Richie Rude and Tracy Moseley stormed home to EWS wins yesterday, with Tracey pipping nearest rival Cecile Ravanel by 12 seconds to take first place in stage 7 and the series. Rude placed 11th in Finale, but took the World Champion title with 2940 points overall, nearly 300 ahead of Fabien Barel. Jared Graves took the stage, with Barel and Nicolas Vouilloz both only a second and half behind. Barel retires as expected, and several sites are reporting that Moseley too announced retirement after the race. After seeking clarification, we got official word that Tracy “won’t be defending her title next year, but she will still ride race and be looking for new challenges in the bike world”.
Adrien Dailly and Axelle Murigneux took their respective under-21 category wins, and Woody Hole’s Enduro of Hope did indeed carry him to victory in the Masters category. See full results, race timings, and a gallery at the EWS site. Photos below by Matt Wragg.
Tracy Moseley on stage five. She retires as Enduro World Champion 2015.Richie Rude finished eleventh in Finale, but took the series.Fabien Barel on stage three; he retired after coming a very respectable second overall.Tracy Moseley samples the champagne.More races should end with an opportunity to jump in the sea.
David started mountain biking in the 90’s, by which he means “Ineptly jumping a Saracen Kili Racer off anything available in a nearby industrial estate”. After growing up and living in some extremely flat places, David moved to Yorkshire specifically for the mountain biking. This felt like a horrible mistake at first, because the hills are so steep, but you get used to them pretty quickly.
Previously, David trifled with road and BMX, but mountain bikes always won. He’s most at peace battering down a rough trail, quietly fixing everything that does to a bike, or trying to figure out if that one click of compression damping has made things marginally better or worse. The inept jumping continues to this day.
