Yamaha Off Road Experience Enduro Team

Welcome to our "Five Minutes With..." series, where we sit down with the riders, racers, and team managers who depend on Venhill products to keep their machines performing at their peak. For our first five minutes, we caught up with Dylan Jones between prepping for the British Enduro Championship and his teaching role at Yamaha Off Road Experience in Wales.

So Dylan, for those who might not know you, can you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do in the off-road world?

I'm Dylan Jones and I'm the manager of the Yamaha Off Road Experience Enduro Team, which is the official Yamaha Enduro Team in the UK. We currently run three riders: Aaron Gordon rides a Yamaha WR450, Charlie Chater, who rides the WR250, and then Endaf Hughes who rides a Yamaha YZ125 converted for enduro. When I'm not doing that, I run and instruct at the Yamaha Off Road Experience here in Wales.

That's quite the off-road pedigree. How did you first get your wheels dirty in the sport? Was it something you always wanted to do?

It was sort of a given really. My dad Geraint Jones is 10-times British Enduro Champion and an 8-time ISDE Gold medal winner, so my brother and I grew up with bikes from an early age. I started racing myself in the British Championship in 1998, competed in the ISDE for Great Britain - three times at junior level and four times at senior level. I also raced European and World Championships. I finished racing myself in about 2010.

Enduro is an incredibly demanding discipline. What would you say are the biggest challenges your riders face when they're out there competing?

To be honest, it’s a little bit of everything really. Like with any outdoor sport, the weather has a huge, huge effect on the type of race it's going to be. You can spend your time thinking it's going to be dry,  then all of a sudden it's wet. And that totally changes the dynamics of it and the bike setups as well. Obviously depending on where we're racing, the track conditions vary a lot too, so you have to prepare for every race differently.

Is there any chance to make adjustments during a race if conditions change?

Enduro is a little bit like car rallying, with special timed stages. You have liaison sections where you have a time schedule that you have to stay within, and then you have special stages throughout the day where you have to put in the fastest times. There's really no time to play with setup at all – the weather is what it is, and if it changes during the day, you have to go with it.

That must put a lot of pressure on getting the bike setup right from the start then?

There are so many things that can make a difference. A good example would be the tyres and mousses that we run: if it's drier, we'd generally run with maybe a medium tyre and a firmer moose setup; if it happens to be very wet and slippery we'd run with a softer tyre and a softer mousse. Once you've decided on a setup, you're stuck with it, so yeah there's a fair amount of pressure to get it right.

Your team is now running Venhill Brake Hoses and Clutch Cables - when did you make that switch and what prompted it?

We've actually only been using Venhill last year with this current team, although I used the cables and hoses back when I was racing. It's a brand that most people in off-road motorcycling know and recognise for the quality of the hoses and cables. Certainly when I look at any components they have to bring benefit, i.e. it's better than the standard equipment - or really there's little point for us in using it. You want something to give you some benefit in performance or reliability, and obviously Venhill ticks the boxes with that.

Have your riders noticed any specific improvements since making the switch to Venhill?

Yeah, the feel of the brakes. With a braided hose you get a really much more positive, strong feeling. That's particularly important for the faster riders, knowing that they have that stopping power and having a really positive feeling brake gives bags of confidence.

Looking ahead, what are you and the team hoping to achieve this season?

At the end of last season we had some great results with Aaron, he won a couple of rounds of the British Championship, and Chaz also had a couple of top threes. Of course it would be nice to win the British Championship, but certainly we'd like to get a rider on the podium overall. It would also be nice to get Endaf building his experience, and get a good finish in the Junior Championship.

The Yamaha Off Road Experience Enduro Team relies on Venhill motorcycle brake hoses and clutch cables for maximum performance in demanding enduro conditions. Our high-quality braided brake lines deliver superior brake feel and consistent performance, while our durable off-road clutch cables provide precise control when riders need it most. 

Browse our complete range of off-road motorcycle brake lines, and enduro clutch and brake cables, to give your machine the same professional-grade components trusted by championship racing teams.

Follow the Yamaha Off Road Experience Enduro Team at yamaha-offroad-experience.co.uk or find the school on Facebook.