This is a story for the Hard Enduro wannabe.
This is a story for the rider that is keen but hasn't yet fully committed themselves to their descent into hell.
To that rider I say this - pain shared is pain halved so let's descend together!
But before we start our journey, permit me to introduce you to the Twist Pig.
The idea behind this bike was conceived long before the 2024 WHES season started. It came to me as I watched young Jakob Petrig throw his brand-new Adventure On Store KTM300EXC at some serious rock faces out back of Bullsbrook.
He was so damn keen to get hours on the bike that, on its first outing, it went bush fully naked - no protection. Nothing.
This may be plenty normal for many people; but for me? This was hard to watch!
Fortunately, Jakob is a prodigious rider, and that bike was never going to spend much time buried sideways in a rock pile.
The rest of us? Well, we are not so lucky, and we fall off a lot!!
That being the case, I came to this conclusion with some degree of immediacy: There must be a hell of a lot of people out there that may want to have a crack at hard enduro, but don't want to destroy the only bike they own.
From that thought, the Twist Pig was spawned - it is the Hard Enduro bike you need when you don't have a Hard Enduro bike.
This bike was built to demonstrate that you can give Hard Enduro a crack for not much money and without destroying your pride and joy.
If you have a bike you love, you can wrap it, then ride it, then unwrap it a year later and it will still be as it was. No harm, no foul.
How do you achieve this you ask?
Well, it's all based on the concept of "allowing the village to raise the child". Stay with me.....
You see, the Hard Enduro community, here in the West and over East, has become huge quite quickly. Those that are incredibly invested in the sport have been buying and building HE weapons for years now. And as a result, their sheds are becoming more and more full of unwanted spares and cast-offs that have made way for upgrades and advances in spec. A lot of the gear is damaged and as ugly as a slapped arse. It may be worth STOJS (the sum total of jack shit), but it still works.
These riders also seem to have an insatiable appetite for learning through social media, so spawning chat groups that continue to grow and grow in member size and content.
Put two and two together - if you decide you want to stick a toe in the sport and build a bike without spending an arm and leg, all you have to do is......ask!
The donor bike for this exercise was/is an immaculate 2019 Husky TE250I that we picked up for $8K. It has only 60 hours on the clock. The plastics were virtually unmarked, but the bike had been ridden. Stripping it down there was decent red dirt under the plastics. But it was pretty to look at and had lots of bling bits like the LED headlights, carbon fibre pipe guard, Acerbis frame and case savers.
We did a quick calc and arrived at about $500.00 worth of aftermarket protection, but I reason that this gear is all pretty standard fitment on any enduro bike. It's what you'd expect any rider to put on a nice bike to protect it on the trails.
To be fair, and keep this realistic, we will concede it did give us a head start.
Once we had the bike, we put the "it takes a village" concept to the test and within days of posting a few "Does anyone have......" on the W.A. Hard Enduro Series chat group we had a full set of spare plastics, radiator shrouds, a thermo fan, a spare rear rim (which tends to get chunked out more than the front), used rear gummy and a bash plate that runs to the linkage.
A couple of mates, a couple of pizzas and more than a couple of beers had all this gear on the bike in under a few hours.
That was with some exception. The bash plate did require some convincing by way of a jigsaw and some dodgy bracing.
We are still chasing brake protection front and rear, but that is only a matter of time and patience, and it won't stop us from running the bike.
Total cost to date? About $330, making this gorgeous enduro bike Hard Enduro ready!
Once the bits were fitted, there were a couple of really quick set-up tweaks that needed doing to make me feel a little bit more comfortable on the bike.
We ran the levers further down into the bars so greater clutch control can be achieved using only one or two fingers. This also gives you maximum draw of the lever to set the pick-up point that suits you. It's a Neil Price top tip!!!!!
The kill switch and 'electric leg' button were flipped around - this is Grant McCarthy much loved basic hack that will save you on a serious slope. It allows you to hit the starter whilst staying 'full grip' on the twist bits.
Finally, the suspension was softened, and the sag dropped to max practicable, allowing me to put both of my feet as much on the ground as possible. Dropping the back means you should also drop the front, to ensure the bike won't loop out over the next twig you hit. The forks were pushed up through the triple clamps to just below the bottom marker lines.
I'm not kidding when I say that Jason Bale from Enduro Bikes W.A. did all of this (except the suspension) whilst I was under the bike stuffing around with that damn bash plate that wanted to tango whilst I was trying to salsa.
With the bike ready to roll it was time to get it out bush and actually take some time to learn to ride it.
I've come off a Beta 125RR, with which I'd dabbled on some highly technical HE circuits and an enduro-cross circuit here in W.A. At the risk of stating the obvious, the TE250i is taller, heavier and more powerful.
So, I commenced my decent into hell with some caution and the ride went seriously off-script to begin with.
The first drainage line we hit had some very big step-ups that I was simply not yet ready for. So, we dialed it back a notch and had a bit of a track side pow wow to discuss what we were actually trying to achieve.
That was about when Silver Class rider and one of the WHES paddock favorites, Elliot Clenton, said some words that settled me immediately.
I'm not sure if they are his own, but I am going to credit him with them: "Consider risk and consequence. It's all about finding the right amount of hard."
What he meant was this; before you take on an obstacle, you need to consider the risk and consequence and find the riding that suits your ability as you learn and progress.
A massively challenging obstacle that has a high risk of failure should be taken on only if the consequence is low. You might fail, but you'll live to have another crack. And, in doing so, you'll learn from it.
Big step-ups in tight 'V' shaped drainage gullies are perfect. If you go over, you don't fall far from the bike.
On the flip side, don't be tempted to take on an obstacle with a lower risk of failure if the potential consequences (injury or bike damage) are high. If you do, your hard enduro journey will end before it even begins.
Drop-offs across steep slopes or into boulder strew drainage basins can go bad if you do go over the bars.
"Risk and consequence." "The right amount of hard." These are incredibly wise words in the learning phase of Hard Enduro, because failure is inevitable.
Choose your ride to make sure you get to choose if you keep riding hard enduro!
Clearly, we made all the right choices and, as a result, I am still here on the keyboard looking forward to bringing you more on this journey.
Comments