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I enjoy motorsports of all kinds - four wheels good, two wheels better. And while watching them on TV (okay let's be honest Youtube, who even watches TV nowadays) is fun, getting to partake in anything even remotely resembling it, even in a highly truncated, totally superficial manner, is even more exciting. Earlier this year, I did a short 2.5 day off-road riding 'tour', and it was easily the hardest, most physically demanding 2.5 days I've ever spent on a motorbike. It really gives you a deep appreciation of people who do this professionally - riders who have mastered both man and machine. Enduro riding is particularly difficult - riding long durations off-road is physically and mentally challenging, and it also requires a skillset I most certainly do not have. I have mad respect for off-road riders. But then, there's also something called Hard Enduro. This might be the most ludicrous extreme motorsport of them all. It's literally in the name: Enduro, but harder. And by the looks of it, much, much, much harder. That cover photo of the above video perhaps tells you everything you need to know. It's described thus: "hard enduro puts riders and machines on tracks that many would find difficult to simply walk". I cannot for a moment fathom how these people do it. It's extremely high levels of riding skill, physical endurance, mechanical knowledge, but the sheer bravery and guts is something I still struggle to wrap my head around. However, something else about it fascinates me. Perhaps because there's so much inherent 'failure' built into this particular form of the sport, participants seem to also make much more effort to be mutually supportive, even helping each other when the need arises. And the fact that spectators are so close by, often also involved in picking bikes (and bikers) up, seems so bizarre. I cannot help but wonder if this collective supportive spirit is born out of an innate acknowledgement of the ludicrous, almost Sisyphean nature of Hard Enduro (sometimes quite literally as they are charging up an impossibly steep hill). Anyway, Hard Enduro is absolutely mad. And absolutely captivating. ~ Desmond