[Closed] Enduro Racing

It seems people use it for all sorts. But if you want the rally style, ride to the top untimed, descent timed sort of thing, then check this out:

http://www.ukgravityenduro.co.uk/public/default.aspx

Not sure whether to enter it... I did the Icycles on a couple of weeks ago and it was absolutely fantastic, but it did leave me a broken man after the 3rd stage and this series has 5 stages... So I'm not sure I'm physically able! But it'll be brilliant I'm sure.

If you're in the UK you'll be riding around a muddy field during 6 hours.
If you're in the continent you'll get something more on the line of that:
[url] http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/first-timer-yeah [/url]

juan - Member

"If you're in the UK you'll be riding around a muddy field during 6 hours."

I was going to write a proper rebuttal for this but you're so completely wrong it's hard to know where to start. That's not even a fair description of UK XC racing and marathons never mind enduro racing.

"If you're in the UK you'll be riding around a muddy field during 6 hours."

Actually, juan has a point.

agreeing with northwind in response to both Juan and OP. uk gravity enduro is the way to go. if you have the money...

If you're in the UK you'll be riding around a muddy field during 6 hours.
If you're in the continent you'll get something more on the line of that:

Err........... Gorrick ,thetford winter series? etc etc. i've never done an enduro that involved a field, your thinking of cyclocross

Actually, looking at Juan's video that looks massively less challenging and interesting than the UK race I did. Faster though, because of all the featureless singletrack and fireroads. Stage 2 at the innerleithen event was old DH trails, a small stretch of red route and a section of black route. Stage 3 was modern DH trails from top to bottom. There was a muddy field, my car was parked in it.

Basically just completely ignore everything he said, he's obviously a fool.

I think the point Juan is making is that in Europe an Enduro is a lengthy predominantly downhill race... In the UK the term Enduro has traditionally applied to 'riding around muddy fields' endurance xc racing... although agreed not all our courses are mudd fields BUT some very much are.

Maybe with more European style Enduro downhill races happening here organisers will start using Marathon for XC and Enduro for Downhill.

I've heard from some of the magazines that the downhill orientated ones are being run in the UK, but not really when and where.
All the advertisements I've found/seen seem to be for the marathon style ones.
Might just start timing myself in the peaks, it'll be cheaper and easier!
We timed ourselves around Dalby last month, it does spur you on abit.

What Paul78 said , the "Rally/GRavity" enduro style races have been going in France and Italy for a few years now and involved some of the best descents and riding in Europe... My experience of UK Enduro events were just big circuits on roads and fireroads with 24hr races literally on muddy fields!!!.

I think these 100km events are now being called Marathons and the DH orientated Rally events are being called Enduro's to be kept in line with Europe...

Otherwise it will get a bit confusing.

But to the OP...do one of the race's you wont regret it, it is proper grass roots racing, you wont kill yourself onnthe climbs and the racing is on the fun parts..

Enduro = like car rally format with timed stages linked together

Endurance = well, what it says.

Actually, looking at Juan's video that looks massively less challenging and interesting than the UK race I did

Maybe with more European style Enduro downhill races happening here organisers will start using Marathon for XC and Enduro for Downhill

Yes, as they indeed should.

The use of "Enduro" for a marathon XC race really annoys me, it's totally wrong. If you don't agree with me, ask the UCI what they think.

Enduro is rally-style. Untimed liaison stages leading to *mainly descending* timed stages.

These are the ones that you use a trail/ all mountain bike for though aren't they? I haven't got a downhill machine!

XC, all mountain, trail, enduro bike...anything you can pedal up a hill on, but the msot popular bikes are the 150-160 travel bikes

I wouldn't go with a DH machine
Mainly for two reasons:
first, although stages are downhill orientated, most of them have some climbs/pedalling bits.
second, you will have to pedal between stages. And the liaisons will be all uphill.

As for the bike, depending on your strengths, anything between 120 to 160 mm is good. However having a gravity dropper is a big plus.

juan - Member
"Funny that as I never did anything that is even close to that (even the DIFY). I'd like to see some footage of what you did northwind, just to compare cam to cam."

Don't have any video to show you but stage 3 was entirely on innerleithen's dh trails, and wasn't the hardest, hopefully that'll give you some clue. If you did some XC races that were misnamed that's a shame but it's not what's being discussed here at all.

Why do people insist on classifying anyway ?? It's all mountainbiking, a trail is a trail... it has dirt and trees and sometimes rocks. Ride your tandem down it if you really want to.

We are not pigeon holing riding we are just asking for a more uniform means of organisers naming their events so people can pick out more easily what they prefer to ride.

I can see how its really confusing for newer riders looking for an event to try thinking they have entered a series of timed descents but instead having to ride around a forest for 24 hours 🙂

Yeah, that's not so much pigeonholing as accurate naming. If you turned up for the gravity enduro series expecting it to be the same as the dyfi, or vice versa, you'd have reason to be pissed off I think...

Though hopefully most people have the wits to read the event descriptions too!

You need to be able to write your own name to collect your number, too.

Well I am still waiting northwind... As you may be aware things look different on camera.
I want to inners and wasn't impress with the DH track and the XC track... Each to their own

You're waiting for what Juan? [i]I'm[/i] waiting for you to admit you were wrong, in the hope that people aren't put off real enduro racing by your post...

I'm confused - Juan's vids show some proper meaty enduro stages on the side of a farly big hill. The camera hides steepness but looking at the bike when it runs off the brakes I would say some of it is very steep. The Inners track was plenty fun but used pretty low consequence trails with no jumps/drops or really nasty rocks I guess for people's safety/insurance.

Enduro as a term in the UK has in the past meant long grinding endurance races in the past on rather featureless courses. The UK now has some events under the enduro banner that follow the Euro way of doing it. And good on em I say

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the Innerleithen event was massively difficult, but after watching some bombing down fireroad and some fast riding along smooth-as-a-babies-bottom singletrack, I've just seen the first rock in one of Juan's vids and it's 3 minutes into the stage. Like I say I've not watched all of the 3 vids because of the length but everything I've seen seems to rely on speed and a bit of gradient for its challenge, except for the pushing up bits. Oh and a bit of rocks at 7 minutes which looks like more fun.

It looks like great fun but considering the way he's steamed into this thread I was expecting some sort of super-gnar, as far as I can tell his videos are just the same thing as we did, but with longer simpler tracks.

Northwind speaks sense. I am the first to take the piss out of 'Mountain Mayhem' for being riding laps round a muddy field - but the descents at Ae, Innerleithen, Kielder etc are nothing like that, even without the special stages.

It's a great format imo - confusion over the name aside. If I wasn't still recovering from CFS I would be doing some of the UK gravity enduro series like a shot.

So are there any links to these gravity enduros then so I can have a look? Locations and entry costs, dates etc?

http://www.ukgravityenduro.co.uk/public/default.aspx

They seem to be doing most of the enquiries through their facebook page, hang on...

<man I hate facebook>

So basically northwind you are telling me that rock = difficult?
Is that what you are telling me?

Tom Zesty - second post of this thread. 😉

Juan - shut up. 🙂

Northwind - cheers, this looks perfect. Just got to decide which ones to enter now!
Grumm - second post?

This is a comparison I use to riders about the series, you go to a trail centre with a group of mad for it MTBers, you'll probably cruise on up to the first bit of downward pointing trail, have a quick chat/piss take, then attempt to rag the living hell out of your bike till the section finishes.
Does that sound familiar??
If the answers yes, then the Gravity Enduro is for you, because that is exactly what it's like, but you'll have 5 chances to rip the piss 😀
Hope that helps
Cheers
Steve

<edit- I was suggesting to Tom you speak to the organisers, well, here's one, listen to him not me>

Still not sure whether to enter myself, I'm not totally sure I'm fit enough to do the routes 😳 I was absolutely shattered at the last event and that was only 3 stages. But if it comes out even half as good as it looks, it should be a hell of a series. Kielder's filling up fast...

Steve, is it actually going to be on the trail centre trails? The website says "normally run on an existing red route cross country loop" but then you mentioned before that round 3 would probably have some similiar trails to the enduro the other week, and that barely touched the trail centre routs. Just wondering...

Even on the European/not XC version things like mega are a straight race aren't they ... no rally style sections? Blooming confusing.

Well megavalanche is not an enduro ;-). The 1001 enduro tour is. And if northwind thinks red route are harder than levens I am just wetting myself or getting much more confused about what you define as technical?

Juan, I hope for your sake you're intentionally misunderstanding as some sort of low quality troll attempt. The Innerleithen Racing event wasn't on the red routes, as I've already explained (it did use 2 short sections as link trails) Oh in case you're still struggling it wasn't in a muddy field either.

It'd be great if you'd just stop it as you're not just derailing a thread and looking daft, you're misleading people about these events for no obvious reason despite being corrected, and that's bang out of order considering the amount of work these guys put into it.

Northwind - Inners will be a near perfect 50/50 mix of trail centre surface and natural trail, get on it and enter yourself, you know you want to, you would'nt be asking if you did'nt 🙂

Juan - For the record, the 3 organisers are all racers, you will NOT be riding round any flat fields if you enter a 661 Gravity Enduro race 😉

juan - Member
If you're in the UK you'll be riding around a muddy field during 6 hours.

Never been in Scotland then?

In Poland there is enduro racing series called Enduro Trophy. The formula of the race is following:
5 special stages: 1x uphill, 1x interval (traverse), 3x downhill. They are linked together. Time is measured only on these stages. I think it's very similar to the UK Gravity Enduro and demands quite well riding technique because of difficulty level, especially on the downhills. There are 5 editions of the race this year, of course each one in different location. Here You have some footage from last edition (21.05.2011) located in the Sudety Mountains - Black Mountain Resort (Czarna Góra)
http://www.pinkbike.com/video/198093/
they are just about to start new version of the web also in English so You can check it out soon:
http://endurotrophy.pl/

Is an endurance event not like a MTB Marathon? 100km of excellent trails in the mountains? No muddy fields in sight?

I wish people would stop going on about muddy fields, I've never raced around a muddy field in all the events I've done. I've raced untold miles of good singletrack though.

Back on topic - what about those Kona Mash Up races? Are they doing any more?

molgrips - Member
Back on topic - what about those Kona Mash Up races? Are they doing any more?

No because they never worked right!

The UK Gravity Enduro is the current replacement

Kielder is next and 4/5 trails are on the normal red/black, just waiting to see what Steve P puts in for a "natural" stage. I'm guessing another forest/rooty section but hoping for something a bit more open & natural

Yes, an Endurance event is exactly an MTB Marathon, the UCI have some rules and definitions somewhere, if you can find them on the most un-interrogatable website ever. Can be laps of a course like Mountain Mayhem (muddy fields or not) or point to point like the Merida series.

An Enduro event on the other hand will involve probably about the same distance of riding, but in a single loop, and you are only timed on the special stages, which will be mainly sections of descent.

Yes, it would be good if organisers were consistent about this !!

Was chatting to Steve at the weekend one of the Gravity series organisers about getting some rules set up for Enduros that we can all work towards, makes life easier for all.