French Enduro Cup, Round One - Samoens
Jun 26, 2012
France is the first country to have a national cup for enduro. That should be no surprise in the country that held the first enduro race back in 2003. Tribe Events were the people who ran that first race and have been running a series in France since 2005. When the French Cycling Federation wanted to start a national cup, Tribe were the obvious people to turn to.
Samoens was where they decided to start their second season of the National Cup. Sitting about 30km away from Les Gets, Samoens is a place that most people who have ridden in the Portes du Soleil have probably seen road signs for, but never followed them. If they had come this far, what they would have found is a pretty alpine town, a scattering of telecabines and around a thousand metres of vertical descending to play with...
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 In those dark clouds there was rain, biblical amounts of it. They poured their contents down on the town in sheets on Thursday night, setting the ground conditions under the trees for the rest of the weekend. It's the old sum: loam + massive amounts of rain = sliding sideways down the hill. |
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| Things were much clearer on Friday morning, and stayed that way for the rest of the weekend, but the damage was already done. |
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| Friday practice, French-style. With these Tribe enduros, there is no practice before the race (just like in moto enduros), you are allowed to walk the lines, but the first time you ride the track will be your race run. With the huge elevation on hand, few people had the stomach for walking the full distances ahead of the race, only a few of the dedicated pros took Friday to fully scope the lines. |
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| In the big mountains, there's only one sensible way to go up... Although there were 200 or so vertical metres of climbing to reach the stage on Sunday. |
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| Alex Balaud has been with Tribe since that first race back in 2003, today he is the man responsible for making sure the tracks are ready to race - clearing electric fences, checking tape and generally making sure it is safe. That also means he gets to ride the virgin tracks on the Friday, just to make sure of course... you can clearly see he has no fun doing it. What you might not know is that Alex is also a former World Cup downhiller, and was teammates with Francois Gachet and Anne Caroline-Chausson back in the Sunn days in the early 1990s. |
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| All 300 hundred entries for this race sold out in about a week... There were some familiar names among them. |
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| You know a race is a big deal when you get both the Pantling brothers, Sam and Toby, in town for it. |
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| Although there are three to five runs a day, there's still time to relax at the top before you go to the gate. Everyone prepares differently (L- R, Nico Vouilloz, Tracy Moseley and Vittorio Gambirassio). |
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| A quick hand from the marshal to get you balanced for the first sprint and then it's off into the unknown... |
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| Anka Martin heading towards the third stage - if in doubt stand on the pedals. |
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| On Saturday, riders ran the first track twice, the second twice and the third once. On Sunday it was three runs down the one track. The fastest guys came in with a combined time of around two hours' of descending over the course of the race. |
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| Because people were riding blind, it was interesting to see what lines they took. In a downhill race where everyone had plenty of time to practice, everybody would be cutting through this corner, but as they didn't know where they were aiming, there were nearly as many approaches as riders. |
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| Nico was dominant all weekend long. On Sunday morning he broke his chain, but as the race was so long (and he was so fast), there was time for him to recover from dropping 30 seconds on one stage. That's one of the big things for serious racers with this kind of enduro format, there is room over the weekend to make a few mistakes and still pull a result out of the bag. |
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| Of course, if you do total your tyre like this, it's a big ask to come back from it... |
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| Morgane Jonnier, chasing down the guy ahead of her. |
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| The start for Sunday's stage sat along side this stunning, alpine lake. |
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| Remy Absalom couldn't quite reach Nico this weekend, but bagged a solid second place overall. |
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| Francois Bailly-Maitre was fastest out of everyone on Sunday, working his way up to the third spot on the podium. |
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| Vittorio Gambirasio came over the border to represent Italy this weekend. He's only twenty one, which is young for an enduro racer, but always looks like he's having so much fun on the bike. |
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| Baptiste Gaillot churning up the fresh loam. |
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| The dark trees and strong sunlight made things difficult on Sunday, both on the bike and behind the camera. |
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| As there's no practice, a lot of people choose to watch the top riders go off to pick up lines and techniques. |
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| Sunday's stage started with a short sprint along the side of the lake, then a short, brutal up, before you got into the descent properly. |
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| Forward planning from Sam Pantling: the sun hat was a very good call with the wait at the top in between runs. |
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| James Richards, Tracy Moseley's mechanic, showed he's equally good on the bike as well as repairing one, with a top 30 finish. |
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| Nico, cutting his own line on the final stage. |
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| It looks like moving to enduro is a good move for Tracy - she destroyed the women's field by seven and a half minutes. |
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| Twenty minute stages are tough on the hands and wrists - Sam Pantling trying to get some relief. |
For for full results and more information about the series go to:
www.tribe-events.com
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Maybe some new tyres? Forks and shocks seem to be there already
