MTB Enduro
Bike or bust
Billy Bolt is a master of motorbike enduro who, in pursuit of glory, has sacrificed more parts of his body than he can count
“It’s nice to have something to vlog about – I’ve spent most of today drawing moustaches on kids,” says Billy Bolt, straight-faced, of his photoshoot with The Red Bulletin as he leans forward on his bike and stares down the lens of the camera.
Behind him, the early autumn waves lap languidly on the shore as the sun goes down on Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset’s famous coastal resort and the home of the fabled beach race, which this year celebrates its 40th anniversary.
That alone is reason for celebration, but the main buzz on this famous stretch of coastline is created by Bolt’s return to the event for the first time in five years. In between shots, as the shadows lengthen, the five-time world champion in enduro opens up the throttle on his new bike on the sand, tearing from a 100-plus years-old pier, past the camera and towards the promontory known as Brean Down.
“We’ll be looking to hit around 103mph [165kph] here tomorrow,” says his mechanic, Lee Edmondson.
Billy Bolt in Weston-super-Mare in September this year
© Alex De Mora
In the absence of a speed gun, The Red Bulletin asks how he knows how fast Bolt is travelling on the bike that Edmondson has been fine-tuning since the start of the week. “Don’t worry, he’s got Strava in his pants,” the mechanic replies, laughing. The app does its job: Bolt records a top speed of 156kph.
In between his bolts down the beach, the enduro star takes the opportunity to show off with an extravagant range of wheelies and donuts on the sand as a growing band of onlookers watches on.
By the time the photographer puts down his camera, a huge crowd has gathered behind the metal railings that adorn the course for the famous race the following day. Bolt has been asked to take part in a drag race to round off day one of the weekend. His motorbike is joined by such a bewildering array of vehicles that you almost expect Dick Dastardly and Muttley to appear on the start line, alongside their Wacky Races colleagues. Essentially, it’s every kid’s dream: a beach race of less than a kilometre, with only one requirement – to finish as quickly as you possibly can.
Bolt wins, streaking ahead of the opposition, his distinctive pink boots flashing past the crowds, who only have eyes for one man. More selfies, more cries of “Biiillllly” from behind the fences. More expectant kids ready their top lip in preparation for the Bolt pen and a temporary ’tache. “It’s becoming a thing, signing kids’ faces and drawing moustaches on them,” he says. “It’s actually harder than it looks to make both sides even. But I’ve had a lot of practice now.”
I ride every day with a smile on my face. I like to show people that it’s not all serious
Celebrating its 40th anniversary, the Weston Beach Race
© Alex De Mora
Bolt smiles broadly as he wipes away the grains of sand that have flown into his own distinctive facial fur. He then pulls out a mini malt loaf, gulps it down and heads back to his trailer. Job done. Tomorrow he’ll tackle the three-hour beach race, with a cast list of amateur riders who just can’t wait to be on the same bill as motorbike royalty.
Not only in Weston-super-Mare but far beyond its borders, Billy Bolt is big news. It was relatively recently, in 2016, that he got his first taste of professional enduro, riding as a privateer and learning on the job – or “crashing my brains out,” as he puts it, adding, “It’s been rapid growth since. A pretty wild ride.”
Just two years later, in 2018, Bolt was a surprise winner of the inaugural World Enduro Super Series – which would later be renamed the FIM Hard Enduro World Championship – but then had to undergo leg surgery and miss most of the following season. Since his return, he’s won a world title every year. Riding indoors in Poland this March, Bolt took his third FIM SuperEnduro World Championship. And in late November the next one begins, providing the chance to add a fourth indoor crown to a CV that’s already full to bursting. Beach racing isn’t a natural environment for this 26-year-old; the enduro races that Bolt takes part in are far more brutal. The SuperEnduro series, for example, will see him ride over logs, sand, tyres, mud, and basically anything else you can fit inside an arena designed to be as tough, inhospitable and downright savage as possible.
“SuperEnduro is pretty crazy,” Bolt says with a grin. “In a SuperEnduro race you know it’s seven minutes, 100-per-cent intensity, 200 heartbeats a minute, 40 seconds a lap, hard as you can, and hopefully everyone is OK at the end of it. It’s a motocross track and a building site thrown together.”
During the outdoor season, known as Hard Enduro for good reason, the insanity continues. “Hard Enduro is gnarly, extreme, chaos, bikes flying everywhere – it’s the sort of sport that puts you in extreme survival situations,” he says. “Sometimes you set off and you have no idea how long it’s going to take. You could be out there for eight hours. You only have a GPS on your handlebars, and you just follow the line.
“Indoors, it’s totally different: you could have 14 guys within six feet of each other, and if someone jumps further than anyone else is expecting, you can definitely have a motorbike on your head.”
This is Bolt’s idea of a good time. “I ride every day with a smile on my face,” he says. “I like to show people it’s not all serious.”
Work-life balance: nothing says ‘fun’ like popping a wheelie
© Alex De Mora
I enjoy riding motorbikes, riding them fast. I still feel it’s a privilege to do it every day
Born in Wallsend, a town in North Tyneside just 8km east of Newcastle upon Tyne, Bolt is from an area of the country that’s synonymous with football. Wallsend Boys Club has produced some of England’s most celebrated players, including Alan Shearer, the Premier League’s all-time top goal-scorer. Bolt’s North East accent is still firmly intact, but despite playing football to a relatively high level throughout his days as a junior, there was only ever one sport that truly captured his imagination.
“Where I’m from, if you don’t like football you get bullied,” he reveals. “Don’t get us wrong, I did like football. But for me it was always motorbikes; I was bike crazy.”
Bolt sits in a sizeable trailer that he’s been lent for the weekend. He’s used to van life as he spends a sizeable chunk of his life in his own, travelling from race to race around Europe from his base in Andorra. Today, his home on wheels is parked on a grass area above the town’s 3km-long promenade. Bolt’s bed is unmade, and the trailer already looks lived in, but finding everything he needs only takes him seconds. Edmondson pops his head in, bringing with him the noise created by the incessant whirring of bike engines on the beach and the buzz of the 10,000-plus spectators who have converged on Weston-super-Mare for the weekend. The mechanic asks Bolt which tools he’ll need on the beach. He reels off a well-rehearsed list before continuing.
“My dad and all his mates were always super into [bikes],” says Bolt. “They never really competed, but they would just go out and have fun. I was on the bike as soon as I can remember, and it was all I wanted to watch on TV. I’d watch Valentino Rossi, Dougie Lampkin and Travis Pastrana. They would be the guys I looked up to and admired.”
Now Bolt is the man who thousands of admirers look up to. The rider has a big online presence, documenting large parts of his season on YouTube. His videos, which routinely attract more than 100,000 views, offer a glimpse into the enduro world but also take fans behind the scenes, allowing viewers to see just how tough these races can be on the day, and showing the physical toll they take on Bolt when he returns to the sanctuary of his hotel room afterwards. Recent titles include I crashed 15 times in one night! and The hardest race of my life!.
Despite his lofty standing in the sport, Bolt is honest, funny, and doesn’t take himself too seriously. He’s already posted a vlog from his first day here in Weston-super-Mare, which included spending £57 on three fish and chips; an al-fresco wee; trying (and failing) to ride a glorified golf buggy over the huge, man-made racecourse dunes, and discovering the folly of wearing brand-new white socks with Crocs on a rainy day at the seaside.
“I feel like everyone feels they’re a part of my journey, because I try to be as open as possible and give as good an insight as I can,” he says. “YouTube really allows the audience to engage. I think that’s one of the reasons why I seem to be so loved when I come back home.”
The Weston Beach Race's 40th anniversary
© Alex De Rosa
The crowd as Bolt leaves his trailer on this warm Saturday evening is at least eight deep. Wearing his trademark cap and Bermuda shorts, he signs a hat, a pair of crutches, a foot and a forearm. He grins for selfie upon selfie.
Though the journey to becoming a multiple world champion hasn’t been easy, for the bike-obsessed Bolt there was never any other option. “It surprises a lot of people, but I found school relatively easy,” he says. “I got GCSEs, I got A-levels, and I enjoyed it. I was quite lucky, I didn’t have to try too hard to pass exams. I could mess about to a certain degree, getting into bother, but at the same time I was doing well enough to keep everybody happy. At the end of the day, all I really wanted to do was ride.
“I was pretty aware of the sacrifices people had to make to give me what I had. We weren’t going hungry or living on the streets, far from it, but I had seen the hours my dad was working. He was an engineer for the Post Office. He actually hated his job, but one of the reasons he kept working was because he had access to a whole workshop with welding and painting facilities. He stuck at a job he really didn’t like for quite a few years just to keep my motorbikes going.”
Many of Bolt’s own sacrifices have been bodily ones. “He was never put off by anything – he’d crash one week and then be back on the bike without blinking,” says Bolt’s dad David, who has travelled to Somerset with his two daughters to assist in the enduro star’s preparation for the afternoon’s race. “He’s just like his youngest sister – she dislocated her wrist at an event last week, but all she’s talked about today is getting back on the bike and getting out there again.”
Bolt’s first brush with the brutal nature of the world he chose to enter came early. “I’ve got a few fingertips missing,” he reveals. “I did it in a [bike]chain when I was seven years old. I remember turning up the next week to watch, with my hand not in plaster but severely bandaged. As it would be – I did have a couple of fingers missing! I just remember that the only thing on my mind was that I was gutted I couldn’t ride that day. I wanted to be back out there as soon as possible. It’s just something that comes with [riding] – you accept [the injuries].
“I broke my leg in 2018 and had some nerve damage. I had drop foot [a condition where the sufferer has difficulty lifting the front part of their foot] with no movement in it for a year. Nerves are quite a scary thing to injure, because not many people know too much about them. That was the worst one by far. [But] I still rode. I did a year, basically, with no movement in my foot, then I stopped and had another surgery.
“[My foot] works a little bit now, but it’s still not great. I can walk without any problem, but I can’t run. Well, I could, but if I did there’s a good chance I might end up rolling my ankle. To be fair, it’s a good excuse not to, because I didn’t enjoy [running] anyway!”
Full throttle: Bolt is a world champion in SuperEnduro and Hard Enduro
© Alex De Rosa
Bolt, a self-confessed lover of Greggs, doesn’t live any kind of monastic existence. There’s no discussion of paleo diets, or of daily gym sessions at dawn. But you don’t rise to the elite level that he’s managed to reach powered solely by sausage rolls and chicken bakes. Bolt knows what he needs to get through a race, a gruelling season.
“I try to ride as much as possible – it’s where I’m happiest,” he says. “I don’t train that often off the bike. Don’t get us wrong, I don’t want to say I do nothing, because there is a certain level of fitness and strength that’s required. If I think I’m weak in a certain area, or lacking in something, I’ll spend more time in the gym. But I do most of my work on the bike.”
This simple, almost old-school approach is certainly working. “He’s a real throwback in many ways,” says Jon Pearson, editor of enduro and off-road riding platform Enduro21.com. “Billy’s different. He was the first rider to win the World Championship [the World Enduro Super Series at the time, in 2018] and that really displayed his talents. He’s an old-fashioned rider, but his exceptional talent is on the logs in the SuperEnduro. He’s raised the bar. He makes it look so simple – even if he makes a mistake, he’s straight back in and winning by miles.
“I’m not sure it’s bravery; it’s confidence. He knows his technique is right, but he’s a bloody strong rider. He muscles the bike. He’s able to use his body in the way that others can’t.”
Though he loves speed and the thrill of finishing on the podium, Bolt says his performances are about more than where he finishes in a race. “I get a lot out of just knowing that I’ve performed the best I can,” he says. “I don’t want to say I’m not results-orientated, because I love winning, but I can win and feel like I haven’t rode good. Even if I win, I won’t always be in a good mood. The people around me understand that.
“But generally it’s cool. I enjoy riding motorbikes, and I enjoy riding them fast. I still feel it’s a privilege to do it every day.”
When asked about competing here, outside his usual “nine-to-five racing”, as he puts it, Bolt’s answer is simple: “I’m here for fun.”
It’s Sunday. The high winds that have concerned the organisers thankfully haven’t arrived, and riders prepare for the biggest race of the weekend beneath a cloudy sky. The race is a timed event, with the riders effectively attempting as many laps of the almost 10km course as they can inside three hours. The straight on the beach is followed by a gruelling series of sand hills designed to sap energy and add to the excitement.
The elite riders have gathered on the start line, while the amateur enthusiasts, some wearing Minion masks over their helmets, others dressed as Super Mario, wait for the instruction to run to their bikes and join the queue.
For Bolt, this is an opportunity to test himself against the best – Somerset-born rider Todd Kellett is a five-time champion at Weston-super-Mare – but for others it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get close to their heroes.
The pits, set up on the beachfront, give an indication of the democratic nature of the event. Bolt’s corner includes everything needed for him to stop and refuel in the blink of an eye. Elsewhere, hulking would-be mechanics lug enormous jerry cans around, spilling most of the contents before they get anywhere near their intended target. One team attempt to stand their bike up by using an umbrella – with predictable consequences.
The riders set off along the beach’s opening 2km straight before tackling the mammoth dunes. The scene is like something from the Mad Max movies. Riders pile up close to the first peak, their machines spitting out plumes of sand into the faces of those behind them as they battle their way around the unforgiving circuit. Bolt, meanwhile, whizzes by in third place, Edmondson holding up a sign telling him to do one more lap before refuelling. “We’ll try and do it every hour,” he says. “And it will be quick.”
Bolt whizzes in, changes his goggles, has a couple of Haribo, then – whoosh – he’s off again.
After little more than three hours, the race ends in the same chaotic nature it began. Riders zoom up the final dunes, a couple of them fall over, and the spectators – many of them now well-oiled themselves – shout to the riders. “Well, that was good,” Bolt says with a grin as he removes his sand-coated goggles and spits out a mouthful of the stuff.
He eventually returns to his trailer, still caked head-to-toe in sand, holding a beer in one hand and what looks suspiciously like a kebab in the other. Bolt’s happy with a top-three finish and a place on the podium. He’s also had a full-body exfoliation.
Comfort zone: post-race, it’s time for Bolt to recharge
© Alex De Rosa
With the race done, Edmondson will be off to Italy soon to prepare the bike for the final race of the season in Spain in October. This summer, Bolt has already competed in Romania, the US, Austria and Serbia. He’ll be driving back to his home in Andorra later this week.
“I’m not in the UK a whole lot any more,” he says. “It’s why I love coming back [to Weston-super-Mare] when I am, because I know the family will be here on race day and I’ll get the opportunity to catch up with them.”
So, no champagne? No post-race party? “Sadly not,” he says. “I’m just going to drive to a friend’s house in the Midlands. I’ll probably have a cheeky McDonalds on the way back. I’ll go large this evening: Sweet Chilli Chicken Wrap meal, McChicken Sandwich meal, a McFlurry, and a coffee to keep me awake on the drive. I’ll be pretty exhausted tonight.”
Glamour, it seems, isn’t a big part of the life of an enduro champion. But Bolt has different ambitions. Before starting that drive, he’ll work his way down the queue of fans that has formed outside his trailer. “I was always first in the line for an autograph session, being cheeky and trying to make my heroes laugh,” he says. “You just want people to enjoy themselves, like I did when I was a kid. That’s the most important thing for me.
“At the end of the day, we’re not changing the world; we’re just playing with motorbikes.”