Riders up for yet another cycling challenge

This event is not a standard stage race, but a test of various disciplines within mountain biking, offered throughout the four day event. Another unique offering of the event is that corporate teams partner with a South African leading professional cyclist who rides with their team and share their passion for mountain biking. Professional cyclists socialise with corporate teams and riding together provides an opportunity for skills transfer throughout the duration of the event.

The York Enduro Mountain Bike Rally includes: Half Marathon, Downhill race, 8-stage Enduro race, Figure of 8 race, Dual Eliminator and Cross Country race. The race format of the York Enduro Mountain Bike Rally not only tests a rider’s skills on each discipline, it also allows for corporate teams to select their team members strategically as the teams must use each individual team member’s strengths to the best of the team’s advantage.

Each of the race formats is meticulously planned to test the riders’ skills rather than fitness. The different race formats also provide a distinctive challenging edge that defines the York Enduro Mountain Bike Rally. It takes an estimated 8500 manpower hours for the York team to scout, hand-build, maintain and mark the routes to provide an elevation gain of 3450m, close to 32km of sublime single track scenery and perfectly shaped berms with the spectacular views of the Sabie Valley as the backdrop. On the opening day of the event, the public will be able to join the professional riders and corporate teams to ride the 35km York Adventure Challenge race on one of York’s best mountain bike trails. It is no wonder that the event was rated in 2014 as one of the top 10 mountain bike events by Bicycling Magazine.

Each year, corporate teams are invited to participate in the York Enduro Mountain Bike Rally and this year, due to popular demand, the number of corporate teams were increased to extend the invitation to 25 corporate teams. Each corporate team consists of four members and this year’s entrants include: Sasol 1, Sasol 2, Metier, IDC, Cashbuild, Timrite, Hewsaw, MottMacDonald, Nukor, Rand Merchant Bank, Risk Benefit Solutions, Aon, PPE Technologies, ChemSystems, Alzu, TFDesign 1, TFDesign 2, ABSA, Alexander Forbes, Vodacom, KPMG and Team York. A portion of the corporate teams’ entry fees go towards community projects in Sabie and R130 000 was raised at last year’s event towards local projects.

York is elated to announce that champion rider, Christoph Sauser will be joining other well-known professional riders this year. Christoph is a former UCI Marathon World Champion, a former World Cup overall winner, four times World Champion and Olympic medalist. This will be the first time that Christoph will be visiting Sabie and riding the York trails. Professional riders who will join Christoph include: Amy Beth McDougall, Anriette Schoeman, Arno du Toit, Ben Swanepoel, Candice Neethling, Daleen van der Leek, Darren Lill, Dylan Rebello, Erik Kleinhans, Gawie Combrinck, Gert Heyns, Johann Rabie, Stuart Marais, Lourens Luus, Matthew Beers, Oliver Munnik, Sam Sanders, Theresa Ralph, Tim Wilkens, Waylon Woolcock, Yolande de Villiers, Yolandi du Toit, Owen Hannie, Nic White and Andrea Marcellini Mendonca.

York has invested further in the event by purchasing the internationally renowned timing system, Mobii. The system provides a complete solution by combining: registration, accurate timing, live results, multimedia and content delivery all into one. The added feature of photo finish will enable us to capture the excitement and sense of accomplishment (or exhaustion) on the faces of the riders as they cross over each finishing line.

Once the dust settles after the end of the York Enduro Mountain Bike Rally, the facilities created for the event become a training ground for professional athletes and other amateur adrenaline-seekers to enhance and test their skills.

By investing in this unique mountain bike event, York provides a platform for a comprehensive “York experience” open to its customers, suppliers, employees and community. In addition to the fund raising mentioned above, participants of last year’s York Enduro Mountain Bike Rally were asked to donate used sports equipment and clothing, all of which were distributed to the community. It is through this event that York Timbers can promote its brand equity internally and externally while building a reputation as a responsible corporate citizen that supports the community in becoming vibrant and developing sustainably.