Articles
When he’s not working as a senior project engineer at Ansible Motion, which creates driver-in-the-loop simulators for vehicle engineering, Tom Morris competes in Enduro motorcycle racing.
“Enduro comprises racing over mostly natural terrain with some man-made obstacles put in, such as concrete pipes, logs, and rock gardens,” says Morris.
This branch of motorcycling includes two-person team local championships, national events, and, this year, European Extreme Enduros. Competitions can last from four to 12 hours.
The two-person competition is fast and furious. Riders ride for half an hour at a time and try to come in exactly on time. Penalties are given for arriving early or late, but being late by a small amount may lead to an overall gain in laps.
For the solo events, riders are given time checks with special tests. These
are timed stages to classify positions in the event of a tie. As the day goes on, the lap times are reduced until the last lap. “The lap may be 45 minutes long through thick woodland. Judging the pace in the early laps is crucial so as not to use up energy for the last lap sprint,” he says.
Other formats of Enduro are much the same as Le Mans – do as many laps as you can in a set period. “If you qualify for the main event, you have a set time to finish the course,” says Morris. “This year I’m competing at the Erzberg Rodeo in Austria, in which 1,500 teams start qualifying, but only the first 500 will qualify for the main event.”
He adds: “The bike has to be well prepared.” He carries out all the work himself, including engine and gearbox rebuilds and basic suspension tuning.
“Another aspect is the biometrics,” he says. “I try to monitor what my body is doing. During a three-and-a-half-hour race through a forest, my heart rate averaged 165 beats per minute and peaked at 190.”