TrailWorld Blog

TrailWorld appeared at Endurofest III with the Quantya Electric Dirt Bikes over the weekend of 25/26th September 2010. Read the full, light-hearted story below.

Myself (Paul) and Luke from Trailworld arrived at a windswept Enduroland in Adstone, Northants on the afternoon of Friday 24th and was greeted by Boss Hog in the usual fashion (those of you who know him will know what I mean!). He took us over to our spot where he had got his crew to build us a great little track for the Electric Dirt Bikes, we were quite taken aback by how much they had put themselves out for us - superb! We struggled to erect the tent in the high winds and ended up ignoring the instructions as they just confused things! An hour later and it was up and it even looked like the picture on the box! We then pitched up our toilet tent, which was a bit easier before setting up the rest of camp and settling in for the weekend. Just as we had it pretty much sorted, Rob from Quantya UK arrived - we reckon he was hiding until we had got the tents up!

We were all a bit peckish by this time so Luke got the cooker out and prepared us all a superb curry with rice - not bad for camping food eh? We then had a wander around to see who else had been stupid enough to camp in late September (it was pretty cold by now!) and inevitably ended up in the Dog Inn, Boss Hogs very own on-site pub, well barn really! Lots of joviality ensued before we decided to call it a night at around 2am and stumbled back to our tent. By now the temperature was below zero and to be honest none of us really got to sleep for any decent period of time!

We arose around 7.30am, dreary eyed and tired but looking forward to the day ahead. The sunshine was glorious as we set up our stand and prepared all of the bikes.

Enduroland is an enduro club that has been set up to fill the gap between trail riding and competition riding. Basically it is a practice session where riders of all abilities can take to the track and simply have a go without the pressure of racing, its a superb idea and the way that Boss Hog has got all of this running is simply incredible and a credit to our sport.

Anyway, enough of worshipping the Boss, it was time to get a few laps under our own belts to make sure everything was tip-top and ready to roll. We were quite aware that there would not be many people strolling around the exhibitors during the practice sessions but we did get a fair bit of interest born more out of curiosity than anything else - that was until we started to show what the bikes can actually do! I took to the track and started blasting around for a few laps as a small crowd started to gather to see what was going on. Luke joined me and we started play on the small jumps. The interest grew more and we could tell that people were visibly shocked at just how zippy these bikes are!

By mid afternoon our expert rider, ex-british enduro champion Chris Koch, turned up and quickly headed out on to track to show us all just how these things should be ridden! We had cheekily entered Chris in to the Extreme Enduro Timed Challenge, a small loop containing some pretty extreme obstacles such as tyres, rock sections, jumps, tubes and all that mad type of thing! Boss Hog had decided to add a bit more spice by persuading Ady Smith, another ex-british enduro champion aboard a 250cc KTM 2-stroke to take part too. Although Chris is an awesome rider we really did not expect what happened next. Chris drew the short straw and was elected as the first to go. He flew off the start line and over each extreme obstacle as if he was on a life or death mission!

Seeing Robs jaw drop, along with every other member of the crowd was awesome, no-one could believe what Chris was doing on an electric dirt bike! He completed his lap in 51.4 seconds, which I think was incredible but he was not happy. He felt that he had not cleared a couple of the obstacles as well as he could have done and could have perhaps shaved off a few seconds - competitive is not the word! I could see that Ady was shocked too and he was going to have to really attack the circuit to beat Chris. Personally I thought that the KTM would have a massive advantage regardless of rider and should win easily by perhaps 15-20 seconds, but I was wrong. Ady blasted away revving the conkers off the 2-stroke and attacked each obstacle as if his life depended on it. He cleared them all with no problems at all and did indeed beat Chris's time, but not by anywhere near the margin we expected. He was just 3.5 seconds quicker. The crowd were stunned at what Chris had achieved and none of the other competitors aboard a wide variety of machinery could get within 10 seconds of Chris and his electric dirt bike, and those competitors contained a good few expert riders! Something else to take in to account is that Ady rides his 250cc all the time whereas Chris has perhaps has as little as a couple of hours experience on the Quantya!

Chris wanted to swap bikes with Ady and do an aggregate time but he was having none of that! I would say that our mission had been achieved as every person who had watched the race is now completely aware of just how good electric motorcycles can be!

We spent the next hour or so talking to people about the bikes and how they can come and try them at TrailWorld so all in all it was a pretty successful day - especially as we also got the pit-lane babes riding them!

We packed up for the evening and were treated to a BBQ by Mrs Paul and a few drinks - mainly tea if I am honest as it was far too cold to drink beer!

On the Sunday morning the weather was a bit bleak and rain was forecast to hit by mid afternoon. After yesterdays antics quite a few people, including the press and radio wanted to find out all about the bikes and what TrailWorld are doing with them. Rob was great at teaching people to ride who had never so much as put their leg over a bike before as well as having the gift of the gab!

As the rain headed our way the crowds began to dwindle and we called it a day at around 4pm. Tired and weary, we put all the bikes away and pulled down our little tent village, said our goodbyes and headed back home. It was an enjoyable weekend but next time we would prefer someone to turn the temperature up!

Can't wait for the next event!

Here are a couple of videos from the day - the first one is our little video diary and the second one is Rob doing a lap of the enduro circuit. I will post up the video of Chris riding the Extreme Enduro Loop once I get my hands on the footage.