Enduro World Series: Val d'Allos Day One
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 Such a sleepy looking alpine village. Such amazing trails in the hills above. It's very much a Jekyll and Hyde kind of thing... |
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| You'd have to be a fool not in favor Jerome Clementz for the win here in Val d'Allos; he's won here five times already. But this is a STACKED field: Barel, Graves, Atherton, Absalon, and Vouilloz are no push-overs. |
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| Each bike gets six decals applied to it on official EWS tape to ensure that the racers use the same wheels, frame, and fork for the entire race. |
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| Racers lined up to get their bikes marked. |
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| Wild flowers a-poppin! |
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| The "new" course. |
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| Some sections of the track have been raced on multiple times. But that doesn't mean Fred Glo isn't going to change things up every now and again... sharp left into raw turf. |
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| Into the abyss on stage 2. The tape coming up from the bottom of the frame is to show that the riders must stick to the trail here; other sections are taped a bit more loosely to allow the racers to choose the fastest line. |
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| Stage one is about 14 minutes of full tilt boogie on trails so buffed that they would shame Sun Valley. Smooth, sinous singletrack? Check. Views? Check. Wild flowers going off? Check. |
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| Watch your head, low clearance. |
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| Fred Glo with a load of course markers across his back heading to track 4 to "fix things up a bit." |
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| Chris Ball, the man with the plan to create the EWS, dropping in on the start of Special Stage 3 and 4. While most of the track here is only as technical as you want to go fast, it gets real on stage 4. |
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| Hard to see the trail for the views, but Special Stage 3 is snaking down the ridge at the bottom of the frame. |
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| Val d'Allos is the birthplace of the modern enduro, and Fred Glo is the proud papa. |
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| Shaun Hughes prepping bikes in the Yeti pop up tent. |
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| Decidely old tech: Josh Carlson going back to the pre-lock on grip era with some wire twisted tight onto a glued on grip:"I don't like feeling the bulge of a lock on grip, but I really don't want my grips shifting, so a dash of old school." |
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| It's not really new tech, but Jerome Clementz will be running a power meter during racing. |
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| It may not be on the scale of a World Cup, but the pits are here, servicing riders. Ben Cruz getting a dash of SRAM love. |
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| A quick walk through the pits shows that Michelin Tires appears to be dedicating some time and energy back into mountain bike tires. The two treads seen here were both on front tires... speculate at will. |
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| Details, details, details...Jared Graves poring over the course map to determine what sections of track to walk. With five special stages and 10k meters of descending, walking everything is just not a strategically sound idea. |
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There is enough waiting around at races as itis, now you have to wait in a long line to have 6 hard-to-remove stickers applied all over my bike?
The biggest temptation to cheat is for locals who know all the "hot lins
Neg prop my post to hell, but you will never effectively provide any valid criticism of my posts.
The biggest temptation to cheat is for locals to take the "hotlines" that out-of-towners don't even see during course inspection. This is the oldest trick in the book and it's deservedly why locals have the local advantage.
I thought enduro racing was supposed to be like for realz bro racing, and that was the big appeal. I don't ever remember
waiting to put stickers on my bike before a ride to race against my homies after we climbed up the mountain.
if you really think your points are valid give me a situation in the first World Series enduro race where a racer would have changed his equipment to improve his results...
Also, the idea is ONE bike for the whole mountain, the whole weekend, all stages, everything. Enduro would be lame if you rode a carbon 29r hardtail up and a full DH rig back down.. thus the stickers.
QUESTION:
a racer is allowed to get off the bike for some portion of the liaison stage (just walk, instead of biking, in order to rest the legs)?
is there a penalty?
-when a rider reacher the start of the special stage, when does he enter it?
Start -10:30
PS1 -11:20
PS2 -12:50
and so on
You can walk whenever you want (and I think you can put your helmet off during walking).
maybe they can return to form seeing as they invented most of the tread patterns we take for granted now (high roller, minion etc)