When riders are using words like “scared”, something is wrong. The crisis? Hard Enduro is getting so hard riders have finally said enough and staged a protest at the Hixpania Hard Enduro in Spain, round four of the 2025 FIM Hard Enduro World Championship.

In case you missed it, the Hixpania Hard Enduro produced a chaotic and confusing result after the runaway leaders, Billy Bolt and Mani Lettenbichler, followed by most the rest of the top 10, stopped after two hours racing, just short of a very technical conclusion to the race in a quarry and in front of a large crowd.

They collectively rode most, but not all, the course to the cliff-top finish where Bolt took the Hixpania winner’s sword.

But behind them an old fella by the name of Jarvis arrived, completed the marked course like a robot, ticking off all the check points in the process and won the race. Good on Graham for proving the course was possible you could say, but that is missing the point the new self-appointed Riders Association were making and a wider issue in Hard Enduro.

What’s the issue here?

The issue is the races are getting too hard, at times dangerous, are too focused on producing a spectacle for video and social media and have ceased to be an enduro motorcycle race.

Led by Mani Lettenbichler and Billy Bolt, the top riders stopped short of an X-Loop section at Hixpania because they’ve had enough of this and, after two hours racing, felt victory didn’t need to be decided by 15 minutes of pushing up and crabbing down a steep sided quarry, risking injury in the name of entertainment.

It was harsh on the Hixpania organisers and rubbish for the fans who wanted to see a race conclusion.

The event organisers were pretty clear and issued a measured response, citing the riders didn’t communicate enough, nor early enough about a specific section of the track. You can understand they were upset, they work hard and plan for months only for it to fall apart in a moment.

The riders for their part say they were not allowed to walk a section of that track until just before the start at this event and clearly chose this race to make their broader point to all race organisers. All expressed they felt bad for the Hixpania organisation but that something needed to be done.

There were no winners here except a beaming 50-year-old man on top of yet another podium in his distinguished career.

Where is the limit?

Firstly, would these Red Bull sponsored riders have done the same in Red Bull event like Erzberg or Romaniacs? Events where they also cannot walk the course but which you can argue set the precedent on an annual basis for how hard Hard Enduro has become? Aren’t the other races just following suit and, in the case of Hixpania, getting punished for a problem they didn’t create?

In recent years both of those events have included notoriously difficult sections of track which often prove impossible for all but the first few riders, at Erzberg for example, or have been so severe in their steep ascents and descents that riders say they are “scared”. Would those leading riders pull out or stage a protest and stop mid-race next year at Erzberg if the Grune Holle proves too much?

Hixpania wasn’t broke, and didn’t need fixing

Secondly, events like Hixpania established themselves based on a reputation for a good organisation and a solid venue which has produced great racing over the years.

That begs the question; if you have a tried and tested event which produces great racing then why change it?

The organisers would say to add jeopardy and give the spectators and the people trying to watch the live feed a better spectacle. They would say it’s what has led to events like Erzberg and Romaniacs ramping up the severity over 15 or 20 years to meet the ever-improving riding skill level head on.

But they also do it because of likes, and clicks, driven by the Red Bull machine and that has had a knock-on to all events around the world.

Can you imagine that happening in another sport? Imagine in MotoGP next weekend after Marc Marquez does 25 laps, steadily pulls a gap and then on lap 26 he has to go across the infield, over a see-saw, across a wooden bridge and take the flag having pushed his bike up to the podium steps?   

Racing doesn’t need to be that hard

The point being made strongly by Mani and Billy and the rest is that, apart from not wanting the huge risk they are often faced with, people want to see motorcycle racing. May the best man or woman win and all that.

They say if this sport is to grow the wider public watching on don’t want to riders pushing bikes inch by inch up a climb. As Mani points out, “it looks shit”.

The riders have had enough of being made into lemmings on a cliff or quarry face, and enough of having hours of hard work undone by a few metres of X-Factor entertainment.

The fact is the best riders still seem to win when the racing is not so dangerously difficult. Races where the course and the physical effort is the challenge across two or three hours still seem, miraculously, to have the same riders on the podium.

Like Lagares, The Tough One, Hell’s Gate, TKO, or indeed just like Hixpania in previous years.

Time to step up FIM

One solution would be for the FIM to get more involved and stop dithering on the sidelines. In EnduroGP and SuperEnduro world championships there is an FIM Race Director and an FIM Track Inspector. Two defined roles important in representing the FIM, the riders, and in supporting a race organiser and championship. Hixpania proved that is one thing missing in the Hard Enduro World Championship.

Pedro Mariano is the FIM Race Director at the EnduroGP and SuperEnduro and he is like a headmaster at each race. He’s the person in charge and though he doesn’t crack a smile too often, he is straight with the rules and often decisive where an issue arises with the weather, the track or between riders and teams following a racing incident.

He also keeps the show on the road when it could have falled apart and often makes a call from a sporting perspective. He is there and present before and after the event for riders, race organisers and team mangers to talk to.

HEWC needs that one person to make a decision like a referee, it needs a race director.

Get a proper track inspector

The HEWC also needs an official track inspector, appointed by the FIM, with a clear objective and agenda. That role is kind of fullfilled in the HEWC but is it really? If so, where were they at Hixpania on Friday, Saturday and Sunday when the riders were making these complaints (not to mention at previous races)?

Maurizio Micheluz is the FIM Track Inspector for the EnduroGP World Championship. A high-level rider with a defined role and authority checking the course, days and sometimes months in advance. During the weekend he works with the Race Director taking decisions about the track in advance of the flag drop.

Micheluz and Mariano fulfil a role which never has effectively been in place with the Hard Enduro World Championship. A question you never hear at EnduroGP is: who’s in charge here?

It’s hard to imagine the situation at Hixpania would have happened if the HEWC had a headmaster. The riders have made their feelings clear and though it pains us to say it to an extent, the FIM to take a stronger role for the good of the championship.

Photo Credit: Future7Media | Nicki Martinez + Andrea Belluschi