26th February - Thetford Winter Series Round 4 Enduro 4 hour vets event

The object was to complete as many full laps as possible in 4 hours and then finish the lap you're on when the 4 hour time limit expired.  Clive finished 17th out of 49 starters in his category although there were a total of 500 participants across the full range of categories which included Fun male & female, 2 hour and 4 hour for both men and women which were further broken down into juniors, seniors and vets (over 40).
 He completed 9 x 5.5mile laps in 4 hours 26 minutes but this was 2 laps behind the winner who managed 11 laps in 4 hours 23 minutes.  This may seem like a bad result, but you have to remember that his category contained anyone from his level (enthusiast) to elite semi-pros. The conditions were dry and fast, and the mix of fire road sprint/recovery sections (take your pick), moderately technical (but brilliant fun) twisty singletrack through the trees, short steep awkward rooty climbs as well as "bomb" holes (old flint workings which are basically 10' deep holes you drop into and pedal like mad up the other side) made it a testing race especially as he was on a fully rigid single speed mountain bike. As usual the racing was well organised with trade stands, chip timing system, race commentary, marshals, burger vans and generally a bit of a carnival atmosphere.  The racing was also very relaxed with good cameraderie between racers (if you crash any racer going by, even the semi pros. will ask if you're ok and either stop to assist or send a marshall back to you from the next marshal point) and a lot of riders just out for a bit of fun (especially in the fun category).