Incredible enduro racing in Africa | wild weather and treacherous trails

Follow tech ed Tom as he races the Kingdom Enduro in Lesotho – his first-ever enduro race

Kingdom Enduro Lesotho.

Mick Kirkman

Tom Marvin

Published: December 26, 2019 at 6:30 pm

Sometimes ideas have a habit of escalating far beyond initial thoughts. This was the case when technical editor Tom and his friend Sam from BikeVillage started chatting about heading off to somewhere warm to race an enduro in 2019.

While a Forest of Dean mini enduro would have been the obvious choice for Tom's first ever enduro race, that seemed a little unambitious. However, when ideas such as the Trans Madeira and Enduro2 didn't quite work out, a quick bit of Googling turned up the Kingdom Enduro – an EWS qualifier in the African mountain kingdom of Lesotho.

It took just minutes for Sam to reply to the idea, and a few months later, after a couple of days practicing and acclimatising to the heat, they found themselves carrying their bikes up a Lesothan mountain...

Senior technical editor

Tom Marvin is a technical editor at BikeRadar.com and MBUK magazine. He has a particular focus on mountain bikes, but spends plenty of time on gravel bikes, too. Tom has written for BikeRadar, MBUK and Cycling Plus, and was previously technical editor of What Mountain Bike magazine. He is also a regular presenter on BikeRadar’s YouTube channel and the BikeRadar podcast. With more than twenty years of mountain biking experience, and nearly a decade of testing mountain and gravel bikes, Tom has ridden and tested thousands of bikes and products, from super-light XC race bikes through to the most powerful brakes on the market. Outside of testing bikes, Tom competes in a wide range of mountain bike races, from multi-day enduros through to 24-hour races in the depths of the Scottish winter – pushing bikes, components and his legs to their limits. He’s also worked out that shaving your legs saves 8 watts, while testing aerodynamics in a wind tunnel. When not riding he can be found at the climbing wall, in his garden or cooking up culinary delights.