The 16th Erzberg Rodeo took place on the 3rd to the 6th of June from it’s usual starting place in the huge Iron ore quarry in the town of Eisenerz in Austria. This is the road trip and race report about what happened to two Enduro riders from Ireland, Gordon Clarke and Andrew Reeves.
The Erzberg Extreme Enduro event has gathered momentum over the last few years, it has expanded in size popularity and severity and is now a massive event, almost a festival of motorcycling, that takes place over 4 days. You have to be quick to enter as the 1795 places fill up super quick, most of these are taken by enthusiasts that go to ride the Iron Road prologue on the Friday and Saturday, spend the evenings in the huge beer tent and watch the main race on Sunday. However, 500 of them get to ride in Sundays event and endure the type of terrain that even the hardest Enduro riders have nightmares about.
Clarke and Reeves set off from Ireland on the 28th of May and took in the final round of the British Sprint Enduro championship in Rhayader, Wales on the 29th and 30th of May as a ‘warm up’ for the Austrian event. It rained all day on Saturday and the mainly grass test was super slippery, Reeves DNF’d after a couple of crashes in the first 2 tests, Clarke went on to finish 10th. Sunday was much drier and the course was significantly easier and faster, Reeves finished 11th and Clarke was 8th. So, race done, bikes and riders both OK, so it’s off to Austria. Arriving on the Tuesday morning, the lads had a day off before inspecting the course on the Wednesday, setting up a campsite area in the paddock and prepping the bikes, it was raining hard and low mist and cloud literally put a dampener on things.
As masses of riders arrived the campsite filled up, the beer tent opened and the trade stands buzzed with customers. The Thursday saw the first of the spectator events take place, the Rocket Ride. This is a hill climb competition that runs up 3 of the famous huge quarry hills that feature in Sundays main race. The riders entered had 2 x qualifying runs and the top 48 went through to the heats, quarters, semis and final. Reeves pipped Gordon for the win in the first of the rainy heats and they both went through to the quarters. Gordon had a spectacular crash in the quarter resulting in some bike damage and Reeves got through to the semis but missed out on a place in the final by one place. Austrian rider Seppi Fally won the final on a KX450.
Friday was a little drier and the prologue opened at 8am and the seeded riders from last years race went as early as they could as the prologue gets rougher as the day wears on. This years Iron Road had a few more chicanes built in and there was a lot of standing water in the lower section of the course which basically winds it’s way up the mountain to the top. Reeves finished the 1st prologue in 77th place,15 seconds off the top 50 despite having recorded 135 km/h on the fast straight having geared the bike up. Clarke was in 67th after an uncharacteristic fall and a tantalizing 9 seconds off a coveted front row start for the main race.
Saturday and it was dry and hot and the prologue was rough as hell after the entire 1795 entry had been up it the day before. The lads both got their run out of the way at 9am and Clarke shaved a massive 20 seconds of the previous days time and went straight into 35th and front row start. Reeves went quicker by 5 seconds but actually dropped places and qualified 83rd on the 2nd row for the main race. The rest of the day was spent prepping the bikes, looking at the course and hiding from the sun, which was beating down and giving temperatures of 28c with forecasts saying it was going to get hotter for Sunday.
Sunday morning saw the 2 lads changing their entry numbers to their qualifying numbers, drinking energy drink by the gallon and some last minute checks of the bikes all with Rage Against the Machine blaring out of the van stereo!
The 500 riders are taken down into the base of the quarry at around 10.30 am and the bikes are lined up and the riders run for cover from the sunshine, hiding in the shade under the rock face or crammed into a Red Bull tent. At 12.00 the fun starts as race director Karl Katoch and MX legend Heinz Kinigadner drop the flag and set the eager riders off row by row. There was several large deep puddles to run through from the previous few days of rain and only a few of the riders emerged from the quarry dry, the majority were soaked by the first hill. Clarke got a decent start and set off up the many steep quarry hills for the first time, about a minute later Reeves and the 2nd row gang left the line and 100 meters into the race came the first problem, a damaged rear brake hose left Reeves with no back brake within the first 10 seconds of the race!
After the quarry the course took in some single trails into a 300m completely pitch black mining tunnel, once through the course got into it’s stride with the classic hill-climb at ‘Wasserleitung’ and on into the ‘Bathtub’, a massive steep sided bowl the riders ride through twice.
The first section of forest punished a few of the riders with it’s impossible cambers and single track lines and there was much pushing of bikes and spinning of wheels.
In the forest Clarke had a problem and punctured his TM’s clutch cover with a rock and was leaking gearbox oil, this was to prove terminal but he pushed on, determined to get as far as possible. This year the riders came down the the side of the concrete staircase on some near vertical descents that could not be ridden down they were that steep, Reeves had caught up with Clarke at this point and both slid down the final descent ungracefully with their bikes bouncing off trees and each other and set off to the next check point.
A new checkpoint at a silly steep climb just off the prologue needed some creative thinking and both riders overtook at least 4 or 5 stranded competitors by using their trials riding experience and taking a line in the big rocks at the side of the gravel.
Then it was on to Karl’s Diner. This checkpoint has been in Erzberg for some years now and has been tricky but a line had developed over the years and it usually started from a quarry track. Not this year though, as the riders were subjected to a horrifying 300 meter descent on moving stone and rock that again was impossible to ride down and bikes had to be manhandled through the rolling, sliding rocks to the Red Bull arch on the plateau. Once there more punishment awaited as the ‘line’ from previous years had been taped off so the riders were faced with 500 meters of rocks the size of cars to drag their bikes over and with no shade from the mid afternoon sun, this was truly the hardest part of the course and one that claimed many retirements. Reeves and Clarke both made it through, Reeves with no back brake and Clarke leaking oil and blowing steam out of his overheating TM.
Some more steep down hills and a short section of track led the remaining riders to ‘Gerichtsgraben’ and another crazy descent that led into a climb on large white rocks that was packed with spectators. Reeves made light work of the climb and received a cheer from the crowd, but it was here that the TM that Gordon Clarke had bravely soldiered on with finally cried no more as it’s clutch gave up and Gordon was out of the race.
With the sun now at it’s hottest and the clock ticking ever closer towards the 4 hour time limit Andrew Reeves entered the ‘Ludwig’s Land’ checkpoint, a rock gully that would have looked like a tough World Trials section of a few years ago. Another one of the ‘No Help’ zones, where riders are allowed no outside assistance, he found Woody Hole and Peter Bolton on hand to offer advice and encouragement as he pushed and pulled the KTM up the rocks. Then it was onto the old ‘Roof of Africa’ checkpoint, which had an evil climb at the end out of the trees off soil onto a line that changed with every tyre over it and then down again on horrible jagged rocks.
Time was now running out for Reeves as he left here and had about 35 minutes left, a quick 2 minute blast down the quarry road brought him to the nasty downhill in the woods just before the final check point at ‘Dynamite’. Normally the downhill would have been fairly straight forward, but with no rear brake he was burning up minutes having to walk the bike down the hill to be faced with a ‘double climb’ at Dynamite. Only 15 riders had made it through so far and with no energy left at all he managed to get the KTM to the top of the first gully, drop back down and crest the second gully under the watchful eye of John Lampkin and Mark Jackson, the latter having retired at the Diner, who were both shouting encouragement and instructions. With 15 minutes to spare and having seen the despair of finishing the course out of time that a friend suffered the previous year he quickly pushed on. The final part of the course was all downhill to the main arena where the finish line beckoned and after no less than another 3 downhill crashes due to the lack of stopping power he entered the arena to do a lap of the Enduro cross course and take the chequered flag as the 16th finisher.
Gordon was the first person to congratulate him as he slumped on his bike on the finish line. The official results later showed Dan Hemingway had missed a checkpoint but had crossed the line in 9th, this moved Reeves to 15th in the final results (Dan had made the check but his transponder hadn’t registered).
And so the two lads swapped stories of their day, the disasters, the difficulty, but also about the immense challenge that this race is and the satisfaction from taking part and doing your best.
Talk then turned quickly to what they would do differently next year. They must be mad!!
1Tadeusz Blazusiak 2POL KTM 250 EXC
2Andreas Lettenbichler 9GER BMW G450X
3Dougie Lampkin 28GBR Beta 400 RR
4Paul Bolton 34GBR KTM 250 EXC
5Ben Hemingway 25GBR KTM 300 EXC
6Cory Graffunder 23CAN Husqvarna 300
7Jade Gutzeit 8RSA Yamaha YZ 250
8Kurt Caselli 4USA KTM 300 EXC
9Gerhard Forster 22GER BMW G450X
10Darryl Curtis 19RSA KTM 300 EXC
11Andrew Cripps 78GBR Kawasaki 250 KX
12Lee Sampson 1051GBR Gas Gas 250 EC
13Taichi Tanaka 226JPN KTM 300 XC-W
14Piero Sembenini 85ITA Gas Gas 300 EC
15Andrew Reeves 83IRL KTM 300 EXC
25Gordon Clarke 35IRL TM 300