Gravity Enduro RD3 Djouce

The most recent round of the series took place last weekend and man was it a wild one! Saturday saw beautiful blue skies and dusty tracks compared to Sunday's Monsoon which left the trails like mud slides.The last 2 years now we have had pretty bad conditions for Djouce but after my performance in the 1st round in 3Rock I was pretty confident I could put in a good result. So riding up to the first stage and seeing how wet the tracks were kept me happy.

                      Here's a video from practice following my teammate Gavin (Watch in HD!!)

Stage 1

Stage one was the classic run from XTC to the bottom of Son of benchcut. Easy enough stage to start the day which is always good for as I kinda struggle on the first stage of the day in races. Had one small moment on the steep section of Phantom but kept it clean and smooth to win the stage in my category and 3rd overall.

Stage 2+3

The brand new stage that was so amazing, had turned to a mud slide overnight and made for a slightly cautious run with a few mistakes including a nice meeting with a tree. It was still good enough to take 2nd on the stage and 9th overall. Stage 3 I put in a another consistent and safe run to finish 2nd in category and 10th overall 

Stage 4

Stage 4 didn't go well by my own standards with a couple of mistakes and missing some of my lines which resulted with me having to run for a couple of seconds. Considering all this and surprisingly I took the win in my category and almost took my first overall stage win, finishing 2nd overall on the stage by only 2 seconds 

Stage 5

Stage 5 was going well till 2 silly crashes had me rolling around in the mud. Gloves had to come off and was throttle gripping the bike all the way to the end of the stage. Then I had the long walk back up the stage to where I crashed to get my Garmin which had fallen of in the crash. Some trek back up so it was. Lost 12 seconds on the stage and finished 2nd in my category and 14th overall.

Overall it was enough though and I managed to take the win in my category by 14 seconds. Even better I managed to put in my best overall performance to date with a 3rd place overall. Absolutely stoked to get inside the top 5 overall after knocking around the top 10 for the year. Big thanks to Expert Cycles for getting me this far and continuing to support me in my racing along with Endura. Also thanks to Adrian for the photo!

Looking forward to National Champs now in Ballyhoura in a couple of weeks time. Have always done well in Ballyhoura so hopefully it'll be nice to me again!