Photos Kane Naaraat.

Unlike other Australian states, South Australia’s initial strict social distancing policies have dealt Covid-19 a solid blow and the now have the infectious virus well under control. The upside for mountain bikers of managing the spread is the fact this weekend they were finally allowed to race! Kona riders Connor Fearon and Shelly Flood were not going to miss the chance to race their buddies and the clock, good thing to, because they both won the two pro categories on their Process 153’s. Read Connor’s report below.
We’re finally back racing for 2020! On the weekend we South Australians were fortunate enough to race the first Gravity Enduro for 2020 at Eagle MTB Park. Eagle was one of the first mountain bike dedicated parks in Australia and has held numerous National DH, XC and Enduro events and championships over the years. The park has pretty epic views and is only a stone’s throw away from the Adelaide CBD which makes it one of the most popular venues for us to race on.

It was a single day, five-stage format, stages ranged from some punchy one minute thirty runs to the most physical top to bottom stage at four and a half minutes. We were able to race the stages in any order we wanted and I opted to get the hardest one out the way first. This is one of those stages where there’s more pedaling than descending and you keep thinking to yourself “surely other people aren’t going this slow?!” Anyway, with that one out the way, I felt really good on all the other stages with no crashes or mechanicals. It just felt really good to be back doing what I love. Once the results were in, I came out on top with almost a clean sweep of stages which I was stoked with because we have a pretty stacked field of riders in Adelaide.