Far out, I have been waiting an excessively and disgustingly long time to be able to send this post out… As they say, good things take time, so in this case, March should be pretty crazy awesome then. Welcome to Dirty Mega March gang, or as we shall call it: DM2

In terms of a mission briefing, I have to be honest and say that I don’t even really know where to start or how to go about shaping this one? Its probably one of the biggest and most excessive DN Missions that I can recall being conceived… Its a Dirty CFO’s nightmare.

The only thing I can really think to do with it is break it down like a shotgun, into PHASES… yuck, ugly flashback to some foul work meeting, but lets roll with it here to help us digest the overweight break dancing elephant that is March. First, some numbers to deal with on what lies ahead:

  • 23 days
  • 6 ENDURO races
  • 5 flights
  • 5 bludged accommodation arrangements
  • 3 Mountain Bike Festivals
  • 1 absolute budget blow out
  • 1 ENDURO World Series Round

Say “What the Fuuuuuuuck?!“… Yeah, monster shit right. To be fair I should be doing 3 mission briefings, but lets ram it all into one here shall we? Without further faffery, here we go!

Phase 1 – Bike Buller MTB Festival

Why is this so exciting? More reasons than you can shake an adopted dog at to be honest, but lets just focus on the fact its a new place to visit, has an EPIC trail (actually certified as epic) and will see my second start in an actual ENDRUO race. Sort of thought it was a good plan to start getting a few of these under the belt before turning up at something with the words ‘World Series’ in it. Having never been to Mt Buller, which is outside of Melbourne, Strayla of course, I’m pretty pumped as to what may be waiting for us:

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Guess its kind of epic

And that’s before I saw this video from Spoke Mag, who went there earlier this year and ripped it up. Set your frothing to HIGH

Through absolutely no coincidence I shall be there for the Bike Buller MTB Festival and as such, ramming in three races across Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Even more exciting than that, Melbourne’s favourite son, Snozza, shall be making his debut on a DN Mission. Word has it that he hasn’t been able to sleep for 3 months as a result of the excitement this has generated. Probably also why he’s done the most amount of training this year since he was a PRO.

Hitting Buller will be an awesome way to kick off a crazy month, racing new trails blind a nice taster for TP as well as a (refusing to say ‘crash course’) sharp refresher on MTB racing. Indeed, I’m going to need it, as its just the beginning…

Phase 2 – Queenstown Mountain Bike Festival

One good MTB Festival deserves another, so I shall be jetting from the heights of Buller, straight into the palatial goodness of qTown! Kind of like being in NZ, but a massive flashed up version… Pimp my country not a bad parallel to draw. Yeah, I know… Been there and done that x 2 right? Well, sort of… This time is a little different. Lets also not overlook the fact that NZ is having a banging summer and I was sick to fucking death of seeing every mofo down there posting its awesomeness on Instagram. Colour me FOMO, its therefore YOLO time (yeah, I had to google what that meant).

Yes, this time there is not only the Queenstown bike festival to indulge in, but also the next two races on the mental March journey of full ENDUROfication. First up its the 6 hour ENDURO in the skyline park, followed a week later by the final BIG event before EWS: The Coronet Peak ENDURO race.

I figured I needed some more racing when I saw that Mr ENDURO was warming up by winning some Aussie National DH races on his ENDURO bike, #legend #shouldntbeabletodothat and any other ‘fuck that’s awesome’ type hashtag you can think up, I mean, seriously, who does this?

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Adding more legend to the legend status

However, to avoid a complete re-run of previous trips, I shall be heading to Wanaka to check out what’s up there for something new. However, to be fair, with pics like this coming out from the bike park it will be impossible to stay away from getting in there with the Nomad for a rip…

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The Berminator

So yes, while I may have picked the most expensive spot in NZ for a ‘training camp’, it does provide an absolute feast of options for REAL riding, an essential criteria given what comes next… Deep breath, here… we… fucking… GO!

Phase 3 – Crankworx Rotorua and the EWS

And finally… In the third week of this Godzilla sized trip, we arrive at the monolithic cherry atop the ENDURO mountain we have to climb. Yup, its EWS time!

First of all though, its a quick stop in to check out and shred the 440 MTB Park south of Auckland. I have been lamenting missing out all through summer on its rad looking action and multiple ENDURO races, so intend to scope it out enroute to the mac fucking daddy of locations and our final stop for mad-as-fuck March: Rotorua.

Its standard practice to get overly excited about riding in Rots on a normal week. But hold up, this ain’t no normal MF week… Even if it was just simply Crankworx by itself, the Grand Master of MTB Festivals just quietly, but it also happens to be when I get the chance to dive head first into the extremely deep end of the ENDURO swimming pool with a concrete life jacket on:

ENDURO WORLD SERIES ROUND 1

Oddly, this wasn’t even really on the radar, with Trans Provence being the big aim for the year, but its managed to pop out of a bowl of rice to pretty much dominate March, and rightly so!

I also asked McGazza to get some new jumps lined up for me to send it off look at as well, because lets face it, its not just about the riding, hell no – There will be a veritable feast of World Class events to perv on and you know what this means, uh huh: PRO’s to stalk!

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“Yeah, its heaps big bro”

So, with the EWS presenting me the biggest race & challenge I have probably ever done, in any cycling discipline and anywhere, I have had to get both Nomad’s ready to rock and roll it. Whilst one is still a question mark and needs a few more weeks of prep and proper riding, the other one is absolutely ready to get BB deep into some serious radness:

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I checked: Not possible to be more ENDURO than this

WHAT ARE THOSE?! Hey Mr “Fuck man, I don’t need Enve wheels“, are you smearing HP Sauce all over those words and chowing down? Pass me some cream for my humble pie and put a bullet in my pathetic attempts to ‘keep shit real man‘. Yes, a deal was waved under my nose by the Wolf’s Wonder Wheel emporium and faster than I could get my dirty boxers off I was into the Enve M70 wheels with Chris King hubs. But I don’t only have an epic wheelset to head into ENDURO battle with, on the back there is some brands 42-10 cassette to make sure I can survive some big days we can see popping up on the radar.

Most MTB trips previously have been a week or 10 days max, so with DM2 being also double that at least, its going to be a full on month. And oh yes, its full ENDURO…

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Word Dok, word

Hectic? Crazy? Biting off more than I can chew? Most likely… Taking no learning’s from previous missions, I have factored in about 2 rest days across the entire trip, so that should work well for me. With more action going down than a Spearmint Rhino private booth, I had better get back to packing as many Tactical Turtlenecks as my luggage allowance won’t allow for…

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We only need 2… so better pack 8

It all kicks off today, direct into Melbourne and off to Buller to begin the biggest March that a calendar has ever given birth to! Stay tuned for hopefully daily updates! Gulp.

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