The FIM International Six Days Enduro (ISDE) recently concluded in France, and while the Trophy teams tend to garner most of the attention, America put in a valiant effort to take second in the club class, thanks to Kai Aiello, Craig Delong, and Tyler Vore, who made up the XC Gear club. For Aiello, who comes from a motocross background, it marked a particularly strong performance—he’s only been competing in off-road for roughly two years and was forced to deal with the passing of his father a little over a year ago. We had to know more about his French foray, so we rang up Aiello for this week’s Privateer Profile.
Racer X: Kai, how’s it going man? You’re back from France and dodging wildfires in Southern California!
Kai Aiello: Yeah, it’s been a little bit crazy. Luckily the rain came through at the right time. Our house was okay, and my girlfriend was evacuated temporarily but came back the next day. The flash floods came through at the perfect time and contained everything.
How was the ISDE? It was your first time, right?
Yeah, it was my first time, and it was an unreal experience, to say the least. It’s kind of crazy to think two years ago, even a year ago, I never would have thought I’d be at an off-road race like the ISDE. I come from a moto background, and it definitely wasn’t on my agenda, but with the success I’ve had in the past year in off-road, it became a goal of mine. The opportunity came up to go race, I got my fundraising done, and made the trip over to France. It was a really cool experience.
Take us through how it went.
I went in with no expectations, really. You have very limited help from mechanics. They’re there, but they’re not allowed to really touch the bike. They can add fuel, change oil, that kind of thing, but everything else is on the rider. So, a big goal of mine was just to get my bike through to the finish. Everything is timed so you have to make your time checks and service checks, and if you have an issue riding you might fall behind pace. Luckily for me I was able to ride clean. The riding itself was super cool and technical. A lot of the experienced riders were saying the transfers, which is basically the riding between the timed race portions, were a lot more technical with more trails and single tracks this year. It was challenging, and also really fun. We were riding by rivers and going through towns, but there was also stuff that could set you back, like rocks, hill climbs, technical descents. You could easily run into an issue and miss a time check. I was stoked to stay on time all week. Overall, it was smooth week for me.
How’d you place?
I was on the XC Gear club team, and we were second as a team. We only lost by 25 seconds. They combine the times of all three riders throughout the week and we had a cumulative of around ten hours of racing and only lost by about 25 seconds. That was a bit of a bummer, but we were the first American club team, and I was first in the Dunlop Geomax Challenge, which is any club rider using Dunlop tires. Having an American win that was pretty cool. I was ninth overall in the C1 class, which is the 250 class, and that was enough to earn me a gold medal. I believe there were 130 riders in the C1 class, and over 400 total club riders.
Wow, so you had some success your first time around.
I had a pretty smooth first day, which set my expectations high. I was sitting seventh after day one and had some good tests. After that I was thinking I could get a top five and maybe even a top three. But day two I was rushing things and getting my rookie mistakes out of the way. We came up on some challenging things I wasn’t used to. It was a big learning experience. I had some mistakes I wish I could correct, but there were some good results too, which was enough to get me, and the team, some good results overall.
Can you explain how the club teams work? I’m not sure if everyone knows about that.
In the ISDE there are the Trophy riders, Junior Trophy riders, and there’s the club classification. The club classification is for riders who aren’t Trophy riders and are racing on their own dime. All the riding and racing is the same, it’s just a different classification. Here in America, there are a series of qualifiers that allow you to go as a club rider, but in other countries I think it’s different.
![Aiello at the 2022 Washougal National.]()
Aiello at the 2022 Washougal National. Align Media ![Aiello at the 2022 Washougal National.]()
Aiello at the 2022 Washougal National. Align Media
Club teams, as you said, pay their own way. You were able to raise a lot of your funds in a unique way not even related to dirt bikes.
My uncle is a retired Navy fighter pilot and has what’s called, The Fighter Pilot Podcast. He’s helped me in the past racing some of the nationals here in the U.S., and for this one he had me on the podcast to get the listeners involved. He set up a way for them to donate to help me and he actually matched the donations, which was a huge part of me being able to race in France. In addition to that, Fox designed and produced limited edition T-shirts for me to sell, which was also a huge contribution to my fundraising efforts.
Your dad passed away roughly a year ago on a motorcycle. That had to be tough.
Yeah, it’s over a year ago now. He was riding, yes, but it was due to a cardiac event. Two thousand twenty-one was already pretty tough for me, as far as the racing side of things go, but my dad and I were best friends and have so many shared memories. We spent so much time together, and it was really tough. It made things difficult to continue doing what I was doing, but my passion for the sport is so strong and he was so supportive of me following my dreams since I was three years old. It’s an inspiration now to chase my dreams for myself, and also for him.
Was it difficult to keep riding, or did it become a thing to help keep the memories alive?
For a couple months I didn’t go into the garage, and I didn’t want to go to the track. Everything was so fresh. The passion was still there, but it was just difficult. I was on a summer break from the series I race anyway, so it gave me some time to let it process and settle. I finished out the year racing, but it was up and down. But my motivation came back and I realized how much passion I still had for it reflecting on the memories we have of going to the track together. I know since I still like it, he’d want me to go for it, and 2022 has been a lot better. We’re going strong now and looking forward to the future.
Racing the ISDE had to be special, just knowing how proud he would have been to see you do it.
For sure. There were definitely moments when I knew he would be smiling, and that he was there with me. It was a different experience, that’s for sure. Growing up, ISDE was not on my radar. We knew about it, but it wasn’t something we aspired to. But getting to race my dirt bike in a different country, and the long days on the bike, there were so many opportunities where I could just reflect and realize how cool of an opportunity it was. And to do as well as I did in my first year, I was stoked, and like you said, I know he would be happy about it too.
Well, you come from a moto background, and you race some of the nationals, but you’ve been doing a lot of off-road stuff lately. What else do you do?
I turned pro after high school and raced my first pro national in 2019. I still try to make it to at least two or three a year, but now I’m contracted through Husqvarna to race the NGPC [National Grand Prix Championship] and the WORCS series [World Off Road Championship Series]. This year has been a breakthrough year for me in off-road. It’s definitely been a learning curve, but I was able to get my first win in the pro 250 class right before we left for France, which was cool. I’ve been on the podium pretty consistently and we’re sitting second in both of those series with three or four rounds to go in each. Two thousand twenty-two has been a lot better. As a moto guy I thought I could go into off-road right away and do super good. [Chuckles] There were times when I did, but it’s a different world and much respect to the off-road community, they’re really good at what they do.
Well thanks for your time, congrats on ISDE, and good luck on closing out the rest of NGPC and WORCS.
Thank you.
Main image by Mary Rinell
