It’s the ultramarathon of motorcycle racing — six hours a day of top-speed riding for six consecutive days. And for the first time, New Zealand is sending a women’s team to the Enduro World Championships.
Leading the charge is Kylie Dorr, a 34-year-old supermum from West Otago who means business, as Seven Sharp’s Rachel Parkin discovered.
“I was going to wash the bike down, but the water was frozen,” Dorr giggled.
It was 1.30pm on a Wednesday in Tapanui, West Otago, and the mercury sat stubbornly at 3C.
“No, that’s good,” I said, smiling. “We’ll film you doing that now.”
“The bike” was Dorr’s red, two-stroke beauty — her pride and joy, apart from her sons.
“I bought it as a Christmas present for myself 18 months ago, and it was supposed to be a hobby,” she said. “I was pretty busy being a mum, but needed something special for myself.”
“Some people do yoga,” I suggested.
“Haha, yeah, they do,” she said.
Dorr isn’t “some people”. Riding hell for leather for hours on end is much more mindful to her.
“When you’re going really fast and you’re in that groove, everything slows down,” she explained.
And as we chased her through West Otago farmland in a side-by-side, Dorr was clearly in the zone. The wind that day was bone-numbing, but Dorr’s grin when she pulled up was nothing but sunshine.
“What if I go down there and up that ridgeline?” she suggested.
“Perfect,” camera operator Jason said.
And it was. This was a woman in her element and good at it.
Come October, Dorr will take that passion to the World Championships in Spain as captain of New Zealand’s first-ever women’s Enduro team. A team quietly loaded with talent.
There’s Taylar Rampton from Taranaki.
“She’s currently number two in motocross [in New Zealand] and an absolute whizz on the bike,” Dorr said.
Also, Rachael Archer, a Te Awamutu native, is currently living and riding the Grand National Cross Country (GNCC) professional circuit in the US.
“And she’s beating the ladies that won it last year,” Dorr said, grinning. “Team America won it last year, and Australia came second, and yeah, she’s beating those girls every day.”
Go, team, go.
“Well, in all reality, I’m a mum from West Otago. I’m not a professional athlete, and I’ll be competing against girls who are a lot younger and ride full-time,” she said.
“But we’ve got a really good team, and I think we have a good chance of doing really well.”
And as history has shown time and time again, where there is a nuggety Kiwi will, there’s a way.
“How big is the mental grit required for that sort of endurance racing?” I asked.
“Huge, absolutely huge. I actually think that’s my strongest point,” Dorr said. “You only get grit from big, unexpected things happening in your life, and I’ve had plenty of that in the last 34 years.”
Dorr is a master of the juggle struggle — solo mum to Wyatt (8) and Lane (5) and owner-operator of Southern Reproductive.
“Today we’re learning about Jupiter,” declared Wyatt from the breakfast bench as she loaded up their lunch boxes.
“Are you? Great!”
“Jupiter has rings,” Wyatt said.
“Yes, it does,” replied Dorr. “Boys, why is there a [toy] shotgun on the bench?”
Then, once giggles subsided, and hugs were dished out [Nana on hand to get them to the school bus], Dorr was out the door to see her girls.
This relationship is just as intimate.
As an artificial insemination technician, Dorr works with farmers getting cows pregnant.
“It’s not the most glamorous job, but I really love it,” she said, with her lubricated, gloved hand reaching right up into a cow’s bottom.
“So, what I’m doing is reaching through the cow’s rectum wall to find her reproductive tract, and I’m threading the pistolette that has the semen in it through her cervix and placing semen just inside her uterus … and she should hopefully be pregnant.”
Dorr’s business is an independent AI service across Otago and Southland.
“We focus on providing the best service in the industry, and we don’t sell or talk about genetics; we let the farmers make that choice,” she said.
Being a business owner comes with challenges but also flexibility.
“I don’t know if it’s a coping mechanism or what, but busy is good, I think,” Dorr laughed.
Busy is an understatement. Dorr’s training goes well beyond hours of riding. There’s daily gym work, fundraising and speed mechanic work.
In Enduro motorcycle racing, each rider must do their own repairs and tyre changes at pace.
“It’s all me, so out on the track during the day, you’re not allowed any outside assistance. So, if you have any breakdowns that have to do with tools, you carry yourself.”
It’s a lot. But it’s Dorr’s lot, and she loves it.
“I do, I really do,” she said. “It’s just evolved. Eighteen months [in], and I’ve made a group of really awesome friends across New Zealand; some of those have become family, and yeah, I’m pretty excited to be going to Spain.
“It’s that overcoming or conquering something that at the time you don’t think you can do that I think is kind of addictive.”
