the start of stage 5 to do it all again. From the 96 brave starters, 71 persevered and made it to the bottom, doubling last year’s number of 37.

At the sharp end of the field, it would be the day of the 16-year-old KZN local, Keira Duncan. Suffering only one minor mechanical in the form of a broken spoke, he put together the perfect combination of speed and preservation and finished in a total race time of 25:25. Only 49 seconds behind him in 2nd place was the always flying, always here-to-win Gary Barnard with a time of 26:14. And an even smaller margin of 15 seconds separated him from 3rd placed Chris Nixon with a time of 26:31. An incredible 4th place went to the youngest rider of the day, Luke Moir. The 14-year-old put in the race run of his life but lost out to 3rd position by less than a minute.