Britain's Billy Bolt topped the best hard enduro racers in the world at this weekend's Extreme XL Lagares in Portugal—the opening round of the inaugural World Enduro Super Series. Pushing Bolt to the finish, Jonny Walker finished second followed by Germany's Manuel Lettenbichler.
“Winning Extreme XL Lagares is a fantastic way to start the World Enduro Super Series,” Bolt said. “With this being my first time competing in the race, I honestly wasn’t sure how it would go. It’s such a demanding and technical event that it requires a lot of past experience to fight for the victory. So to end it on the top step of the podium is even a little more than I expected. Friday and Saturday’s racing were really good, to be fair. It was nice to win the endurocross following such a close battle. The Porto Prologue was crazy. I’d never ridden anything like it before and even though I watched all the videos, they just didn’t do the scale of the course any justice. Skimming past spectators while flat out up cobbled streets was an unbelievable feeling.
“For Sunday’s race I knew I was in a good position starting third,” Bolt continued. “With Jonny Walker and Cody Webb up ahead it gave me something to chase. I settled in well and surprised myself by catching and passing Cody early on. Jonny was riding great on lap one and I couldn’t close the gap, but once we started lap two and caught the back markers I was able to gain ground and by three-quarters distance I was in the lead. I knew the overall result was based on corrected time so I kept charging to the finish line. With Extreme XL Lagares forming round 1 of WESS it’s great to be leading the championship at this early stage.”