Enduro season is in full swing at home and in Chile….

Whats happened to Graves? Ah chain snapped!
Yeti must be quietly grinning to themselves

Men

1. Richie Rude
2. Martin Maes
3. Nico Vouilloz
4. Jerome Clementz
5. Florian Nicolai
6. Yoann Barelli
7. Damien Oton
8. Jared Graves
9. Theo Galy
10. Francois Bailly Maitre

Women

1. Cecile Ravanel
2. Anneke Beerten
3. Isabeau Courdurier
4. Ines Thoma
5. Anita Gehrig
6. Rae Morrison
7. Katy Winton
8. Carolin Gehrig
9. Florencia Espineira
10. Camila Noguiera

Over 200km in some epic mountains, that’s pretty impressive

Spoiler alert

I think that’s a fairly big French whitewash in the men, that’s what, 7 out of the top 10??

Graves quoted as having a decent crash day one then chain snapped on stage 5, fixed it,snapped again on s6 then was running through flat rock gardens and didn’t bother looking at results….
Worth following his athlete page on FB, really honest and open guy.

Vouilloz is just unreal. He’s like that mate in your riding group that can not touch a bike for months but still turn up and thraah everyone. A complete legend

Great to see Nico in 3rd. Would love to see him get a win this year

40 years old & still killing it. Legend – its a word that’s overused IMO, but really applicable in his instance 🙂

It is a great shame they can’t find some way to show the race live, I just guess it would be far too expensive.

Do we really need spoiler alerts on a EWS titled thread on a mountain biking forum? It’s not as if they are going to show the whole race on tuesday night on bbc2 is it FFS.

Certainly the French are dominating, they do have a huge Enduro scene at home

Nico though, how does he still do it!?

With spoiler titles it just tells you they are there, saves any gripes. Sure your not just missing something to get grumpy about 😉

Not sure I could manage 2 or 3 days of live coverage, I’ll be happy with a good highlights package

My legs are shot today after the tweedlove enduro at the weekend , I can’t imagine how they must feel and it’s Argentina next weekend ! I’m pretty jealous of the pros that do this , of all the professional disciplines in mtbing this seems to be the one that sums up dream job to me

I’m pretty jealous of the pros that do this , of all the professional disciplines in mtbing this seems to be the one that sums up dream job to me

We had Graves, Keene and Gracia at the last race I was at, they are dedicated and fit. One of my mates got 6th in the race, a look at his Strava tells you a lot about the level these guys are riding at in terms of km/m of riding along with the talent to get through the stages. Graves and Keene spent all week doing go pro laps trying to beat each others times.

Don’t get me wrong , it’s not the winter with endless intervals and squats and no fish suppers that appeals 😀

Rude boy, indeed

Ravenele dishing it out too

Rude’s a beast… Grand to see Nico Vooleywoo doing so well too. But for me it’s Francois Billy Maitre, for letting me have a go on his bike halfway through race day last year 😆

Seemed like some of the day 1 results were slightly based on hanging it out a bit much tbh. What happened to Nico Lau?

Nice to see Swede Robin Wallner getting into the top 10 for his best EWS results to date . Local lad from round ‘ere and now on Ibis

Are there any highlights anywhere?

It usually takes a day or two for the highlights reel to be released, and even that is only 5 mins or so. Some of the teams also release their own highlights video, didn’t see as many as expected for last weeks round.

Pinkbike is best for all your video needs

I know we’re only two races in but what’s happened to Joe Barnes? First two races he’s been 32nd and 25th. Compared to prior seasons where his average position was

2013 – 18th
2014 – 9th
2015 – 10th

He seems well off the pace 🙁

I know we’re only two races in but what’s happened to Joe Barnes?

Yeah, shame. Hopefully he gets form back soon. Check out Lew Buchanan and Mark Scott though! Seriously impressive stuff.

Lewis Buchanan is storming tho!

I think the competition has got stiffer, Barnes finding it tough to keep up ?

Were any of them sporting Plus sized tyres for this weekends race ?

Being very dusty and loose I would have imagined it could have been a good tyre choice.

Were any of them sporting Plus sized tyres for this weekends race ?

Not by the look of any of the pics…

Were any of them sporting Plus sized tyres for this weekends race ?

Mark Scott was riding a Hightower so had the option but seems to have taken the 29er option.

Without turning this into a wheel size debate I think elite racers don’t really care so much about traction as they spend most of their time sliding anyway and its all about lowering rolling resistance.

Both the women had good results. Lets see what the next event in Ireland has to offer.

Let’s see what happens in Rd 7 (France) seen as it is local for the riders of the Côte d’Azur, which have seen many podium places in the first two rounds in all category’s but the 30-39. It says something about the area they use for training in winter and where they grew up riding.

I am going to Valberg for that weekend and the following week. looking forward to mincing down the trails that they smash into oblivion.

Were any of them sporting Plus sized tyres for this weekends race ?

Being very dusty and loose I would have imagined it could have been a good tyre choice.

Mr Graves on plus:

One thing that we do know, however, is that he won’t be on plus-sized tires for any upcoming races. “I haven’t ridden one at all yet, no. Never say never, but I don’t see it [EWS racers using plus-bikes] anytime soon. A lot of people say that they’re a lot of fun, but, for racing, if you’re going to make tires beefy enough to handle what we put them through, you’re going to have to make a two-kilo tire.”

Some great pics – and still no fat tyre (probably a sign that those that can generate the grip they want don’t need to heft of a fat undamped tyre on their bikes

Posted by Ride SRL on Thursday, March 31, 2016

Were any of them sporting Plus sized tyres for this weekends race ?
Being very dusty and loose I would have imagined it could have been a good tyre choice.

Dusty and loose isn’t necessarily a plus tyred bike’s forte – it tends to float across rather than grip when it’s like that because the tread isn’t aggressive enough

Sam Hill finishes 2nd in Ireland!!! Not bad for a downhiller that can’t pedal

Greg Callaghan does the double

Amazing result in the Mens race, and T-Mo comes out of “retirement” and thrashes the pants off the girls too! 😆

T-Mo utterly rinsed them and she said yesterday she felt she had lost a fair deal of fitness . Brilliant!

Wow the luck of the Irish, Rude wins 5 stages comes 70th in one with a mechanical!.

Holy moly, Richie Rude is destroying everyone!

I wonder if Sam Hill will do more enduros. Him and blenky are both pretty decent.

Looks as though he’s doing the Tweed love race next weekend. Interesting that he opted to do the EWS instead of the BDS at Fort William this weekend

We are on the way back. First EWS for Abigale. The heat and the stages were punnishing. The climbs weren’t much easier. What a fantastic venue and event. She hasnt stopped grinning since we left. Happy that she rode it all and finished

Big well done to Abigale 😉