Bike
MTB Enduro
Greg Callaghan: my year in review
The Enduro World Series star offers an unflinching look at his highs and lows on and off the bike in 2021.
Only in 2021 could a positive also be such a negative.
For Ireland's number one enduro mountain biker Greg Callaghan, this came when he contracted COVID, hampering an Enduro World Series campaign already beset by delays and race changes. "Brutal", in his own words, the virus would affect his fitness for many months and come at the worst possible time for the rider.
True to his character though, Greg dug deep, balancing his body's capabilities with his mind's ambition to eventually claw himself back to the front of the pack in the final race of the season, rounding things off with an eighth-place finish. He was back. There have also been plenty of other highlights during a mixed 2021, including a special film shoot with his dad, a ride under the famous hot air balloons at Cappadocia and some typically fun training days in the wilds of Wicklow.
Here, Greg provides first-hand insight into what it's been like for an elite athlete competing in the strangest of times...
Cold weather training was non-negotiable
"We weren’t totally in lockdown in January and February, but restrictions meant I couldn’t get abroad to train in better weather as I normally would. Still, I had a bit of fun and even managed to get out on an e-bike. We’d spent the festive period at my girlfriend’s family home in an area which was new to me, so picked the biggest hill I could and rode up it at speed on the e-bike, in thick snow. People were looking at me weird."
With COVID I’d lie awake all night in agony with sore legs. As soon as I got my heart rate up on the bike I'd feel faint and dizzy and would be in bits for days after that.
I got up to speed with a new bike
"The season being pushed back to late Spring due actually played into our hands as I had a new bike coming around May. When the original calendar was out it seemed as though we’d be racing the first few races on the older bike and would switch bikes mid-season, but the new dates meant we could do the whole season on a new bike. The calendar change worked into our hands. The extra time allowed us to lay the foundations for the year ahead."
I got to shoot a film with my dad
"Rooted In Ireland was a film I made with Devinci that was released around halfway through 2021. It was a really fun project as there were a lot of different types of riding we wanted to do in a few days, so we were sun up until sundown. Much of the film was about me and my dad. We do ride together a lot, we always have, so it was cool to get that relationship on camera and document it. Of course, he stole the show and it gradually became a film about him! All good though. Growing up I was always watching my dad ride a bike, he’s been at it for a long, long time, so it’s really cool to see him enjoying it as much as he is.
"One part of the film was about his 'rule of three', which is where he'd take me out as a kid and make me repeat any part of a course I struggled. I'd need to do it perfect three times before I could leave that section. It was tough at the time but attention to detail like that really helped, purposeful practice, you’re focused. You can fluke it once but not three times. That video was great for me to watch, and being able to dig out all the old photos of us was special."
I got off to a nice winning start in 2021
"Before every season I like to do one race outside of the EWS just to get the first race jitters out of the way, as there are always mistakes you make and things you forget. At the end of May, I took part in the first round of the British [Hope PMBA Enduro] Series, which was a great intro for the year. It was a really fun, chilled and relaxing weekend. We all stayed in the vans and I even managed to come back with a win. It was a great start to the season."
But the shortened EWS races were an issue
"The first EWS race of 2021 was in Italy's Val di Fassa. It was up and down, and not just in the literal sense — I struggled with the speed. Some of the more technical stages suited me and I was having top tens on those, but others were pretty basic trails where it wasn’t so much about technique but simply speed, and the margins were therefore tight. Percentage-wise, I was closer to the leaders than I had been in the last couple of years, but position-wise I was further back on the results sheet. It was difficult to swallow as I’d made progress on paper but it looked like I’d gone backwards; there were just more of us fighting over the same second. The courses were shorter, there were less stages, almost like a one-day race format, meaning that if you made a mistake you didn’t have much chance to make it back. It’s exciting to watch from the outside, but from the inside it’s tough. Normally I’m playing the long game over a weekend but there was no room for that, so consistency was important but you had to be racing on the limit, and it took me time to adjust to that."
And then COVID wrecked my season
"After we had the first block of four races there was a five-week break which I used for a bit of a holiday with friends in the North Coast of Ireland before coming back for training. Unfortunately, the four of us all contracted COVID up there. It was a nightmare, honestly. Of the four weeks I was supposed to be training, I had to spend two of them in bed as I was struggling with the illness. It really did hit me hard and knocked my momentum, so while everyone else was going forwards I was going backwards. It made that second part of the year really tough.
"I was fortunate that it never went into my lungs, so my breathing wasn’t affected. Initially, it was a really bad fever and pain, so I had really bad muscle pain in my legs, I’d be lying awake all night in agony with sore legs and then it would be drained energy. I’d feel ok and go out on the bike but as soon as I got my heart rate up, I just felt faint and dizzy and would be in bits for days after that. I had to take my time to simply get back on the mountain bike, never mind pushing it to the limit in elite competition."
It became a balance between my body and ambition
Greg Callaghan
© Mahmut Cinci
"The only race I missed due to being ill with COVID was the Irish Championships. It was an event which I have a strong record at having only lost there once since 2012. Anyway, as soon as I had a few days of consistent riding I thought, 'I’ve got to go somewhere with bigger hills and better trails to fast-track my return to EWS, so I went out to Andorra for two weeks and tried to cram the training in to be ready for the next block of races. However, my body just wasn’t ready to push at that limit, so it took quite a while before I felt myself again on the bike.
"But racing was still so tricky. I was managing what my body was capable of. For instance, when there was a physical section in the stages I had to consciously hold back. I was riding well but felt that if I pushed too hard I would never recover, so I stayed below my limit physically, which made it really hard to manage because you then ride extra hard on the downhill sections and it leads to mistakes. I still wasn't happy with the results sheet."
It was great to finish the season with a top-ten race to remind myself, and everyone else, that this is where I should be.
There was a welcome return to form in my final race of the season
"We had a nice chilled week off before the final race of the season, in Scotland, so I felt more like myself. I started off fifth on the pro stage and stayed really close to the top guys, finishing eighth overall. It was great to finish the season with a top ten race to remind myself, and everyone else, that this is where I should be. It was also the only race last year where I felt like myself. So with Scotland being the first race next year, it makes things interesting as it’s a strong race for me. If I can start off on the right foot I can carry momentum with me. It makes such a difference seeing your name with only a few ahead of it on the results sheet."
Red Bull Dawn Till Dusk was an experience I'll never forget
Red Bull Dawn till Dusk
© Red Bull Content Pool
"Red Bull Dawn Till Dusk was amazing. I didn’t know a whole lot about the area going into the event, I’d just been asked to go and what a place – first of all to just go and see that landscape and the history that place has, but then to be riding a bike through the centre of it was incredible. It was cool to see as it was one of Turkey’s first big mountain bike events, so it was cool to see how excited everyone was about it. At the start there were all the balloons up above us, a mass start for the first stage, and the place was founded in 35AD and it was the first Christians were fleeing from the Romans, and they settled there and made all these caves in the land, it’s all volcanic ash, that people still live in. It’ll be the first of many good versions of that event now over the next few years."
I want to be fitter than ever in 2022
Greg Callaghan sliding through the dirt
© Duncan Philpott
"For next season I’m starting with a new coach, Alan Milway, who is based at the University of Birmingham. I was there recently doing fitness tests and gym assessments to see where I’m at now and where we want to work towards, setting parameters. I learnt a lot from it.
Scotland is a big focus of mine. It’s the closest I’ll get to a home race so it’s definitely one I want to capitalise on. To stand on a podium there would make me very happy. Beyond that, I want to be fighting for single-digit positions, because if you’re consistently in the top ten some races will go in your favour and you’ll be closer to the podium. If you have that sort of pace you’ll always be at the right end of things. My motivation during the winter is going to be about coming into that season opener as strong as possible."
