paddyb – Member

I guess the issue for me really is that if its unofficial then the rules don’t apply.

Not really- it can be official but unmarshalled. Like, SES allows practicing on the saturday after the marshall cover stops. It’s still part of the official practice, you just know that you don’t have your hands held. The rules do still apply though so if you saw anything objectionable you can always report riders. (yes I have grassed people!)

Shuttling can be fairly reasonable- like, at the scottish nats, shuttling by road between inners and gt on practice day was specifically allowed because it only removed the big transitions, there wasn’t much reason to force people round the big loop. But shuttling to stages can be pretty obnoxious. I think it’s something that mostly self-regulates since it’s not often practical to actually get to a stage start but sometimes it needs extra attention.

I guess it was like EWS where it said in the rules that shuttling was allowed on the main road for practice so then its fair game.
To be fair grizedale is probably the only round where shuttling would be possible but I havent been at any other venue on a friday.

My pet hate in practice is the amount pushing up tracks or standing on the edge or even sessioning sections for 2days pre race.

In a ideal world I would have a restricted practice giving the racing field chance to ride the loop and check content, followed by 2stages which would account towards your seeding/overall followed by 4+stages next day.
Nice balanced weekend controlling practice, giving you chance to ride with mates then into a seeded stages the following day.

I’m in two minds about unofficial practice…on one hand, being able to make more of a weekend of it and get an extra day of riding the trails in is great, particularly if you’ve travelled a long way…on the other hand, it favours people who can get there on a Friday and leaves those who have to travel far and can’t get the time off work at more of a disadvantage.

Living in Cornwall means getting to 3 of the UKGE rounds (Grizedale, Hamsterly and Ae) has been an all day drive up on the Friday so Saturday’s been my only chance to recce the stages. Hamsterley was a short loop so I could practice most stages at least once but Ae was a big loop, so I rode each stage just the once and missed practicing Stage 5 (although I had walked it) due to time and to save some energy for seeding and the next day. I messed up big time on Stage 4, completely missing a diversion sign and headed down Stage 1 (!) – if I’d had time to practice Stage 4 more than once then I might not have made such a silly and costly mistake.

IMHO, in the name of fairness to all riders, there should be no unofficial practice and just one session for all – but I appreciate that once the course is marked out, it’s difficult to stop people riding unless there are marshalls everywhere, which is a logistical problem and extra expense for organisers…so I’m not sure what can be done!

endurofactory – Member

My pet hate in practice is the amount pushing up tracks or standing on the edge or even sessioning sections for 2days pre race.

It’s a key part of the EWS experience, this- Fabian Barel staring intently at an apparently completely uninteresting bit of trail. What does he see? Is he actually asleep? Thinking about boobs?

wideopenmag have picked up the story.

Tested : Ben’s Endura MT500 Spray Trouser Review.

what makes them offical?

poah – Member

what makes them offical? There not just like the UKGE wasn’t.

poah – Member
what makes them offical?

why does it matter?

why does it matter?

oooo defensive PR guy – it doesn’t really matter but they do seem to bill themselves as the offical UK enduro series like the UKGE did.

If you were aiming on completing the whole series and to be crowned National Champ, then I would think it would matter.
For the likes of me, its just a farce but at the end of the day, means more options and less temptation/disruption trying to reach other ends of the country to race 🙂

having two means there is likely to be two races you can enter locally. I’ve not got the time nor money to galavant around the UK but if two races are local it gives a chance to choose one or do both. can only be a good thing for a lot of people.

There is the potential to enter 7-8 high end enduros locally with these two added to the calander

Unless your top ten finisher, then it doesn’t matter- you’ve got 2 potentially good national series to choose from!

And to do a bit of defensive PR I don’t think UKGE ever billed themselves as ‘official’. They were the defacto national series as they were the only one that covered the whole of the UK, that they also happened to be the best, that packed in the longest routes, most professional set up, best mix of trails, attracted the top teams and racers and most amount of riding time of any series in the UK might also have been a factor 🙂

There is the potential to enter 7-8 high end enduros locally with these two added to the calander

Sounds like the makings of a local series without all the organising work. Tot up the results from all the local enduros over the season, apply points system for each one and viola you can crown a local champion at the end of it.

superfli – Member

If you were aiming on completing the whole series and to be crowned National Champ, then I would think it would matter.

Mystic Northwind predicts- the one with the glossiest sheen, highest price, most familiar venues and most embuggeration gets accepted as the righteous Real Nationals. And most people will ride the other one.

This is a good interview with one of the protagonists…

The Interview | Neil Delafield on his 2016 British Enduro Series

Round 1 will be at Brechfa

Anyone whos done one of Neil’s events before kind enough to explain how 3 stages on sat and 3 on sunday makes a 10 stage 2 day race?

Ta!

i think they repeat 2 stages each day?

tom and aidan have done them

wtf is Brecfa?

Anyone whos done one of Neil’s events before kind enough to explain how 3 stages on sat and 3 on sunday makes a 10 stage 2 day race?

That’s is massively confusing, Guess:

Sat:

S1
S2
S3

Sun:

S1
S2
S3
S4
S5
S6
S1

brechfa is a trail centre, further west and up round the edge a bit from Afan

trails are goof fun, though its been a while

its 7 stages day1

10 stages day 2

they should get that typo sorted then!

kimbers – Member

brechfa is a trail centre, further west and up round the edge a bit from Afan

trails are goof fun, though its been a while

its 7 stages day1

10 stages day 2
No I think the one day race is on the sunday mate

Still confused… 🙁

I’ve ridden a lot of the off piste stuff round there with Jay from Mudtrek – it’s bloody good, lots of steep, off camber rooty and rocky madness. As Jay’s helping with that round I reckon he’ll be hunting out some choice runs 🙂

Sorry, 5 pages in and I’m still confused.

Quick questions:

1. Who decides the national champion in the absence of that country’s governing body?
2. Has anyone dropped in the ‘I am Spartacus’ gag yet?

Which one is the Judean People’s Front?

and 10 stages in one day? That is one massive day out!

. Who decides the national champion in the absence of that country’s governing body?

Wouldn’t worry about it, just know that there’s a shit tonne of great races to do next year!

We have never had an enduro national champion so why do we need on next year GavinB?

Well, now we could have two. Do they have a race off at the end of the season, to see who the supreme champion is?

Without BC or some sort of enduro federation there will be no national campion. They will just be winners of the series they have entered in.

The reason British Cycling are not involved in Enduro is simply because of lack of officials to do the thing justice and therefore keep the risks under any sort of meaningful control. It is not because “they” don’t want to support it. Overall there are too few Downhill qualified commissaires and there are waaaay too few to cover Enduros where each section really needs an official on it.

The reality for all cycling is they are getting spanked over insurance cover (i.e. something of an exponential rise in premiums due to the number of hefty claims) and are therefore having to tighten up on procedures.

Despite imaginations running wild about resources and staffing, the reality is that the vast majority of people actually doing things with a BC hat on are volunteers from within the discipline which they are officiating at. A lack of volunteers equals a lack of officials. A lack of officials equals a lack of racing. Simple really.

The reality for all cycling is they are getting spanked over insurance cover (i.e. something of an exponential rise in premiums due to the number of hefty claims) and are therefore having to tighten up on procedures.

Symptomatic of people today who buy a mountain bike to ride at mach10 down an Enduro stage (of their own free will) and then run crying to mummy when it goes wrong for them….only in this case ‘mummy’ is a vulture-like no win/no fee solicitor who will try and take BC, the organisers and whoever else they can blame instead of the numpty riding the bike who ran out of talent.

spectator safety possibly weighs heavily in the insurance costs/conditions…

and then run crying to mummy

Take your point, but actually its not like that. What actually happens is rider stacks….major injury necessitating life long care occurs….. person receiving bill for life long care seeks to mitigate their loss by going after anyone and everyone who might be culpable…… Persons covering said events bottoms begin to squeak….. everything gets tightened up.

Generally speaking the person who is injured or killed has no input whatsoever into what happens afterwards. Sadly, there is no such concept as “at your own risk” in English Law, so you cannot contract out of your rights, so this is the way its going to be and it always was the case that it would. Best idea is to run things properly, and if we want to do this stuff, take our turn at standing up and volunteering.

spectator safety possibly weighs heavily in the insurance-costs…

If that is referring to what I think its referring about, I would repeat my last sentence i.e.

Best idea is to run things properly……….

Thinking that you need a Commissaire at the start and finish of each stage is the DH mindset that has dogged Enduro in the UK since the start. (See also: two day events, seeding runs, millionths of a second timing systems, full face helmets, letting people sleep in their vans at the race and bring their dogs with them, and finishing in an “arena”.)

IMPO the whole “not enough Commissaires” was the excuse, not the reason.

Go on then list all the Downhill comms you know….