• Welcome to the Two Wheeled Texans community! Feel free to hang out and lurk as long as you like. However, we would like to encourage you to register so that you can join the community and use the numerous features on the site. After registering, don't forget to post up an introduction!

Barnwell Mountain Enduro 11/20

Forums New posts
Looks like it was pretty tough, especially for the average guys. And this was without it raining.
BD11F120-F181-483F-A48F-9C6AFBD1C029.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Unless they're wanting to call it an extreme enduro, that's too many DNFs. I heard the 1st test was brutal. Or maybe I'm soft for thinking that. Lol. I didn't go so can't complain. But reading FB, lot of disgruntled folks. Barnwell can be tough place to ride, either going up or down. Throw in exposed roots and rocks, boom, it's tough.
 
woodsguy said:
Looks like it was pretty tough, especially for the average guys. And this was without it raining.
Click to expand...
It was tough. I ride at Barnwell often and the entire 30+ mile distance when I go. The course incorporated some new trail and used some jeep roads that had challenging climbs and also had us going opposite normal direction in places. I just barely finished the first test in under an hour - 13.5 miles and without much break that made the remaining tests physically demanding. They actually did not include some of the hardest most technical bits.
 
That is a lot of DNFs I have not ridden all the trails out there but did not remember anything I would call brutal, was a lot of roots and hey unless you
just ride SHNF sand whoops rocks are what we get here in Texas


I see sracers post now and if they pitched in some of the jeep climbs yea that changes a lot as those climbs rock crawlers do can indeed be brutal
 
From my friends sounds like 1st test was tough. I've ridden there a little, been a while. But I know the potential for pain, lol. And the options of truly hard/easy lines doesn't seem likely up there. Hard to find easy.
 
Going as soon as I can. Sounds interesting now. Went many years ago and couldnt really find the bike trail.
 
woodsguy said:
Unless they're wanting to call it an extreme enduro, that's too many DNFs. I heard the 1st test was brutal. Or maybe I'm soft for thinking that. Lol. I didn't go so can't complain. But reading FB, lot of disgruntled folks. Barnwell can be tough place to ride, either going up or down. Throw in exposed roots and rocks, boom, it's tough.
Click to expand...
My youngest son rode in short course expert. Ended up 5th in class. No one behind him in his class even finished (expert class under 40!) He said there were bikes and riders stuck everywhere on the uphills, riders quitting where they were stuck. He said it was just constant ups and then downs, over and over. Also incredibly tight. He said it made Smithville look wide open. Roots blown out, etc. He said he just trail rode the last test. He was worn out and that is from a 25 year old that can really ride.

It was an 8 hour drive for me and our club has our TSCEC Enduro coming up plus the National Hard Enduro, so I stayed home and worked Sunday at our property. My son told me the whole time he was struggling he was thinking he was glad Dad didn't come, cause he woulda been pissed. LOL.
 
It's been a while since I've ridden there. Barnwell handles wet pretty well. But...when we'd have a bigger group of riders there were many places where the first 3 or 4 guys could get up, through, over, down etc. but the poor rascals behind them were gonna struggle. The trails don't get blown out since there's so much rock and solid sand but surface traction simply disappears once a few bikes stir things up. And they cut a bunch of new trails that you honestly had to wiggle the handlebars through. This was all what they call the red loop (plus the A loop) plus the new stuff that hadn't been named yet. It's a technical place to ride that's physically demanding for mere mortals. I can sure see the dnf percentages like that for a race there...good chance I'd be one of them.
 
Last edited:
woodsguy said:
Unless they're wanting to call it an extreme enduro, that's too many DNFs. I heard the 1st test was brutal. Or maybe I'm soft for thinking that. Lol. I didn't go so can't complain. But reading FB, lot of disgruntled folks. Barnwell can be tough place to ride, either going up or down. Throw in exposed roots and rocks, boom, it's tough.
Click to expand...
I kinda agree with you. I did TSCEC for many years and have been involved with our Concho Enduro for many decades. While it's called "enduro", that's way too many DNF's for an event that wasn't a mudfest, rain-out. I wasn't there to see the "why" for this event, but clubs need to be careful not to take the fun out of an event while still keeping the challenge.
 
Barnwell is sorta one of those places that is fun to ride with your friends where you stop, take your helmet off now and then and take a break. Racing there is a whole nother deal. Then it turns into one of the nastiest, cobbiest places ever.

Fun place to ride, not so fun to race (for me). Although looking at the test times, there are a bunch of folks that can ride that stuff at a really fast pace. Seems like this race had quite a bit more separation from the fastest guys than usual.

If I did the math right then the dnf rate was 39%. I am glad I did not have to sweep that race. Hope they had 50 or more sweep riders, lol.
 
TNC said:
I kinda agree with you. I did TSCEC for many years and have been involved with our Concho Enduro for many decades. While it's called "enduro", that's way too many DNF's for an event that wasn't a mudfest, rain-out. I wasn't there to see the "why" for this event, but clubs need to be careful not to take the fun out of an event while still keeping the challenge.
Click to expand...
And that's a tough line to walk. As someone on Facebook told them, they requested feedback. Have some different level riders preride it and see what the struggles are.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top