For the first time in a few years the weather finally played ball for the Craigieburn Enduro in the foot hills of the Southern Alps here near Christchurch and we were greated with a stunning hot day for racing.
I haven’t been able to make it to this event since 2014 so I was pretty excited to get back out to race one of my favourite spots for riding.

With full time EWS racer Joe Nation and World Cup Downhill racer Sam Blenkinsop on hand the bar was set fairly high but after a good few weeks of training over Christmas I was feeling good and up for the challenge.
My first stage started off with a mistake crossing a creek and having to run up the hill after it and then crashing on the last corner but luckily these were the only two issues on the day. The next four stages felt fast and consistent with my best being a 2nd on stage 4 only missing the stage win by two seconds.

With the final climb taking us up to 1200m elevation it was a brutal climb in the heat followed by the toughest stage of the day down the classic Cheesy DH track which drops 300 vertical meters over a 1.2km trail and is littered with huge holes and plenty of roots, it was definitely a worthy challenge to end the day!

The pace was hot at the front of the field with Joe sneaking the win from Sam by 8 seconds after they traded stage wins and even tied on a stage, I managed to sneak into 3rd just under 30 seconds back from Sam.
Although I would of liked to be have been closer I was wrapped to put together a solid day and land myself on the podium for the first time at Craigieburn!
by Torpedo7 athlete Kieran Bennett