Results from the 2025 Hixpania Hard Enduro World Championship round in Spain where controversy reigned as Billy Bolt and Mani Lettenbichler lead a protest on final hill, handing Graham Jarvis the official win.

Hixpania Hard Enduro 2025 disected:

Take a deep breath…here goes: Billy Bolt won a very close round four of the Hard Enduro World Championship in Spain, backing up his recent form with the victory ahead of Mani Lettenbichler after another close fight.

Rain overnight and in the early lap quickly dried and led to a fast race with Bolt and Lettenbichler having another race-long duel, making multiple lead changes across the two hours. So Bolt from Lettenbichler with Mario Roman nestling into third as the race progressed.

“It looks shit if we just push the bikes around”

The X-Loop section is a tough final set of climbs and drops in a quarry for the fans and live TV. Extended this year to make it more spicey by the organisers, it was deemed too much by the riders, who made their feelings clear in a rider meeting with the organisers, Hard Enduro World Championship promoters and the FIM.

When no-one listened to calls to make it less of a trials section – reasoned arguments included “it looks shit if we just push the bikes around” – the riders collectively took the decision to call a halt to the race before the start of the X-Loop, which Billy reached first and around 20 seconds ahead of Mani with Roman third, around 15 minutes adrift.

Once the top riders reached the X-Loop start, they rode the final Hixpania hill section together simply for the fans but not racing.

Then along comes the old dog Graham Jarvis, plus Sonny Goggia who’d both arrived from further down the running order. Both complete the full, marked course to be declared the “official” winner and second placed finisher with Bolt third, despite him actually being more than an hour ahead.

Check the official results below and then draw your own conclusions with the knowledge that this is an FIM World Championship race...

Say what? Here’s how the riders saw it 

Graham Jarvis: “Nobody spoke to me about this before so when they told me [at the bottom of the quarry], ‘if you ride this final hill you’re the winner’, I just rode the course and got on with it. I don’t care, I won [laughs]”.

To add to the confusion we think Graham and Goggia are not actually official Hard Enduro World Championship registered riders, so the world championship points awarded today will actually stand from Billy downwards. We think...

Billy Bolt: “The race was pretty good. In the end drier than we expected and that made it a bit easier and that just made it really tight between me and Mani. The biggest gap the whole race was probably 20 seconds and it was difficult to overtake but very easy to make a mistake and get passed. So maybe we did as many as 15 overtakes in the race.

“I was really happy with the result and the way I rode, my bike and my physical condition. It’s just nice to have some momentum and build week after week and race after race to get my level up.

“We decided at the start that we didn’t want to make the X-Loop. We only had a few hours to walk the course on Friday, when we got to the hill this morning there was an extra uphill which nobody had walked and it was also quite dangerous.

“For sure the track they marked was possible to ride, in the end we rode it together. But we asked them to make some changes because after two hours of racing we don’t need to have so much risk. Ok, a finish up the hill or something like this is nice for the crowd but to do something extra like they did, we really feel as riders that there’s a limit.

“It was not an easy decision, and nobody really wants to do it from the fans perspective, we all appreciate the fans and the organisation which goes on to make an amazing event like this happen. It’s nothing personal to them or the race but I feel we as riders need to stick together.

“It was a very strange situation and there’s no good outcome but the fact that all the riders stuck together is a positive step that we can hopefully build on.”

“It should be a race where you race a motorbike.”

Mani Lettenbichler: “It was a good race. I overtook Mitch [Brightmore, who started in second] almost immediately and from there it was a really good battle with Billy. I think we swapped the lead 10 or 12 times during the race. I think there were sections where I was a little bit better and others where he was but in the end he pulled a bit of a gap and it is what it is, we can’t change it.

“I didn’t feel so strong but he improved a lot and I would say we are on the same level right now. In the end it is racing and the guy who sees the flag first is the winner. I’m stoked with it and pleased with second place. With everybody expecting me to win it is nice to have the pressure off a little bit.

“As for the final section, we said we wanted to change some of the track before the race and the organisers didn’t want to listen. We, as the rider’s association, should stick together on these things. I feel sorry for the organiser but in the end, he was the one guy who would not listen. I think he changed something in the end, but it was too late.

“Sometimes riders need more respect and to make sure the sport doesn’t go in the wrong direction. It still needs to be rideable and not pushing the bike around…even for the live TV it looks shit if we just push the bikes around. It can still be a hard enduro race but it should be a race where you race a motorbike.”

It was very much the same sentiment from Mario Roman. The former Hixpania winner took his time to get into the race once it started to dry out but says he arrived at the finish and stopped alongside Billy and Mani to show solidarity after the organiser didn’t want to make any changes.

Hixpania Hard Enduro 2025 Results:

Spanish National class results:

Photo Credit: Future7Media | Nicki Martinez