[Closed] What IS Enduro - seriously!?

rsvktm - Member

You missing getting heckled at HTN Pete ?

Hiya!

Yep.
🙂

Big HtN shaped hole in my life - I should be panicking round about now and assembling a huuuge list of excuses.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enduro_(mountain-biking)

HtN is what Enduro would love to be.......

So you don't know what it is but you're already sneering at it OP?

Well done you.

I don't even ride....and I sneer at it.

I applaud you Sir!

Considering I have been a biker for as long as I remember and keep relatively up to date with new info.
This one has me stumped!

Whilst you're busy sneering at enduro I'll sneer at how massively thick you are.

For me Enduro is another aspect of MTBing that I just can't afford. File it alongside most of the stuff that appears on Fridays fresh goods. £50 tyres, £100 shorts, £1000 wheels etc. Now I'm not being bitter but I feel like mountain biking is just becoming another middle class consumer driven past time. It feels like some people are obsessed with having the latest this or that, thinking it'll make them or the experience better. The last round of the SES had a few people throwing toys out of prams when their mince tanks (copyright Northwind) didn't help them when the going got tough. At least as somebody else said it does mean that there's lots of second hand stuff out there. If it wasn't for that and the likes of On-One I'd probably pack it all in and take up something less expensive like power boat racing.

YELLOW!?! YELLOW!?!

FFS. And all this time I thought it was about blue.

And yellow is 15% more gnarr. No wonder I'm slow.

For me Enduro is another aspect of MTBing that I just can't afford.

Don't think you need to have an expensive bike to get involved. Surely the whole point of it is its accessible. Sure you could spend 6k on a bronson, but equally you could compete on a 1k giant trance and you wouldn't be massively disadvantaged

You're not wrong Steven... But I reckon for every carbon fibre wonderbike being ridden by an incompetent there's at least a handful of battlescarred "all mountain" bikes with #nonduro obsolete 26 inch wheels and no primary colours... The bikes don't have to be expensive but the entry fees do add up.

Sure some folks will think they "need" something else but twas ever thus, to me it still feels mostly run what you brung- you see xc bikes, the odd downhill bike...

(Is mincetank one of mine? It's good, I'll take the credit...)

It's still £40+ to enter a race, add a few quid on top for bits and pieces and then time off work and I'd be about £200 worse off. I find it hard to justify spending money on bike parts as it is so that kind of money for a race is hard to swallow.

I have done 1 enduro ( tweedlove king of the hill ) so feel some what of an expert on the matter . Basically i got to spend two days riding a slection of pretty fun trails , some of them were a bit harder than the trails i was use to but i just about managed to get down in one piece .
The second day i had to dib a timer at the top and bottom of the trails and this made me want to go as quick as possible , this was not as quick as the lots of people who overtook me but they were all very nice about it .To get to the top of the trails i had to ride up the hill , by the last time up i was pretty knackered .
I just rode the bike i had but i did use it as an excuse to get a dropper post .
All in all it was a really good weekend and when you looked at all the effort the organisers had put in i thought it was pretty good value for money . Give it a try you might like it

For all the blinged up mince tanks I see at enduro races, those on cheaper older bikes (including hardtails) seemed to be having as much fun - and not always slower either! Earlier this year at a local race a guy a occasionally ride with managed top 15% on an old Sovereign with old Pikes - I was miles behind him on my enduro compliant 27.5 Piked/CCDBA'd super slack full-sus. The one thing everyone seemed to have in common was big grins once we'd passed the finish line and caught our breath.

If you want to know what the riding is like, look at who the older competitors are - very few retired XC racers, lots of retired DHers.

Has anyone here done an enduro race and not enjoyed it (apart from when the weather was so hideous it turned into a reenactment of The Somme)?

[img] [/img]

Enduro = a sportive where you can wear colourful clothings and looks cool and also bling bikes... Purple seatclamps ..things like that.. ( the riders who are riding upfront in the race in lycra's have no idea what is all about..duh! 🙄 )

Enduro = a sportive where you can wear colourful clothings and looks cool and also bling bikes ( the riders who are riding upfront in the race in lycra's have no idea what is all about..duh! )

Are you the OP under a different login?

Nope.. My other login is banned for 900 yrs iirc

Love enduro format event though.. Cant wait next year 😀

ntykint - Member
Whoever that numpty is a few posts up that says downhill is for people too lazy to climb - you haven't a clue have you

Bite. I said "may be considered". As in some people think that, not me.

Meh.

It's fun.

This is Enduro.

What you're talking about is poncing about in the woods with flouro gear and a bottle cage. 😉

I know what Enduro is, and it's much better without the STW haterz 🙂

Perhaps they should run their own niche core SS Semi Hard Mostly Fat Try Hard races for 37p entry with a gazillion pound prize pot and free grumpiness for all entrants with extra mocking and scorn lessons available. There would need to be a lot of bridges for the trolls to hide under too.

^^Love it!

Spot prizes for beard merit and a handicap system based on how many hip flasks and woodpile axes carried...... 😉

A late entry for "post of the year" from mikewsmith. 😀

mikewsmith

There would need to be a lot of bridges for the trolls to hide under too.

See the current "bridges i ride under/over" thread for details! 😉

singlespeedstu

This is Enduro.

jeez, those^^^ bikes take a beating eh!

Is it as gnarly as this?

Enduro = gullible folks spending shitloads on bikes/kit* they don't need !!!!!!

* shut up and take my money !!!! 🙂

After a years research, and absorbing all the media and marketing on Enduro, i can now categorically state that:

This IS enduro:
[img] [/img]

These ARE enduro:
[img] [/img]

This IS enduro:
[img] [/img]

This IS enduro:
[img] [/img]

This IS enduro:
[img] [/img]

This ISN't enduro:
[img] [/img]

😉

Careful now, the fat-bike fashionistas will be along shortly to tell you how a rigid fattie is all the bike you'll ever need, how they're faster on the trails than an Enduro-gnar machine, how they instantly put a smile on anybodys face etc etc yawn....

That blokes socks... Fantastic

It's a woman isn't it?...plaited hair coming out from the back of the helmet.....fat bikes; androgynous riding for those who like to blur the gender lines.

I do find it funny all thelse fat bike riding, lumbersexuals picking on #Enduro for being a ridiculous dayglo fashion fest full of Audi ****ers... People in glass houses hurling breeze blocks, etc...

The truth is that all these little recently added sub-niches have there relative merits, drawbacks and mindless fashion followingsbut I think they all add to the overall strength of cycling and the broad church that MTBing is IMO...

It's all equally ridiculous and awesome all at the same time. Carry on...

Thing that confuses me are local "Enduro" races near me, Gorrick and Brass Monkeys, seem to be XC races (aside from the races they actually describe as XC). Lycra guys, 29ers, short travel, nothing gravity, trails not super gnarly. They are based on amount of laps completed within the time I think. I'm no racer so don't know how a true XC race works by comparison.

Seems there's Enduro as in timed stage races, Gravity Enduro is the same but the stages are all downhill but ridden on trail and AM bikes, and then Enduro meaning Endurance which is different.

?

And then there's Enduro as in the lifestyle branding. Actually racing Enduro is an option. The look is everything.

And then there's Enduro as in the lifestyle branding. Actually racing Enduro is an option. The look is everything.

This only happened in your head though, didn't it?

^^

similarly, ARD Rock Enduro,

Ard Rock Enduro (40km lap, 5 timed stages) – Sunday 9 August 2015
‘Ard Rock Enduro Sport (35km, 3 timed stages) – Saturday 8 August 2015
‘Ard Rock All-Mountain Challenge (35km single timed lap) – Saturday 8 August 2015

that bottom ones a single lap xc race surely

chakaping - Member
This only happened in your head though, didn't it?

Well there seems to be a whole industry based on slapping the word Enduro on any product possible and people buy it to "be Enduro". Racing seems to have little to do with it.

And before that it was all mountain.
Before that it was free ride
Before that it was ....

Well there seems to be a whole industry based on slapping the word Enduro on any product possible and people buy it to "be Enduro". Racing seems to have little to do with it.

Yeah there's tons of marketing but these supposed enduro fashion victims don't actually exist, or I haven't met any of them. Even at enduro races.

Not done races so can't comment there, but plenty sport the Enduro look in the Surrey Hills, complete with the goggles and trail lid. Though arguably there's a practical element to the goggles.

And as I say the local "Enduro" races near me seem to be all XC riders, but then the formats don't appear to be Enduro anyway despite using Enduro in the race name. I don't know, this is what confuses me.

Ironically that third option at 'Ard Rock is the one that appeals to me the most. I'm sure the riding is fun at these Enduro wotsits, but when it comes to sorting out the 'results' I don't really understand why you ignore the uphill bits.

Well I do, it's DH racing for people that don't want to do DH racing, for whatever reason.

Nothing wrong with it, but it's a shame that there's so many people that aren't interested in trying on the climbs and we then don't have a series of xc races where the descents are properly good fun.

If you kept the stage format, but with ups and downs scored and a points system that balances out the value in being fast up and fast down (So that being 20s faster down the descent isn't negated by someone being a minute quicker on a 30 minute climb) you'd have something pretty cool. And keeping stages means you can set off people on the descents at good intervals so they're not ruined by mincers.

But I need to sort myself out and get out on my bike a lot more often before I start worrying about what races are out there!

I don't see whats so hard to understand about it. You're racing trails that vary from ones that could be ridden on an XC bike to ones a lot of people would ride DH bikes on (the breadth of mountain biking) on the lightest bike you can find because you also have to pedal uphill.

It's not the same as an XC race because an XC race is a race up the hills, i.e. pretty much always a sufferfest, and is not won by the best bike handler but the fittest person.

It's appealing because it makes a race out of the kind of trails that you would ride normally. If you want to ride those trails normally on a light titanium singlespeed 29er; that's great for you, but that isn't the fastest kind of bike over them. You can call it "a sunday XC ride", but all that implies is that you are going slowly. Unsurprisingly, if you wanted to race your mates down the kind of singletrack trails you ride in the UK on a regular basis, you'd probably want to be riding a 6 inch 650b bike.

But that's the sensible answer and most people in this thread are just trolling.

jeez, those^^^ bikes take a beating eh!

Have a look at the ISDE.
That kind of a beating for six days in a row with only rider maintenance on them and very limited spare parts.
And not a bottle cage in sight.

I do find it funny all thelse fat bike riding, lumbersexuals picking on #Enduro for being a ridiculous dayglo fashion fest full of Audi ****... People in glass houses hurling breeze blocks, etc...

Where's that then?
I'm just seeing a bit of banter and some people trying to adopt a name from a sport that's been going on for a long long time.

You're more than welcome to ride whatever bike you ride in whatever fashion you like.
Just remember one thing though.
It's all fanying about on kids toys in the woods. 8)

Even propper Enduro.

I went to a bike park once and was overwhelmed by all the DH fashion victims. Full face helmets, pads pretty much everywhere, loose fitting clothing and special "Downhill" bikes. As if you need all that to mince down a hill - it's just mountainbiking right? What a pathetic bunch of marketing victims.

Not to mention all the XC specific gear out there. It's basically just doing a few laps around the local woods so why would you need lycra or special jerseys or helmets or bikes for that? Just call it mountainbiking and be done with this silliness.

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