If you're a UK mountain biker, chances are you've heard of the Ard Rock Enduro – the annual stage race turned festival, which attracts upwards of 1,000 riders to Yorkshire's Swaledale valley every August. It's always one of our top weekends of the year and has become so popular that entries sell out in a matter of minutes. Because of this success, organiser Joe Rafferty and his dedicated bunch of volunteers decided to add a second Ard event to the calendar three years ago – the Ard Moors Enduro. Held a little further north-east, in the North York Moors National Park, the race takes in a mixture of moorland singletrack, old-school DH trails and freshly-dug manmade descents.
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From exposed moorlands and quarries, stage one dropped into lush green woods and flowing rhythms of jumps. Photo: Mick Kirkman
We've been to all three Ard Moors, and this year's race more than made up for the disappointing wash-out of last year's event! The trail builders had worked tirelessly to repair the rain-damaged trails of 2017 and, with the sun shining this time around, there wasn't a racer out there without a smile on their face. "The best tracks I've ridden in 20 years" is how one rider described them, and we wouldn't say that was far from the truth. Check out the highlights video below to get a flavour of what went down...
After 38km, some 1,300m of climbing and descending, and five race stages, it was Gabriele Gelgotaite who took the win in the women's race and Joe Breeden, of the Intense UK Race Team, who clinched the men's win and fastest time of the day, after a tight battle with fellow World Cup DHer Jack Reading.
Jack Reading of One Vision Global Racing – close, but no cigar. Photo: Mick Kirkman
Gabriele Gelgotaite and Joe Breeden topped the podium. Photo: Mick Kirkman
Keep your eyes peeled on the Ard Rock website for updates about the 2019 race and snap up an entry when you can – they're sure to go faster than a hot Yorkshire pudding!
No shortage of stunning views here. Photo: Mick Kirkman
You can read more about the Ard Rock Enduro and the different characters that make it what it is in the October issue of MBUK, on sale 4 October.
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Former Mountain Biking UK features editor Ed Thomsett is a downhiller at heart but has been riding bikes of all types since a young age. He's raced both nationally and internationally in downhill and enduro, and has spent several summers living in the Alps and Canada, riding, roadtripping and living the dirtbag lifestyle. Now Ed calls upon his years of experience riding bikes to the limit as a writer and reviewer for MBUK and BikeRadar. He's also an avid trail builder and has scraped out numerous steep and technical lines in the woodlands of his native North Yorkshire. These days Ed will happily turn his hand to any discipline and believes the sign of a good week is when every bike in his shed ends up muddy by the end of it.
