Five (even six for e-mtb) special stages in two locations over two days, great conditions and atmosphere among almost 200 participants and a series of tight decisions.
This was the sixth Enduro Golovec trails organised by Golovec trails, a community that maintains a network of mountain bike trails practically in the middle of Ljubljana. This time, another Ljubljana association, the Rajd, joined in. The Enduro Golovec trails 2023 started on Saturday with two speed events on the other side of Ljubljana, in the Ljubljana Bike Park in Podutik, and on Sunday there were three more stages (plus one for e-bike category) on the Golovec trails. Rajd has prepared two completely new tracks, and Golovec has also prepared some new combinations and connections of existing courses.
All of this took place under the umbrella of the Ljubljana MTB Weekend festival. Both venues were full of other events and many mountain biking enthusiasts cheered on the nearly 200 enduro participants from eight countries.
The Golovec trails Enduro does not earn points for the SloEnduro series, but has the status of a promotional event with adapted categories and rules. As a result, many of the series’ top riders, including entire clubs, were missing from the race. But as a testament to the wide scene of mountain bikers who like to have fun on a bit more challenging trails and also find the limits of their abilities and compete with old and new friends, they were replaced by others who rarely put on a number plate or even had one on the handlebars for the first time.
Fastest
On the long course, the women’s top finishers were the young members of the Rajd Ljubljana team – Eva Terpin and Hana Kranjec Žagar, who otherwise compete in cross-country, and Kaja Berginc – all from the under 30 category. Eva was 16th fastest in the overall long course ranking (excluding the e-mtb category)! Kaja was just 21 hundredths of a second faster than the winner of the over 30 category, Teja Cerar (Golovec trails).
In the men’s category, Austria’s Simeon Sachse (Altis the Bike Team) led the way by winning both stages on Saturday in Podutik and stayed on top until the end, even though he didn’t win any stages on Sunday. The ninth from two of this year’s SloEnduro races, the Perkmandeljec and Gorjanci, and 18th in the rankings, with a total time of 9 minutes, 3 seconds and 81 hundredths of a second, Sachse took the win with a 2.82 second advantage over SloEnduro number 4 Nejc Huth (Energijateam.com), who won Sunday’s first stage. Third place with 4.12 behind went to Jernej Kavčič (MBK Črni Vrh), winner of 2023 SloEnduro Krokar. The Croatian cross-country champion Fran Bošnjak (BBK Šišmiš) followed in 4th place and Valentin Šmon in 5th.
Valentin Šmon and Hana Kranjec Žagar won the penultimate stage and thus the Spar Online SuperStage prizes.
In the long course categories
The winners in the men’s age categories were Tine Gračner (Golovec trails) in the largest 15-18 years old category and Simeon Sachse in the fastest 19-29 years old category, Nejc Huth in the 30-34 category, Mitja Potočin (KD Hrastnik) in the 35-39 category, Austrian Walter Zeidler (Do-Biker Bruck) in the 40-44 category, Grega Nagode (Energijateam. com) in the 45-49 category, Roman Vukina (Črnuče trails) in the 50-59 category and Martin Brus (Kamplc Racing Team) in the 60 years and older category.
Rok Perko and Marcin Motyka (Dartmoor Enduro Team) of Poland had a memorable race on e-bikes among the 19 participants. Motyka won both Saturday’s stages, while Perko overtook him with victories in the last two classic stages on Sunday and in the additional two-minute powerstage loop. In the end, the difference between them was 48 hundredths of a second!
On the short course
The youngest riders left out the last stage on Sunday. In the boys’ U15 category, Izak Bizjak won and in the girls’ category, Zala Krečič (both Kamplc Racing Team) won. In the youngest category, U13, Nikolaj Vukojević from the home club Golovec Trails won in the boys’ category and Eva Podvornik (MTB club Kranj Scott Team) won in the girls’ category.
All the results
Back to the real thing in two weeks’ time
The 2023 SloEnduro series finale will take place on 1 October in Istria, Croatia: the SloEnduro Grozni in Grožnjan. Propositions and registration any moment.
Photos by Anže Petkovšek
