Hard Enduro riders gear up to open Hell's Gate

The 2015 Hard Enduro season kicks off this weekend in Tuscany, Italy, with possibly the hardest race of the year in the form of the Hell’s Gate Rally. With a blistering pace set last year by Brits Graham Jarvis and Jonny Walker, they start this year’s season as the favourites.

Indeed, the pace set by Jarvis last year on the way to his fifth victory in the race was so fast that only him and Walker finished the knock-out format race. Riders who fall more than forty minutes behind the leader are automatically excluded, with only eight riders ever managing to make it to the chequered flag.

Riding day and night, the race culminates with the ferocious Hell’s Climb, where only the assistance of the hardcore Italian fans allow riders to make it to the top.