Letti in New Zealand 2012

Letti scoring solid result in New Zealand

Andreas "Letti" Lettenbichler managed to secure a solid 4th place at the Red Bull City Scramble in Auckland, New Zealand.

Letti had been invited to participate in the spectacular in-city enduro cross in Auckland with Chris Birch being the driving force behind an event that attracted thousands of spectators. Besides the locals many international top riders like Graham Jarvis and Paul Bolton (both UK) were happy to fly out to New Zealand for a battle on a race track of manmade obstacles inside the city centre.

Letti once again showed a top performance in the qualifying heats on the Husqvarna TE310 scoring top 3 results in all of them and winning the first one despite a flat front tire. Despite bad luck in the finals, which prevented a podium result, Letti still achieved a solid 4th place:

"The enduro cross track in the middle of Auckland in New Zealand was a blast, really fun to ride, wide, not too technical but actually pretty tiring and about twice as big as last time. The lap time was about 1 minute so these guys did a pretty good job creating a manmade track inside the city, including a rope bridge.

84 riders came to compete so about 8 qualifying heats had to be done initially. I was in top 3 of all the qualifying sessions I did and actually won the first one, came in second behind Jarvis in the second and third in the third session. I finished third in the quarter and semi final. It's worth mentioning that in the first lap of the first qualifying heat I caught a puncture in the front tire but I was still able to finish first.

In the finals I had bad luck since at the start the rim lock of the rear tire broke immediately so I had wheel spin pretty much without traction and was the last to get away from the start. But still my attitude is "never give up" so I worked my way through the track and out of the twelve starters in the finals I was able to still finish fourth. A podium result would easily have been possible without the technical problem. That's racing, these things can unfortunately happen. I caught a massive cold two weeks prior to the race which I couldn't really get rid of until the race so considering all the facts I'm fine with the fourth place.

Other than that I was really pleased with the performance of the standard TE310 that had been delivered only in the morning of the race day. We could not make any significant changes to the bike, pretty much just put on the stickers and started racing."

Result Red Bull City Scramble
April 1, 2012
Auckland, New Zealand

1. Graham Jarvis (UK, Husaberg)
2. Paul Bolton (UK, KTM)
3. Chris Birch (NZL, KTM)
4. Andreas Lettenbichler (D, Husqvarna)

Letti at Hells Gate 2012 (© Carsten Steffen)

What a ride! Andreas "Letti" Lettenbichler scored a solid 5th place at the 9th edition of the Hell's Gate, a legendary Extreme Enduro race close to Lucca in the heart of the Tuscany in Italy. Just a couple of days prior to the Hell's Gate, Husqvarna presented Letti to the international press at the company’s headquarter in Varese, Italy, as the factory rider for the Extreme Enduro events such as Hell’s Gate, Erzbergrodeo, Red Bull Romaniacs and the Roof of Africa in 2012.

So it was only the day before the Hell's Gate race that the 37 years old German from Kiefersfelden received his Husqvarna WR250, the two stroke weapon of choice for not only that insane race event in Italy but most likely also for the rest of the season. Therefore, the team had very few time to work on the bike and the necessary adjustments for the specific and very extreme track at the Hell's Gate. But Letti once again proved his eager ambition to make the very best from any situation and secured a podium result in his class in the qualifying heats in the morning.

Only 30 out of the 100+ riders qualified for the grueling 5 laps of the main event and Letti achieved a good 6th place in the qualifying. This is actually smart riding practiced by the Romaniacs winner of 2009 since it's vital to qualify in the first 2 starting rows but also perserve as much energy as possible for the afternoon laps. At Hell's Gate the riders who make it into the last lap in the afternoon spend roughly 9 hours on the bike at an insane pace in brutal terrain, continuously pushing themselves to their limits.

 Letti had a good start and was able to smoothly pass Spain’s Xavi Galindo in the first selective section called „Laghetto“, a step and long uphill with steps and a lot of loose rocks flanked with the incomparably enthusiastic Italian Enduro fans, who had a ball while they saw Letti advancing without having to use the many helping hands along the track.

There is something quite specific to the Hell’s Gate: Any rider who has lost 30 or more minute on the leading rider at a given checkpoint is pulled out of the race by the officials. Due to the conditions the main event was reduced by one lap so the riders had to do 5 laps in total. Letti was one of the five riders who made it into the final lap so 25 others of the 30 who qualified had dropped by then, including the 2010 winner and 2011 runner-up Dougie Lampkin. On the last lap Andreas however had a little crash in the forest and had to recover the bike from the bottom of a little valley which cost a lot of time. At the famous Cascata checkpoint, a quite spectacular riverbed, only 4 minutes were missing to continue and finish the race. But due to the time lost in the crash it was

"The morning session was a nice ride, good enduro actually, some passages that used to be tricky have been cut off due to the snowy and icy conditions. And some were a lot easier than before, just like Salamandra, the river bed which was a bit of a mission in the last editions, has been flattened out and it felt like a highway. The bike was working well, even though I lost a bit of grip and had to balance this by doing a lot of work with my legs. I had two minor crashes in the morning but that's really part of this race and I guess that nobody came away without crashing due to the slippery conditions.

I'm really happy with the bike's and my performance in the main event and my body feels good after the race. Unfortunately I had a little crash on the fifth and last lap. I lost the bike on a single trail in the forest, the bike slipped downhill and I had to work quite hard to get it back on the track. That's where I lost the minutes that prevented me from finishing the race since I was pulled out at the Cascata checkpoint being 34 minutes behind Jarvis at that moment. Without the crash I would have finished.

But I'm really happy about the fifth place leaving riders like the twelve times Trials world champion Dougie Lampkin behind -  especially given the fact that I only had half a day to work on the bike.

Now we will use the time until the Erzbergrodeo in June to optimize the bike. I'm really optimistic for that next race since I'm feeling very comfortable on the 250."

Result Hell's Gate

February 18, 2012
Castelvecchio Pascoli, Il Ciocco, Italy 

1. Graham Jarvis (UK, Flite Husaberg)
2. Jonny Walker (UK, KTM) 4 minutes 2 seconds behind
3. Xavi Galindo (SP, Husaberg) 16:23
4. Cody Webb (USA, Beta) 21:50
5. Andreas Lettenbichler (D, Husqvarna) 23:24