Enduro World Series to Feature Ireland in 2015

The Emerald Enduro - 2015 Enduro World Series Round 2 - On the weekend of the 23rd and 24th of May 2015 Ireland will host the second round of the Enduro World Series mountain bike race. The world’s top riders will line out in the Wicklow mountains for two days of racing over technical terrain in a rally style format with testing special stages.

Stage 1 is located in the heart of the ‘Garden of Ireland’, County Wicklow, in a stunning location and will be accessed by uplift service with the riders gradually making their way back to race HQ at the end of each day. Both days will feature six timed stages with a total distance of approximately 35km per day, starting and finishing at the race village. Practice will open on Thursday the 22nd and run for two days before the race itself starts on the Saturday.


Some 70 international journalists, photographers and film crews will descend on the race for the duration to document the goings on. An expo area will take place beside race HQ featuring some of the biggest brands in the sport. This will afford fans the opportunity to get up close and personal to the riders and their bikes in the racers pit area. The technical course has been specially curated with spectators in mind and to give maximum exposure to the athletes. The event village itself will be a focal point to the weekend as the riders depart individually and check in at the end of their day.


Irish round event organisers Biking.ie have a rich heritage in running bike racers in a variety of disciplines but most notably the highly successful domestic series, The Gravity Enduro, which had four rounds and a National Championships in 2014. This year also saw the second year Biking.ie have hosted a round of the Bluegrass Enduro International Tour which visited just this past weekend. Several Irish riders race on the world stage including regular top 20 rider Greg Callaghan and Junior rider Conor Lavelle who podiumed at the Scottish EWS round this year. EWS regulars such as 2013 champs Jerome Clementz and Tracy Moseley and podium regulars Joe Barnes and Rene Wildhaber have raced the Gravity Enduro series in the past.


Event organiser Niall Davis of Biking.ie had the following to say - “The trails here are natural and there’s no uplift, which should make for some incredible racing as riders have to be technically strong as well as very physically fit. But the reward for all that hard work will be getting to ride through Ireland’s famously beautiful scenery, not to mention sample some of the country’s world renowned hospitality."

The race takes place over two days - Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th of May. Enduro is virtually unique among top level world racing events in that regular riders can sign up to race alongside the world’s best on the same tracks. Racing takes place in a rally style format with timed (mainly downhill) stages and non-timed transitions between these stages.


2015 will be the third year of the Enduro World Series and sees the series move to eight rounds with new stops in New Zealand, Ireland and Spain and returning to Scotland, France, USA, Canada and Italy. Round three takes place one week after Ireland and will see the riders and their entourage decamp to Scotland before the series heads to Europe and North America.

For more information visit www.emeraldenduro.com