I'm here because I have to be! I would have liked one of my young colleagues to step into the breach for me. But BIKE boss Josh said: "Let Lehner do it - he knows why!" An enduro race as an educational measure for a slip-up at work. That works, because racing isn't my thing - I'm a freerider. Stopwatches and performance on command make me nervous.
That's why my pulse is racing. The excitement is great - the spit dries in my mouth, my lungs fill up differently than usual - cramped. I'm standing in the middle of the forest - in a queue! Riders in front of me, riders behind me. We're all waiting for the so-called prologue. A total of over 500 riders want to take part in the Enduro One race in Trieb this weekend. Trieb - I didn't realise it - is in Upper Franconia. And the prologue of the race - I knew that - is a timed descent. If you ride fast, you can do it in under two minutes. The ranking determines the starting order for the other stages. There are a total of seven stages in this enduro race, i.e. descents with a classification. You have to give it everything you've got, and you can slow down for everything in between.
The excitement is great - the spit dries in the mouth, the lungs fill differently than usual - cramped!
Preparation? None!
Two days of shredding in Finale Ligure in February - that's how meagre my balance sheet looks. That's all. I don't have a single bike park day to my name. Thank you, dear rainy spring! And it gets even worse: I haven't even ridden my bike yet, a brand new 29-inch Radon Jab. Well, I know the Jab, you just sit on it and start riding, no need to familiarise yourself with it. Nevertheless, my psyche is not strengthened by these facts, but I need a steel psyche now. Shortly before the race, I call my old bike buddy Florian Haymann. In the 2000s, we both did a magazine traineeship at BIKE. I stayed, he became a coin expert with a doctorate. Back then, the freeride wave swept over the bike scene and hit us with full force. We were suddenly only interested in logrides, drops and manuals. The bike film "New World Disorder" was running on a continuous loop in the office. That was a long time ago, Flori even stopped mountain biking altogether for a while, until the midlife crisis hit him in his mid-40s and he wanted to prove himself again. For example, with a good placing in the Enduro One series - Flori takes part in all five races. He has already completed the first one in Bad Wildbad, and I'm on my mobile phone asking him: "Do I need a hydration bladder? How many muesli bars? Are you using a full face? Do you have a back protector? What, lots of flat tyres and broken wheels in Wildbad? Oh come on, oh no!" I'm not in the mood for punctures! I hung up the phone and rummaged in the cupboard for the fat downhill tyres. Schwalbe had once sent the super tyres of Worldcupper Amaury Pierron to the BIKE editorial office, heavy as a bag, but they make you as invulnerable as a bath in dragon's blood. I fitted them, tubeless of course, and set off for Trieb in Upper Franconia the next day.
Enduro racing for everyone
Christoph Döbler launched the "Enduro One" racing series in 2017. In some races, 700 starters take part (!) in a total of 13 categories such as Pro, Sport, Pre-Senior (from 1989), Senior (from 1984) and Super Senior (from 1974). There is also an e-bike category. The proportion of women is still 10 per cent and rising. The course of the races is always the same: 5 to 7 timed stages, training on 2-3 stages, the rest of the trails are only announced on race day and ridden "blind". The prologue counts towards the classification. Between the stages, everyone cranks up the mountain as they please - around 1000 metres in total. The effort behind the numbers can only be guessed at. 70 helpers are on duty. To mark out a stage, to "flatten" it, as Döbler calls it, one helper is busy for a whole day. The Enduro One series races take place all over Germany. 2025 in Bad Wildbad (Black Forest), Trieb (Upper Franconia), Roßbach (Hesse), Schulenberg (Harz) and Rabenberg (Erzgebirge).
The voice in my head screams: "Pull out!" And I pull off - that's a good thing!
I rush through the roots with vigour.
"Stay cool!"
Even on the journey to Trieb, my heart rate rises and I wonder about myself: Hello! Take it easy! It's not about anything. Riding along, having fun, not getting injured - those are my priorities. I recite this to myself like a mantra. At breakfast the next morning at the Goldene Krone inn - hunting still lifes in oil, oak furniture, pewter mugs - my nervousness gets the better of me. Again. Still. No idea! Flori looks over the rim of his coffee cup with amusement and says: "Relax! The weather is good, the trails are gentler than in Bad Wildbad, it'll be easy - you'll see!" The workout dampens the excitement. The ground is grippy, the trails are fun - with drops and jumps. I ride through the training days smoothly. Flori takes the training more seriously. He practises individual sections, pushes up, tries out different lines. Which is faster: left over the stones or right over the roots, rock jump or outside line? He films the whole thing with his GoPro. "I'll watch it at the hotel tonight!" he says, while I'm already confused: was the drop on stage 1 or stage 5?
The clock is ticking!
The queue in front of the prologue is shrinking. Then the time has come and I push my bike, number 3159, to the start sensor. The responder sits behind the number board. He triggers the timekeeping. Now! I pedal and the world narrows to tunnel vision. Only the inner voice gives commands: "Don't hang back!", "Pressure on the front wheel!" The trail dances, bounces and swings between the fluttering ribbons. A drop in front of me! The voice in my head screams: "Pull off!" And I pull off - that's a good thing! I rush through the roots with momentum. It's only at the bottom in the fast bend changes that I lose power and time. Nevertheless, I'm satisfied. I meet Flori at the car park. We compare the results. He was 13 seconds faster on the short section. 13 seconds! I can hardly believe it and look at Flori questioningly. He shrugs his shoulders. "That's the age. You're so slow when you're almost 60," he says with a grin. I actually wanted to ride the race with him, crank up the uphills together, shimmy from stage to stage with him. That's not possible now, because Flori starts much earlier - the lame snails don't start until 3pm. So I lie in the shade on a cardboard box and wait.
Roll the film - and action!
From three o'clock onwards, life turns up all the controls: Sound, colour, contrast. The afternoon mutates into an action film. Panting up the mountain, shooting down. Stage 1 with the drop. I catch it well. Stage 2 with off-camber sections. I would have liked to stay up there, but the momentum forces me down. Stupid! Stage 3 in the middle of Lichtenfels over stairs and tractor trailers. I felt like urban racer Johannes Fischbach Cerro Abajo - very funny! In stage 4, I cornered round the trees like Lindsey Vonn round slalom poles. But then the tyres suddenly slip and I'm careering in the dirt. Quickly up, jump on the bike and keep rattling!
On the trail: encounters
I meet Leni Eller before Stage 5. Freckles, blonde hair, Pippi Longstocking laugh. She is the daughter of Karen Eller & Holger Meyer - the Beckhams of mountain biking. It's no wonder that daughter Leni shreds quickly through the terrain. She tells me about her broken chain on stage 3, I confess my crash on stage 4 - and we're already feeling better: a tale of woe = half the trouble. I meet Jakob on the uphill. Yesterday in training, someone shouted: "What the hell is that up ahead!" because there was a traffic jam in front of him. The traffic jam was because of Jakob. Jakob rides a rigid bike from the 1980s. This means that every bump is a jump. Every root is a rodeo ride. Every jump is a wrestling match with gravity. "My goal," says Jakob, "is not to finish last!" At the start of the last stage, I chat to Gilles. Gilles has been a FREERIDE reader from the very beginning. Fist bump with Gilles - "See you at the finish!", I say and roll up to the start line. "5-4-3-2-1-Go!" says the man at the start. And off I go.
The transformation: forget everything!
Who am I? What is the meaning of life? Am I living according to plan A or plan B?
EVERYTHING. IS. GONE. No thoughts. I am alone in the world; all I can see is the handlebars in my fists and the forest whizzing by as green sauce in the corner of my eye. Life in the now. I don't need any Far Eastern philosophy for that. All I need is me, the bike and this race. I am 56 years old. I am 35 years old. 25. A child of play. Everything at once. Everything melts together. It feels good, so good! Tension in the muscles. But also tension in your head. High tension that makes the sparks fly. Enduro One is a fountain of youth. Who would have thought that? Not me. Least of all me. So awesome! Final sprint, final drop, final straight. At the finish!
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Dimitri Lehner
Editor
