Road Riding Champ Wins Baw Baw Four-Hour Twilight Mountain Bike Enduro

News Release / 01.02.2013

It was a fast lapping bunch of endurance mountain bikers who gathered atop Victoria’s Mount Baw Baw on Australia Day weekend for the inaugural Baw Baw 4-Hour Twilight Enduro event, which also doubled as the opening round of the Gippsland Mountain Bike Club’s Championship Series.

Riders swarmed the hill to tackle an 8km circuit through the snowgum wilderness, with at least three all-new singletrack sections adding to the thrill. Tracing what had been ‘old timer’ walking tracks revived from wild overgrowth, the trails had been only marginally bedded-in with riders competing in the previous day’s Seasons of Pain off road duathlon getting first crack at the freshly groomed dirt.

Favourite on the entry list was Wonthaggi resident and Team Jayco-AIS rider, Nick Aitken, touted as a world championships rider of the future. An Australian representative in road cycling who came 2nd in last year’s U23 Road Race Oceania Road Championships, Aitken has also shown plenty of chops on singletrack. He would have be an unbackable bet for the event apart from the last minute entry of notable multisport and adventure race athlete, Jarad Kohlar, from Newport, Melbourne. Although not in Aitken’s class in terms of pure cycling strength, Kohlar’s technical skill on what is a rough and technical course with plenty of uphill meant he was in with a show of matching the road specialist.

But from the first blast of the starter’s horn in front of the Mount Baw Baw stone gates, it was Aitken’s race, heading straight to the front to become the only rider to lap the course in under 30 minutes, his first two circuits the fastest in 28:44 and a 29:44. He then settled into a 30-minute loop pace, slowing his last, eighth lap to a 35.38. In the process he rode the most laps, established the course record and won the day’s outing overall, riding for 4 hours 12 minutes at an average 14.25km/hr.

For his part, Kohlar showed he had plenty in the legs, lungs and heart given he’d come off winning the previous day’s Seasons of Pain, a two and a half hour (for him) duathlon event incorporating two laps of the Enduro course in addition to 20 kilometres of trail running. Kohlar’s fastest lap during the Enduro was a 31:44, which sat amid an average lap time of 32 minutes. His seven laps were enough to easily secure second place on the podium.