Enduro vs DH participation in the UK

What would I like to read about ?

– What bike company’s think of direct to customer brands like YT and Canyon

– What will happen to LBS, do they have a future and where is it

– Do DH / Enduro / XC riders take drugs, how do the drugs help, does it matter

– What products are crap and why

– What will happen to bike magazines, will they die or end up super niche

– How much money does a pro DH / Enduro / XC rider earn

– How much does it cost to do the DH series

– Could Rachel win on any bike

– What motivates Gee to keep going

– Why don’t roadies say hi to mountain bikers

Basically the sort of stuff you cant read about in STW, Pinkbike, GMBN, Cranked etc..  There are lots of places to get info from so you need to provide something that is better and different.

If you’re looking to do some more analysis, I’d be intrigued to see how the numbers look when you exclude people whose only enduro race is Ard Rock, as this seems to attract a large number of riders who are there for the experience and atmosphere rather than racing.

Stereotype alert! Why just pick ard rock? Tweedlove has a great atmosphere too, as a lot of races do, how ye gonna measure this? With your atmosphereometer? 😁

I personally drive 4 hours each way for the riding, to be able to ride on trails I can’t really do at any other time. I could easily do without the whole apres riding tbh.

Great stuff @Trimix I’ll add those to our list!

– What products are crap and why

Is actually the main reason we started the blog. Lack of honest harsh reviews, so in the future we aim to build up a good back catalog of honest, impartial reviews (good and bad).

Do some proper back to back tyre reviews in real life.  Everyone always asks what tyre for ……………blah, blah, blah and all we ever get are subjective comments.

Get some and then measure how fast you can take a corner on them.  Do it scientifically and objectively.

how ye gonna measure this? With your atmosphereometer?

The races that throw the most free gifts into the crowd are the atmospherist, obviously.

Stereotype alert! Why just pick ard rock? Tweedlove has a great atmosphere too

Assumption rather that stereotype – I assume that Ard Rock accounts for a large amount of the ‘one event per year’ type riders.

In all seriousness, if the point of the blog is to assess the health of the UK gravity race scene following the collapse of the national series, I think it’s worthwhile noting the distinction between the races and the festival style events.

That’s a good idea. Quite like the idea of splitting them up by region too to see if there is anything interesting going on there.

If you need help with that let me know.

Tbh I don’t even think the health of the gravity scene can really be measured by race numbers. Most of my riding mates have been through the whole SES race calendar, but don’t generally bother anymore, but all still ride those types of trails at Ae,  inners etc, as well as stuff we’ve built locally.

And the likes of Inners muddies the waters, you’ll very rarely see many actual dh bikes on the uplift any more, but plenty single corners riding the dh tracks.

Joe Barnes was 6th in the national dh at the weekend on an enduro bike….

Aside from the Enduro discussion, I read the conclusion.. and the apostrophe error (What a twonk: Apostrophe fail and I closed the page. If you can’t be arsed to do it right, I can’t be arsed to read it.)

I like the site. :-)

I take that back! Your logo – the one above “Because Mountain Biking is Shit” – you spell ‘Dissapointment’ [sic] wrong :lol:

From some of the comments in this thread you do start to wonder if there’s space for a slightly less “full on” version of Enduro.

A single day event, no practise sessions, no prescribed order for the times stages or cutoffs, just passive timing, course opens at say 08:30, closes at 15:00 results and podiums 15:30 everyone off home by 16:30… *

*To note I’ve not done any UKGE or other Enduro racing myself so what I described may already exist, but the impression I have is that you have basically to give up a whole weekend and it’s quite a tightly controlled format…

Tbh I don’t even think the health of the gravity scene can really be measured by race numbers

That’s why i specified ‘gravity race scene’. The number of 160mm bikes and sold out uplifts suggests that gravity riding as a whole is healthy enough, but the challenge for event organisers is getting these riders to part with their money in advance.

From some of the comments in this thread you do start to wonder if there’s space for a slightly less “full on” version of Enduro.

A single day event, no practise sessions, no prescribed order for the times stages or cutoffs, just passive timing, course opens at say 08:30, closes at 15:00 results and podiums 15:30 everyone off home by 16:30… *

Cookeaa, you’ve just described the Southern Enduro QECP Mash Up

From some of the comments in this thread you do start to wonder if there’s space for a slightly less “full on” version of Enduro.

There’s plenty of options for that, Southern, Welsh and Pedalhounds are all single day events with varying formats and the ones I’ve done are definitely far from “full on”. It’s the national series they’re struggling to get right.

 Cookeaa, you’ve just described the Southern Enduro QECP Mash Up

Oh interesting, and actually I do remember doing a similar format “mash up” event at Afan about a decade ago, of course that was before “Enduro” was really a thing… I might have to sign up for one next year. Cheers.

I think Mark88 hits the nail on the head there.

Ard Rock  is a stand alone festival rather than part of a series. The old DH series required a commitment over weeks or months to race each event. The festival events don’t encourage this to continue. I think a lot of riders will go to a uk Bike park a couple of times a year that suits them their mates family  or work commitments  plus Ard Rock and that’s them “travelling” to ride. Rather than driving to the four corners of the earth to race on fixed weekends. Which require a more fixed commitment.

Aye, I agree on quite a lot too tbh, but I’d say dh was definitely more of a commitment, enduro is something that can be dipped in and out of, as it’s so close in nature to our ‘normal’ riding.

SES over the last few years had became a bit of a boaby waving contest tbh,  who could put on fastest steepest descents, looks to have eased off a bit, but that will put some off as well.

Maybe another reason ard rock is as popular, if you’re a fairly decent rider, it’s not really difficult, just flat out fun. Lots of guys that race AR would shit a brick at the tweed valley or Dunkeld steep stuff in rainy season!

Data, smata!!!

If you’re going to completely ignore Northern Ireland then i’d officially like to ask you to replace all references to UK with Great Britain. :D

Just had a look, Roots and Rain puts NI races under Ireland.

https://www.rootsandrain.com/event-map/filters/2018,ie,en/

Ill update the data with these!