I had another excellent enduro session with Vetomies. This trip was a little longer than the previous, with four days in Saarenmaa, Estonia. We left on Thursday, and took the ferry over to Tallinn. The guys had a huge trailer for the eleven bikes and a bus for the riders and crew. We made great time and managed to get some runs in just before daylight faded. The setting was incredible; and old Red Army vehicle depot in the middle of a forest. Overgrown and deserted. There was an MX track and a sweet enduro track. Lighting was as perfect as the riding and the mood was high. Everyone crashed early after a beer or two.
Friday opened up with a drizzle and we made our way to an enduro track in a pine forest setting. The terrain was mostly turf, with a sandy track. This was really hard for me as I’d never ridden anything like it before. The instructions were to open up quick and get back weighted on the pegs. I followed the instructions and it worked like a charm. At least on the straights, despite it having large humps and bumps. The turns were trickier, and I ended up crashing twice. I did try to take it pretty easy as I had a fractured rib from two weeks earlier. The rib gave me very little trouble during the rides but reminded me of its existence while cooling down. After riding the enduro track, we took a 15km ride to another spot. This was a bit of bitch as my goggles were spent and I had to ride open faced. At above 80 kmh the front wheel was slinging sand and mud in my face and the falling water droplets weren’t exactly gentle either. Well we made it and were well rewarded by a smooth and flowing enduro track snaking through a pine forest. It had a couple of ascents and descents with a muddy swamp. Mostly on hard pack though. Proper enduro, I loved it! After getting rid of any remaining energy we headed back to camp, and loaded the bikes back to the trailer. Another low tempo night over a steak and some beers in town and I was out.
Saturday looked like Friday to begin with but turned out to be a beautiful day. We first rode in some loose sand dunes called “Little Dubai”. I was doing my best to keep the throttle open and my weight back, but still managed to eat dirt twice. Good fun though and there was more in store. Next we did a short ride to an extremely smooth and flowing section of single track. This was exactly what I had hoped for. Just like a mellow DH track, but on a KTM EXC 250. Just awesome. Once we were done with that, we rode another 40 km to another MX track and wrung out the last drops of energy from the riders. That was that and the riding was done. We killed Saturday night with all the normal festivities.
On Sunday we made our way back to Finland and I was happy to get off the bus in Helsinki, while the rest of the guys still had hours to go. This was a truly awesome trip, and I would recommend anyone to get on board if you’re lucky enough to get an invite. Especially for a beginner like me it was a steep learning curve with experienced riders willing to share their wealth of knowledge. I shall name no names, but a huge thanks to everyone!