All photos // Matt Rousu

MTBA Gravity Enduro Nationals Round 2 Mt Stromlo Results and Gallery

One of Australia’s most loved and iconic trail hubs played host to round 2 of the 2017 MTBA Gravity Enduro National Series.

We are of course talking about Stromlo Forest, nestled in the nations capital. It’s a venue with incredible mountain bike history which has held multiple World Cup and World Championship events, arguably the most famous being the 2009 DH world champs where Steve Peat finally clinched the rainbow stripes.

Claire Whiteman is in dominating form this year, here shredding Stage 1 for 2nd place and an overall win!

This weekend’s event was held in conjunction with the excellent team at CORC club (Canberra Off-Road Cycles) and its safe to say that the entire weekend was run like a well-oiled machine! Sunday’s race was made up of 5 timed stages and 5 liaison stages.

Timing Chip collection in the 4 degree celcius morning
Super Fans
The future
A super chilly foggy morning but clear skies above

It was a super diverse mix of stages of technical rock gardens, steep dusty rabbit trails and the iconic fast and flow of World Trail. All up the athletes would ride about 28km with 900m of climbing and descending.

One of the most challenging aspects of the day was the ‘well oiled’ time schedule which left little room for error. Each stage and following liaison climb was to be completed in 40 minutes and left many riders sweating and out of breath at the start of the next timed stage, it became a true test of fitness and made for super close racing in all categories.

Chris Panozzo Stage 1

Many riders who were well placed would suffer mechanicals or heavy crashes and would plummet down the leaderboard or DNF, consistency became key and it would be reigning Australian champion Chris Panozzo and local Canberra legend Claire Whiteman who rode consistently faster than all others to take the top spots on the podium.

Seconds Later Anthony Elliott would puncture ending his day before the end of Stage 3, he had been level with Chris after 2 Stages
One of the many flat tyres today 2
The Liason climbs today were tight, 40 minutes to race a stage and climb back up, lots of tired riders out there today
Ryan Walsch Stage 5 Flat Tyre huck
Sian A’Hern Stage 4
Linda Cappello Stage 3

From the sidelines it was clear that everyone really enjoyed the mix of stages, fluid organization and stunning blue bird weather. It’s a perfect balance of fitness, technical skills and the socializing with mates. It is fantastic to see this level of Enduro racing currently exploding across Australia.

Elite Men Podium
Elite Women Podium
Jnr Women Podium
Jnr Men Podium
Chris Panozzo Post race stoked face!
The ‘real’ Claire Whiteman is definitely on form for 2017!

Results

Elite Men
Elite Women
Expert men
Junior Women
Junior men

Full results (including stage times, and all the other classes) can be found here:

http://whitelightningevents.com/stromlo/

Ayla Armitage on the way back up
Chris Halshaw light roost
Dylan Cooper almost took the win. He dominated the pedally stages but lost just a fraction too much time on the Downhill tracks
Ebony Tanzen Stage 4
Dave Ludenia was on an awesome day before a big crash on stage 5. 6th place on the day

Round 3 of the 2017 MTBA Gravity Enduro National Series is set to take place over in Balingup, Western Australia on June 10th-11th where riders can expect another fantastic weekend of racing. Entries are currently open online and filling up fast so get in quick and secure your part of the action over in WA!

All photos // Matt Rousu