Hard Enduro Calendar 2018—Red Bull Romaniacs Hard Enduro Rallye

With his win over Graham Jarvis at last year’s Tennessee Knockout, plus his podiums at Erzberg and Hell’s Gate Hard Enduros in 2017, Cody Webb has established himself as one of the premier extreme off-road racers in the world. Webb is at his best when the terrain is the toughest and he seems to have a knack for putting himself in uncomfortable situations. One can only imagine if the KTM factory rider were a travel agent:

“Hello, you need a vacation? How about four straight days of dragging your bike up a goat trail?” Or, “Want to dine with the stars at Carl’s Diner?” Maybe, “How ’bout three days in Istanbul on a voyage that takes you from sea level to the uppermost reaches of Mount Olympus, finished off with a romp through 100 meters of rocks?”

Probably doesn’t sound that appealing.

With Hard Enduros and extreme off-road racing becoming more and more popular, we had Webb, Graham Jarvis, David Knight, and Mario Roman give us a guided tour of the top Hard Enduro tourist attractions in the world.

July 24–28, 2018
Sibiu, Romania
(Mario Roman's favorite Hard Enduro)

Graham Jarvis:
The Hard Enduros are all different. For me, now that I'm getting older, I think the multiple-day ones are harder because of the recovery time and the younger riders can just hammer it every day. Romaniacs is four days, whereas Erzberg is a real short race, two and a half hours for the top guys. But it's just cool that every race is different. The strategies are different. The tracks are changing all the time. It keeps it interesting.

Romaniacs is just long days, five or six hours, for four days and you use GPS to navigate, which adds to the difficulty. You’re still pushing as hard as you can, but the strategy is knowing when to push hard and when to play it safe. This past year [2017] especially was just about survival, really. Getting the bike through and getting through uninjured.

The obstacles can be as crazy as the ones at Erzberg, but not normally. You’ll have maybe five or six crazy bits a day where you’re pushing up the mountain.

David Knight:
The hard part about Romaniacs for me is getting up at three in the morning. Plus, I wasn't getting to bed until 11 p.m. so you're getting three or four hours of sleep each night because you're up prepping your gear and your goggles and going over the day with the team. It was tough in that respect and I didn't really enjoy it. I enjoyed the riding, apart from the two or three silly things that were dangerous—you could kill yourself, easily. Apart from that, the race is brilliant. It had everything: It was fast; it was slow; it was hard. And that's what a race should be. And that's the good thing—all the races are different.