Inside
Part motocross, part trials, entirely crazy. We go to Newcastle for the SuperEnduro World Championship with the new Triumph factory off-road team
Interviews and photography Chippy Wood
Top-class rider
Not many bigger names in SuperEnduro than British star Jonny Walker. Triumph’s factory rider started out doing trials before moving to motocross. ‘My friends had tracks, so I rode at them, and then just kind of fell into enduro,’ says the 34-year-old. ‘I did a year on my own when I was maybe 18 or 19, then got picked up by a British team supported by KTM. The manager was a guy called Julian Stevens, who was David Knight’s old mechanic. He was like, “we need to go and do an extreme race”, which at the time was the Erzbergrodeo. I was third on my first time.’ Walker has since won Erzberg, plus the Hell’s Gate, Tough One and Red Bull Romaniacs events. Quite handy, then.
The man in white
You may be used to seeing Walker in red or orange, not these colours. He started with KTM (while still doing a proper job) and rode for the Austrian team for almost ten years before spending three with Beta. The Triumph move came after Jonny messaged head of global racing Ian Kimber, who’s been at Triumph for 21 years, via Instagram. ‘I was at the point where I was probably going to pack up,’ said Walker. ‘I’ve done it for 15 years… I don’t want to ruin myself for the rest of my life. But I knew Triumph were coming. I watched Supercross [in the US], saw the effort they put in, and wanted to be part of a British brand coming in. So, I messaged him, even if it was just some testing. It gave me a new motivation.’
Organic plan…
How do you ready yourself for this chaos? By doing something equally chaotic. Triumph raced the TF250-X in Supercross and EnduroCross in the US in 2024, with promising results. When they signed Walker for SuperEnduro, he went out to get a taste for himself. ‘I went out for a couple of weeks and rode a bike – without Ian probably knowing. I said, let’s just go because I want to train for this. And then we came here [to Newcastle], did a one-off race [2024 Indoor Enduro of Champions] and won.’ The following weekend was the first round of EnduroCross in the States, so Ian and Jonny talked about doing a couple of rounds as a wild card… which quickly spiralled. ‘We had the conversation back at base,’ says Ian, ‘and said if he’s going well and wants to carry on, are we going to support the rest of it? Yeah. Of course.’ Walker won the final round and finished fourth overall – then it was straight into SuperEnduro.
The right people
Triumph’s dirt-bike outfit is run by Paul Edmondson, a four-time World Enduro champion and stalwart of the International Six Days Enduro (what used to be the International Six Days Trial, or ISDT). He’s also the chap with the responsibility of being at the controls of the second factory Triumph TF250-E in the Prestige category (and Edmondson was Daniel Craig’s stunt double for the glorious bike action in the James Bond film No Time to Die, too). ‘The team’s great,’ reckons Walker. ‘Paul’s the team manager, but he’s also been doing the testing from day one. My mechanic Jean Andoche (left) has worked for a lot of good teams over the years, and worked for Paul last year. He’s from Réunion Island – that’s near Madagascar. Miles away. But he’s a very good mechanic. He was only supposed to do one race with me, but we pushed Ian… Triumph turn stuff round so fast.’
Just like yours
‘We run the bike as stock as possible to prove that what you buy in the dealership can run at the best level,’ says Kimber. ‘Keeping the engine close to stock shows what we’re building is super-competitive.’ Triumph raced in AMA Supercross for a year so knew the 250cc four-stroke single and aluminium frame were good. But forks and shock were more of an unknown due to the demands of SuperEnduro. ‘We started from zero on the suspension setting,’ adds Kimber, ‘but managed to get the baseline.’
Going big
Fancy seeing a Tiger 900 being flung over a course like this? Who wouldn’t? And it’s perhaps not as unlikely as it seems. ‘Triumph do road bikes,’ says Walker, ‘and I kind of want to do videos with Red Bull and people like that on road bikes. I want to try to go a bit outside of the sport, bring something to the street. Romaniacs has a class for adventure bikes, which I would like to do. It’s something different. And with Triumph having a load of different bikes, it gives the opportunity.’
More to come
Triumph have been racing in AMA Supercross, EnduroCross and the FIM Motocross world championship with the TF250-X since 2024, as well as FIM SuperEnduro with the TF250-E enduro bike. These have been joined in their off-road line-up by new 450cc versions. But though the 250 arrived first, the bikes hold equal billing at Triumph. ‘They’re about 50/50,’ says Kimber. ‘But the 250 went into production first so was the natural bike to go and race with. We could have gone into MX GP and raced as a prototype and not worried about it, but it was important for us to prove the bike we were going to sell. So, we started with the 250. It also means we can grow our rider programme – riders can go from 250s to 450s. We’ve signed Mikkel Haarup again [Triumph’s MX racer] on a development year for the 450, then we’ll take him into 450s when it’s ready to go. It’s important to have talent that stays with you.’
Steep learning curve
‘When racers practise, they think they’re running at race pace,’ notes Ian. ‘Then when they get into a race environment, against everyone else, the pace goes on – and so the bike will react differently. Every track is different – and because we’re new to it, we didn’t have a baseline. Jonny’s racing in all the same arenas as he’s done over the past few years, so he’ll know the dirt, but he knows it from a two-stroke. Paul’s not run guys in SuperEnduro previously – he’s run four-strokes in Enduro GP, but the set-ups are completely different. And a lot of Jonny’s chassis experience is from a steel-framed bike, whereas we’ve got aluminium. Every round, you’re building up your data pile. Obviously when it comes around this year, he’s got no excuses…’
Straight on the pace
Billy Bolt (top step) is the fella to beat. The tacheshod Husqvarna rider from Tyneside nailed his fifth consecutive SuperEnduro world title in Newcastle, having topped the podium in the Prestige class at all seven rounds of the 2024/25 championship. Triumph were immediately at the sharp end, though. In a field full of other big dirt-bike brands including Beta, Sherco and GasGas, Walker stuck the Triumph TF250-E on the podium in six races, including a hard-fought second in Newcastle – and claimed second overall in the series, first time out. ‘I think what we’ve done and what Triumph have done with building a bike from scratch is pretty amazing,’ says Walker. ‘We’re battling with other brands that have been doing this for the past 15 years.’
Go there…
FIM SuperEnduro will rock Newcastle again on 28 February 2026 for the GP of United Kingdom, the penultimate round of the 2025/26 season. Tickets will be available soon via superenduro.org/schedule/gp-united-kingdom