Back in May, the team headed to the Earlstoke 12hour in Wiltshire for an early season team endurance race. A new event to the TORQ team’s calendar and now in its 5th year, the Charge Bikes supported race is an event renowned for its great course.
With the Scott Marathon on the Sunday and many of our TORQ Performance MTB Team Riders in attendance there, we entered a mixed team of 4 riders into the 12hour event with Jon Pybus, Alex Welburn, Ed McParland and Carla Haines. Unfortunately for the team, the forecast on the weekend wasn’t great with the course turning extremely muddy and it raining for extended periods during the race.
The team, consummate professionals as ever, cracked on regardless. Elite female rider Carla Haines gave us this report of the race:
“Alex started us off and got a good lead. As the the weather was pretty poor, we decided to do 2laps at a time so there wasn’t so much kit changing and giving us time to clean our bikes down. I went off last and was really buzzing for it. The course was brilliant, although the mud made it so challenging but none the less, it was great fun to ride. We had a very good day and we won, so smiles all round!”
As Carla mentioned, at the end of the 12hours, the team came away an impressive 1st place. A great performance by all the riders and a great start to the team events season with Bontrager 24/12 and TORQ In Your Sleep major focuses for the team in the near future.
A huge thank you to Duncan Snow for the images in this report: www.mbkphotos.co.uk
As always, a big thank you to all the team sponsors. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do:
Whyte Bikes – Frames
Schwalbe – Tyres
Exposure Lights – Advanced Lighting
Easton – Wheels and Finishing Kits
SR Suntour – Suspension Forks
Altura – Team Clothing
Limar – Helmets
Lake – Shoes
Magura – Braking
Jagwire – Cables & Housing
Lezyne – Pumps, Tools & Bottle Cages
Fenwicks Bike – Cleaning and Lubrication
Shimano – Drivetrain
Max Media – Team PR
Tifosi – Optics
Raceware – Custom Mounts
Camelbak – Race Bottles
Kapz Guru – Custom Top Caps
Odd Designs – Bike Racks
Joolze Dymond – Photography
