Off-road Show to be addicted to

It´s under the slogan “Tough enough?” that the German Motorcycle and ATV Off-road community will meet this year on Pentecost weekend (May 29-31) near Neiden / Torgau, Germany, on the “Endurance-Day.” It starts with a 12-hour race for quads, followed then by the motocycles undertaking a 24-hour non-stop race.

24 hours can feel really long. Especially when they are suffered on the saddle of a high off-road bike for ten-kilometer-rounds. As the driver quickly becomes a “blisters generator”, the seat happens to be rough and the whole vehicle turns into a torture device. Makes some fun? Yes, but only the first hour. Then the inner lion starts to roar hard, and the darker it turns, the louder it sounds. Finally, worst is the pain of the last five hours of this ever-lasting day.

Those willing to harm themselves (so) need to have specific genes. It is typically characteristic of any extreme sports. We mostly think of the Ironman Triathlon, Alpine or desert marathons. There´s also a similar challenge, called the Endurance Day – which occur on off-road motorcycles or quads.

In 2004 was created in Germany this 24-hour tour of sufferance, with the name of 24-Hour Endurance-Day, a non-stop off-road races on a ten-kilometer circuit. The off-road promoter BABOONS raised this event to life and has brought him a cult status in the off-road scene. It is not the off-road world champion which is there, searching for titles or prize money, but primarily the next-door neighbour Michel Muller, who is there with his buddy Max to face the challenge. In addition, an increasing number of factory teams participate in the “Prestige Class” of this extreme event, to show the durability of their bikes. Overall, the weekend will gather about 1000 drivers on the track, most of them in four-man team. Some bikers even make up the challenge in the class “Iron Man Bike” alone.

The tracks left behind such a use are deep and make drivers addicted. As said by one of the participants at the end of the Endurance-Day 2008: ´Never again!´. Not more than a week later, he was already searching for teammates to sign in for 2009, and was among the first to subscribe on the Internet. The slots were completely off in just two weeks …

All information related to the Endurance-Day (only in german language) is now available on www.endurance-day.de