Enduro
Hard Enduro World Championship: All You Need To Know
Your complete guide to the world’s toughest motorsport on two wheels
Part of this story
The Hard Enduro World Championship, as the name suggests, is hard! It’s one of the toughest endurance sports in the world that pits man and machine against some of the world’s toughest terrain in a range of different events from multi-day rallies to intense sprint races and the series isn’t just for elite riders, if you have an off-road bike, you can register and enter – but be prepared, this championship is anything but easy.
The championship is still in its infancy and only dates back to 2018, so you will be forgiven if you’re not sure what the Hard Enduro World Championship is all about, we’re here to help you with a complete guide to the series.
The Championship
The Hectic Start Of A Hard Enduro
© Red Bull Content Pool
The Hard Enduro World Championship began life as the World Enduro Super Series (WESS) back in 2018. It was established to create the most encompassing and true enduro series to date. The original season brought together all disciplines of enduro, including Hard Enduro, Classic Enduro, Cross-Country and Beach Racing and it was an immediate hit, with British rider Billy Bolt claiming the first title after an eight-race battle.
The series returned in 2019 with a similar format and it was won by German Manuel ‘Mani’ Lettenbichler, but after the season, WESS Promotions (the organisers) wanted to refine the championship. They realised that the backbone of the series was Hard Enduro, it was most popular among fans and competitors so the Hard Enduro World Championship was formed with approval from the FIM.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 season was cancelled, but despite ongoing restrictions the first Hard Enduro World Championship took place in 2021 with an eight-round championship that went down to the wire between Lettenbichler and Bolt. The final race was won by Lettenbichler, but Bolt had done enough to be crowned the first FIM Hard Enduro World Champion.
The 2022 season is another eight-round championship covering three continents and eight different countries. We’re already two races in, with events taking place in Israel and Serbia and up next is the jewel in the crown of the series – the Red Bull Erzberg Rodeo – arguably the most famous enduro race in the world (more on that later). Billy Bolt and Graham Jarvis are currently tied at the top of the standings on 30 points each, but Lettenbichler is chasing them down after winning in Serbia, so the Erzberg race will be a must-watch event.
Possibly the most exciting thing about the series is that it is open to everyone, professional and amateur riders compete side-by-side on the main event. Martin Kettner, the media officer at Ezberg explains how they can accommodate everyone. “We have a limit of 1,500 people. We have prologue races on the first two days, which is how you qualify for the main race on the Sunday. Basically, it’s a flat out, full throttle race to the top of the mountain on a very wide but very gnarly gravel track and the fastest 500 riders qualify for the main race.”
The Bikes
The Bikes Have To Be Hard Wearing
© Red Bull Content Pool
There are hundreds of off-road bikes from many different manufacturers available to riders and those racing for a factory team have everything at their disposal.
There are many types of enduro racing and a bike for each discipline, but for the Hard Enduro World Championship the majority of riders opt for a 300 to 350cc two-stroke bike.
For the series Manuel Lettenbichler, a KTM factory team rider chooses a 300EXC TPI, but obviously it’s not standard. “KTM’s bikes are pretty good out of the box,” explains Lettenbichler. “But I have made quite a lot of changes to the standard bike. It’s all about personal preference and being comfortable. My bike has a different engine, suspension, my handlebars and my foot pegs are in different positions. Every rider is individual and has the bike set up for them. I haven’t changed my suspension for three years – I’ve kept the same setting because I know I like it.”
Paul Bolton, an extremely experienced enduro rider who commentates on the series talked about how bike protection is key for surviving an enduro race. “You don’t want broken or bent brake discs so they have to be covered, and there is also armour to protect the chain and there’s a nice big skid plate to protect the engine as well,”
The amateur riders can show up in whatever they want. Martin Kettner explains that he has seen all sorts of bikes try to make it up the mountain. “We have two different race classes [at Erzberg] for the Prologue races: Single Cylinder and Twin Cylinder (as quite a lot of riders just enter the Prologue and race with their big bore Enduro Adventure bikes). But you can also see four-cylinder street bikes with offroad tyres at the start of the Prologue. And we’ve even seen Vespas and other scooters! Just for fun...”
The Riders
Mani Lettenbichler At Erzberg
© Red Bull Content Pool
Competitors in the Hard Enduro World Championship need to be masters of many trades. A typical hard enduro course will require the skills normally associated with trials, motocross and classic enduro.
There’s also no denying that you need to be fit, so a lot of riders will go to the gym or cycle, but as Mani explains, being on the bike is the best form of training. “I wanted to do more riding in my training, so three years ago, I changed it up. In hard enduro you have to ride different styles, so I will train on a motocross track, I ride trials, I ride classic and extreme enduro, it makes you a better allrounder. I’m a big mountain bike fan and it’s my second passion and it’s good for cardio. I do a little bit of gym work in the summer; you can’t do nothing – you always have to work out a little bit.”
Bolton also added that understanding the bike is essential to being a good enduro rider as well: “You need to have mechanical sympathy, whilst riding as smooth as possible. You need to know when the bike is suffering and look after your tyre because you need a good edge on your tyre to get up the last climb, and if it’s been shredded, it could ruin your race.
It's all about preserving body and preserving bike and energy. I used to say that if I dropped my bike twice in a day that was it, there was no chance of a podium. One little spill is ok, but you burn so much energy picking the bike up that it costs you.”
The competitors also have to be hard wearing and resilient. As the circuits are often rocky and steep, meaning injuries are quite common and it’s usually the wrists, or particularly the knees. Lettenbichler missed the first round of this season as he was recovering from surgery. Lettenbichler broke his meniscus and MCL about five years ago. He said that it “kind of healed up, but with the ligament it’s different and if you don’t have an operation, you can’t really fix it,” he said. Before going onto explain that he waited until it got really bad before opting to have surgery. “Last November it locked a couple of times and in the new year it locked completely, so I went for surgery. The doctors said after two weeks I would be fine, but in the waking room there were three doctors around me who said: ‘Yeah, it was a bit of a mess in there. The ligaments are good, but the meniscus needed a lot of work.’ The doctors said it would take three to six months to heal, so I’m happy with five.”
Mani was the winner at the most recent race in Serbia, and was shocked by the result, but these Hard Enduro athletes are in peak physical condition. “I had been working my arse off for the last couple of months just to be back on a bike. I knew it would be impossible to be back in time for the first round, but I thought it would be really nice to ride the second one, but even with just a week to go, I still wasn’t sure if I would be able to race or not and to go home with the win was really special and emotional.”
The Courses
The Daunting Iron Giant
© Red Bull Content Pool
As mentioned earlier, Hard Enduro courses are a mixture of trials courses and motocross tracks, but pushed to the extreme. The upcoming Erzberg Rodeo will be celebrating its 26th year of competition and it is renowned for being one of the most difficult courses in the Hard Enduro World Championship.
The Erzberg Rodeo – known as the Iron Giant – is set within a working iron ore mine, making it the perfect setting for a Hard Enduro race. As Martin Kettner explains it has everything. “The idea from the beginning was to make a track that covers every corner of the quarry. So, we have a bit of everything. We have high-speed gravel racing, a little bit of tight, twisty forest with a narrow track, of course we have a lot of rocks and then we have an extreme amount of short, steep up hills and long, less steep down hills.”
The most exhausting part for the riders is what’s known as Carl’s Dinner, which is a field of huge rocks the competitors have to traverse. “I’ve never been on Carl’s Dinner on a motorbike, but I’ve been on foot and you don’t even want to walk it, it’s so difficult. And these guys just ride over it,” joked Kettner.
Set in the small rural town of Enzersfeld, the Erzberg Rodeo’s planning begins early in the year. “We have our first site check in February even though we can’t go in some places as there will be up to 70cm of snow,” said Kettner. “We talk to the mining people and they tell us that either nothing has changed, or there are major changes. We note down the sections that have been heavily changed so as soon as the snow has gone, we can focus on that section. Luckily, with it being a mine, if we need to make big changes, we have all the equipment right there.”
On the long-distance race Bolton explains that the track route starts online. “A lot of the long-distance races are mapped out on Google Earth, and once they’ve plotted a route, there will be men on the ground trying to make it through. If they can’t make it, its back to the drawing board, or they find a better way. All the track managers will have ideas and experience from previous, and they start at the beginning of the year-before’s circuit and work through to see what can be changed.”
Everyone Is Welcome
The Erzberg Rodeo
© Mathias Kniepeiss/Red Bull Content Pool
1,500 riders are expected to compete at Erzberg and that ranges from the elite athletes to those just happy to compete in the Prologue races. Erzberg is the equivalent of the Monaco Grand Prix, it’s the one every rider wants to win, so it attracts a lot of attention.
Enzersfeld has a population of just 3,300, that number swells to over 10,000 people when the race is on. “We set up our own electricity, water and toilets for the weekend, we have a whole town in the quarry,” said Kettner.
It’s not just the visitors who love it when the race comes into town. “For the locals it’s the biggest thing of the year and they all love to work with us. For example, we have two old women who wash all the clothing of our track builders and if it’s raining, they will drive up and collect the clothing from the track builders, they drive home, wash and dry it and return it later that evening. It’s a very small rural community and most of them have never been away, so for them it’s the first time that they will meet people from all over the world, it’s so nice to see everyone working together from every continent, which makes it so special,” concluded Kettner.
Watch round three of the Hard Enduro World Championship on Red Bull TV. The coverage begins with a live panel preview show on 18 June at 17:00 UTC and the live race starts at 12:00 UTC on 19 June.
Part of this story