Australia’s best hard enduro racers launched themselves at the Iron Giant, the Erzberg, in the name of fun.
The Red Bull Erzberg Rodeo in Austria is the Big Daddy of hard enduro. The event is so big that the name Erzberg is all it takes to send shivers down the spine of riders the world over. Erzberg the event all serious hard enduro racers want to conquer.
It wrecks bikes and destroys souls. A cocktail of burning clutches, boiling coolant and salty tears from grown men. Bugger that.
For a few Aussie riders, it’s the pinnacle they want to climb. Erzberg is their Everest and they let nothing stand in their way.
TOP THREE DO IT FOR FREE
Unlike the Motocross of Nations or the ISDE, Erzberg is open to any rider. Although largely considered the premier hard enduro event in the world, riders just go if they want to and that means paying their own way which is exactly what a bunch of Aussies did this year.
The top three hard enduro riders from the 2023 Australian Hard Enduro Championship signed up for Erzberg 2024, along with a few other brave souls that love the torture that comes with the territory. Ruben Chadwick, Anthony Solar and Wade Ibrahim are leading the charge when it comes to this crazy discipline of dirt bike racing in Australia, but even they are in awe of the top guns at Erzberg.
RUBEN’S RAGE
As defending Australian Hard Enduro Champ, Ruben Chadwick was keen to put his stamp on Erzberg. Never having left Australia before, the 25 year-old Queensland Beta rider was up for the adventure, eventually placing 20th and cementing his name as the highest-ever placed Australian.
“Erzberg is known as the toughest one-day hard enduro, I grew up watching it. It was pretty daunting for me thinking about all the logistics and other arrangements other than the race, because this was my first overseas trip. Beta Australia arranged a bike for me through Beta Italy so I spent a week at the Beta Factory. They set up a bike for me and I got to test with them”.
“Brad Freeman was there at the same time, so it was a really cool experience. I thought I’d just pick the bike up from them and drive to Erzberg but they ended up sending a mechanic for me and I was pitted under the same tent as Jonny Walker, sharing the same mechanic. Beta went beyond what I was expecting”.
“Driving into Erzberg is insane, you can see the mine and it shadows the whole town. We arrived on the Monday and it was pretty dead but by Thursday it was crazy. It goes from a quiet little mining town where you hardly see anyone walking around to this insane place with that many top riders around. The first day I was there I walked into the shops and Manuel Lettenbichler was there getting his groceries, which was pretty cool”.
“We bought some crappy old mountain bikes on Thursday to pedal around the prologue track. Everyone else was on E-bikes and it was 13km up the haul roads. When we got to the top it was freezing and it started raining so we hid in a tunnel to get out of the rain”.
“I didn’t get on my race bike until the prologue on Friday morning. My start number was 102 which I thought wasn’t bad considering it was my first go. Riders are seeded so if you’ve done it before it’s an advantage because the track gets so chopped-out. The first 20 or so bikes had a dry track but then it rained and became really foggy”.
“On one section I was in top gear, holding it flat-out for probably five to ten seconds but I couldn’t see anything so I had to back off. I was 56th or something which put me on the second row for the race. It’s rows of 50 for the main race so I just missed out”.
“The start of the main race is meant to be a dead-engine start, but I could hear bikes already running and they jumped the start. I got absolutely soaked in one of those puddles right off the start. It was a crap start and I was 86th or something into the first checkpoint”.
“When I got into the hard stuff I copped a few bottle-necks which was frustrating. I got a little impatient and tried taking some gnarly lines but I was better off being patient and waiting my turn, you end up making it harder for yourself if you try passing in a stupid spot. I ended up getting a bit of a flow on which was good. Some of those big ski slope-type hill sections you see on screen didn’t end up being that hard because of the moisture in the ground”.
“Carl’s Diner was super demanding but I really liked it. There was heaps of grip and it suited me and I made up some time. In my head I had worked it up to be a lot harder than it was but I am certainly not saying it was easy. We have nothing like that in Australia, the hardest bits were the muddy greasy banks with tree roots. The whole time I was just thinking how cool it was to be there actually doing it”.
“It was hard knowing how I was going because I didn’t have a watch. I knew I was running out of time and when I asked at checkpoints they’d all say something different so I just kept pushing until I timed out right before the Motorex Highway. It looked insane and I have no idea how the top boys got through, it was a vertical hill climb that does not look possible”.
“I feel I could have done better so I want to go back next year, it’s pretty addictive. I reckon if I can get a front row start and tag along with some of those front runners, I can go closer to finishing. Beta saved me a huge cost by supplying the bike and I funded the rest of it”.
SOLAR ECLIPSE
Anthony Solar was back for his second stab at Erzberg in 2024 and the Victorian-based Sherco Team rider loved every bit of the pain and suffering. The 2022 Australian Hard Enduro Champion gave it his all and soaked in every last bit of the experience.
“Sherco made the logistics pretty easy for me. They do a great job of that, providing a bike and support so it’s all about the race for me. The race doesn’t even make sense. You watch it on TV and get a false sense of security and think it doesn’t look too bad and that you’ll get up this and that but when you actually do it, it’s absolute carnage”.
“Carl’s Diner and the rock sections are way worse than they look on screen. There are huge holes everywhere and massive pileups and bottlenecks in the forest sections. There’s crazy hard sections that people can’t get up and the traffic banks up. Riders lift each other up but other riders still try to pass”.
“It’s dog eat dog, riders land on others knocking people off bikes and there’s swearing at everyone in every other language. It’s absolute carnage”.
“I go into the race with a plan to try and make as many passes as possible to try and avoid bottlenecks. A plan is not likely to work out as Erzberg is very much luck of the draw when you are starting in the second row. You end up making it up as you go along”.
“Prologue is crazy and with 1300 riders entered and plenty are just having a punt and are there to drink and party. This year’s prologue was super-fast, I’m talking sixth-gear pinned with pretty tall gearing. It was pissing rain with thick fog and I’m going 140kph to 150kph when you can’t see. It comes down to who has the biggest nuts to hold it on”.
“When enter the race you know you’re going to be in for a bit of pain but I was on the start line smiling to myself. There is nothing else like it. Every time I stopped, I looked around to appreciate it. It’s hard to explain, absolute carnage”.
“I used to think I would never do Erzberg because it’s a long way to go for four and a half hours on the bike. It’s a lot of money to spend and you’re guaranteed not to finish. After the first time my opinion completely changed. It’s just a giant party and everything about the event is super fun”.
“I recommend to anyone to do it. You don’t have to be a hard enduro rider. Just go and do it. I could nit-pick my effort this year but there’s no point. You just have to enjoy the experience.”
WADE’S WAR
Wade Ibrahim is a regular threat for the top step of the podium on Aussie soil. Ibrahim was in the thick of the action at Erzberg after starting on the fourth row, working his way up to around 50th when a simple mistake caused a broken clutch lever. No spare or tools caused all kinds of drama until he was able to swap his front brake lever to the clutch side. Imagine riding Erzberg with no front brake? The crazy bugger even made it through Carl’s Diner with a dead battery and no clutch!
RESULTS
ONLY NINE RIDERS COMPLETED THE COURSE!
Manuel Lettenbichler 2:47:23
Trystan Hart 3:07:40
Mario Roman 3:21:47
Graham Jarvis 3:23:39
Wade Young 3:39:48
Jonny Walker 3:40:28
Mitch Brightmore 3:48:32
Matthew Green 3:56:31
AUSSIE RIDER’S RESULTS
Ruben Chadwick P20 Stage 22 Burping Stones 3:51:00
Anthony Solar P26 Stage 21 Udo’s Playground 3:58:58
Adam Giles P50 Stage 14 Machine 2:39:19
Wade Ibrahim P79 Stage 12 George Avenue 3:36:47
Josh Ibrahim P85 Stage 12 George Avenue 3:45:26
Ryan Severs P189 Stage 9 Crossing 3:34:08
Chris Cash P301 Stage 6 Wacker Neuson 2:02:15
