NZ ENDURO PIONEERS
MULTI-TALENTED MERRIMAN
NZ’S DIRT-BIKING PIONEER
STORY: ANDY MCGECHAN, BIKESPORTNZ.COM
S
tefan Merriman (born in Tauranga on March
24, 1973, but the now 46-year-old is resident
in Australia) contested the World Enduro
Championships for many years with great
success in the early 2000s, winning four world
titles and two International Six Days Enduro
crowns outright.
He started his international racing career as a
moto trials exponent and won the New Zealand,
Australian and then the world youth (under-17)
moto trials championships in 1989.
The 1993 season was a pretty good one too
for the then rising star, as he won the New
Zealand triple challenge super motard race, the
New Zealand Supercross Championships (in the
experts grade) and both the New Zealand and
Australian national moto trials championships.
He tried his hand at road-racing in 1995,
finishing runner-up in the Formula Two
championship, as well as winning the New
Zealand supersport championships, then
swapped back to his “rock hopper” to again win
the Australian moto trials title.
Merriman then made the transition to fulltime
enduro racing and continued to carve up there,
winning the Australian Enduro Championships in
the 250cc two-stroke class in 1996.
His career continued to gather momentum
and he claimed another national enduro title
in Australia in 1998, before taking his career to
Europe.
Merriman won the senior enduro world
championships in 2000 (in the 250cc class), 2001
(400cc), 2003 (250cc) and 2004 (Enduro 1) and
he also finished third, fourth and fifth overall in
other seasons.
Merriman also won the ISDE overall when it
was staged in Spain in 2000, won his 250cc two-
stroke class when the ISDE was staged in Brazil in
2003 and then won the ISDE outright again when
it was held in Poland in 2004, along the way also
winning the national enduro championship titles
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