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Round 2 of the Welsh Enduro took place at Machynlleth over the weekend. Here's Aran’s second report of his enduro race season.
Enjoyed that, thanks Aran. The tracks sound like they’d be fun to ride, but I don’t think I have any desire to muster the level of energy needed to race them!
The Carpenter boys are proper fast. They're playing in DH now too and regularly on the podium.
great review
10 minutes of racing though..... thats a long way for me to travel , bitd the ftd on those courses were 5minutes each stage!
dyfi has epic trails i love racing there its just a shame that the good old ukge days with huge courses and long challenging stages are gone
That looks fantastic (and representative of what we all know as typical UK enduro stages) but yes, 10 minutes total time for a national level race? I did a 'funduro' this weekend and totalled more than 25 minutes, over 30 for many riders and I dont think anyone dipped much below 22 or so.
10 minutes of 'race' time inb a weekend is what put a lot of people off investing so much time and money into DH racing!
The problem of race times is that how do you increase it without putting lots of climbing in the day or adding unpopular climbs or long pedally sections in the middle of stages?
The problem of race times is that how do you increase it without putting lots of climbing in the day or adding unpopular climbs or long pedally sections in the middle of stages?
Fair shout, but IMO Enduro shouldn't be a mini-DH race, so should have stages which are 2-3 x longer and require pedalling in the middle or transitioning across hills rather than just a straight downhill.
However, i doubt many would agree as most want a multi stage DH race.
The problem of race times is that how do you increase it without putting lots of climbing in the day or adding unpopular climbs or long pedally sections in the middle of stages?
There are plenty of trails around Dyfi forest that could be linked together, which would easily make a 3/4 minute stages.
If I’m riding good trails, I’ll happy pedal a big loop, that was the whole point of racing Enduro for me, and my view was you could & probably should be able to put together a 20/30 second pedal in the middle of a stage, otherwise you might as well go & race DH instead. Of course that is on the proviso the stage is more than a minute & a half long.
I’m like a stuck record on this though, an enduro is not riding the same way up the same hillside to ride 5 different trails all starting & finishing within a couple of hundred meters of each other over 5 minutes of racing.
It's a tricky balance, more is generally more but I'd (mostly) rather have excellent 3 minute stages than pointlessly pedally long stages. Or routes that make sense but give a little less racing, compared to meandering overall routes that end up 50km long but don't really add much.
But the problem is I think literally every rider would have a different opinion on what is perfect.
Like, for me a really good race loop feels a lot like a really good ride. It mostly avoids the whole "now we ride to a second location" thing or even "now we ride to another down", that was fun for special events like EWS where it just couldn't really fit in one place and it works some places like Laggan or innerleithen/golfy but for things like a normal tweedlove weekend it just got to be a drag for me, you'd leave a location that could host another 3 or 4 stages just to ride miles to a different one and not always for better riding. That seemed to get more and more common, the length of the routes always seemed to grow but the quality of the descending doesn't always. And that was also really offputting for a lot of people, at a time when enduro racing was starting to struggle for numbers we also had these enormous loops that people just struggled to ride.
But equally someone else could ride one of those and get the "this is just normal riding but with a timer" feeling off it and lose the sense of event... I mean in the end the Mega has road climbs and pedally shite in it, by my logic they'd make it 5 stages, and it'd suck 😛
But the absolute worst races I ever did, the ones I just walked away from and did something more fun instead, always it was at least partly because the full loop felt like bullshit. But I never once quit a race that I thought was crap because it was too short and focused.
The problem of race times is that how do you increase it without putting lots of climbing in the day or adding unpopular climbs or long pedally sections in the middle of stages?
Can't have mountain bikers climbing up hills...
There's probably a limit before it ends up being dangerous as tired riders are much more likely to make mistakes. I'm doing Boltby at weekend which feels reasonable with 27km and 850m of climbing each day. Riding it previously I've not had to worry about fatigue on the stages in comparison with Ardrock were I had to really back off for stage 7 as I was knackered. Boltby certainly wouldn't be improved for me with additional pedally sections just to make the stages longer.
Seems like this is always going to be a problem for a race discipline with such a vague description.
Everyone has a differing opinion on what they want, and a different ratio of fitness and skill.
I'm in agreement with Hobnob, although reaslising that anything local to me in the SE is likely going to involve laps of 1 or 2 hills due to geography and land ownership.
Making it Multi stage downhill I think does the sport a disservice and seems to move away from the original intent which was
a) "trail/AM bike" (that we all already own) racing
b) combining the attributes of DH and XC with a middle ground event to determine the "best all round rider".
To my mind, the day out should be big enough that overall fitness plays a role, and stages long and or pedally enough that managing your effort comes into play.
Anyone listening to me however should be aware that I'll enter one or two races a year on a whim, aiming for top half overall or top 2/3rd in my category - so people shouldnt cater for me, but should listen to those racing regularly and troubling the scoreboard a bit more.
Anyone listening to me however should be aware that I'll enter one or two races a year on a whim, aiming for top half overall or top 2/3rd in my category - so people shouldnt cater for me, but should listen to those racing regularly and troubling the scoreboard a bit more.
Im not sure thats true, the guys at the back like me! are the essential to keep the show rolling & the cash coming in
I think thats where the problem comes in, you need to make it as attractive as possible to all , so nothing too challenging, yet at the same time , at least for a national series- last weeks race was Round 1 of the BEMBA - it needs to be tough, it doesnt need to be mini DH courses but for reference the EWS (or whatever its called) this week was 60 km on day1 and 40km on day 2
thats after 2 days of practice!!
A national race should be a stepping stone to this, the crime is that Dyfi has long descents and plenty of trails to link up, maybe a bit of pedally fireroad in some stages linking sections, but well worth it ,the 2016 UKGE BES race there was 50k 1700m climbing!
and it should be doable on a trail bike, rather than a mini DH bike
for a national series it should be long, hard and challenging, Dyfi has some fantastic trails and routes that tick all the boxes <20k? with under 10minutes of racing just seems a waste
Thing is, sure a national series should be a step towards the world level but at the same time it has to be only a reasonable step forwards from the baseline events. At the moment, UK enduro racing is so hollowed out and the world level so high that this is, basically, impossible, a lot of people's first ever event will be a national level race and there's just not the breadth of events to allow a true progression and stratification. There pretty much never has been here but it's worse than it was.
No I don't have a solution, it's a genuinely difficult situation and it's only ever got worse in recent years. But if one single group of riders has to be left behind, it should always be the pros. The national series needs to be positioned for the nation it was in and if that means it can't be close enough to the international series to be a good feeder, too bad. It just doesn't work any other way, you can't run an enduro for the 20 elites at the expense of the 2-300 weekend warriors that actually fund it and make it possible, and every time a series has erred in that direction it's crashed and burned.
But 2-300 weekend warriors with disposable incomes and time and interest are hard to find, and one of the ways you keep them intrested is high level racing and pros. It's a paradox.
The solution as ever is to abduct and clone Aaron Muckmedden.
Sounds like a great day out, and awesome trails.
It does seem short though.
I live in the Midwest of the USA, so no mountains, only hills, yet our regional enduro series usually has winning times around 18-25 minutes. Granted, this race being a national series might have faster racers than we have, but still 8 minutes seems very short.
Why were there only 5 stages? We often have 7 stages, because they are short, 300-600 feet/ 90-180m vert. So even if they wanted to keep the stages short, to keep them high quality, why not add more of them?
Scott who runs the Southern series gets a good balance; at the round of the nationals he's hosting in the Quantocks you can sign up for a 4 stage mash up race(£45), or the full fat 8 stage race(£85)
It's a good way to get everyone involved , means a great atmos, with camping for the weekend included it means there a rowdy crowd for the seeding on Saturday evening!
So good I've just signed up to race it!
Reaching out to local riders, especially the active group who build and maintain the trails, would go a long way. Both to a better race, and local goodwill.