EWS 2013 Season Round-up - Part 2
Round Five:
Whistler, Canada
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 This time out there were a couple of days' practice and a single fay of racing which mixed pedal transfers and longer, lift-accessed stages. For the first time the Crankworx left the confines of the bike part to take in some of the amazing trails around the town For the grand finale, racers would tackle the entire Top of the World trail, roughly half an hour of descending at the leaders' pace. |
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| For Fabien Barel, controversy swept over him before the race even began. He drove to the bottom of one of the trails, which the race organisers adjudicated to be shuttling and he received a five minute penalty, effectively ending his race weekend before it even began. |
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| Using the whole trail network, it's fair to say that the Whistler enduro killed off any worries that coming to North America might mean dull racing on uninspiring "flow" trails. |
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| After some ups and downs in his season, this was the day it all came together for Graves. Jerome went into the final stage with a small lead, but a heroic ride on the final, and longest, stage of the day was enough for the Aussie powerhouse to take his first EWS victory and the $10,000 prize purse. |
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| For the fifth race of the season, Moseleys incredible run of wins was put to an end by Anne-Caroline Chausson. |
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| It may not have been her day, but second was enough to put Tracy one step closer to the main prize: the series title. |
Round Six:
Val D'Isere, France
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| Racing in France meant French rules - no practice, ski lifts and a brutal amount of descending over the two days of racing. This weekend was a special one though, and Sunday would be the Enduro of Nations competition, where national teams of three riders would compete for the countries in mass-start races. |
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| Graves, riding high of his win, set the early pace, putting 21 seconds into Clementz over the first two stages. |
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| Chausson was also bringing her post-victory form with her, as she pulled out a small lead over the first two stages. Unfortunately, on the longer, more physical stages in the afternoon she couldn't match the fitness of Moseley and Ravanelle. |
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| After lunch the weather decided it had been sunny enough and a thunderstorm closed in, disrupting the lift service and leaving riders huddling in the top lift station waiting for things to break. |
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| A sign of things to come. Martin Maes time meat he would have been running third after the first two stages, but he is too young to be counted in the senior rankings. |
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| On the longer, more physical afternoon stage, both Barel and Clementz capitalised and pulled past Graves. |
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| Come Sunday morning, things weren't looking too hopeful with the weather... |
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| With the bad weather, the organisers decided to cancel the mass-start races that were scheduled for the afternoon. |
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| Another consistent performance gave Cecile Ravanelle another third place and cemented her grasp on second in the overall standings. |
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| Moseley's day didn't start well, losing ground to Chausson on the first stage, but on the second stage she utterly dominated, putting 29 seconds into Chausson to take what looked like the win and wrap up the series title with a race to spare. |
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| Graves wanted this bad - he pushed so hard he tracked down Clementz on the last stage and the two sprinted it out to the finish line together... |
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| Unfortunately Clementz had too much of a lead and all of Jareds work could only land him second spot. With his fourth win of the season Clementz tied up the title race with a race to spare. |
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| After putting in a huge ride to see off Chausson it was heartbreak for Moseley. She picked up a 30 second penalty for losing her number board, which was enough to give the win to Chausson... Still, once the dust had settled and the points were counted, she realised that second was enough to give her the season title with a race to spare. |
Round Seven:
Finale Ligure, Italy
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| After feedback from the riders, the format was changed from the first round of the season in Punta Ala. Where in Punta Ala the course was released three weeks before the race, in Finale it was released on the Wednesday before the race so riders had two days' practice. Racing was then split over two days and the prologue was dropped. |
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| Racing in Liguria meant a return to all-pedalled transfers for racers. |
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| It was knife edge stuff on Saturday, after a day of racing there was just 0.1 seconds separating Clementz and Graves. |
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| The man that could have been... Should have been... It looked like Nico Lau's weekend, putting in a stunning ride and ten seconds into both Clementz and Graves. He was undone by a missed timecheck - a time penalty out him back down the order and denied him the win, dropping him 50 seconds back. |
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| Chausson's comeback continued on the Saturday, taking stages two and three to hold the overnight lead. |
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| A tenth of a second for the overnight lead, it wasn't much, but a lead is a lead. |
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| Barel went down on the final stage, meaning that third in the scratch standings went to teenage sensation, Martin Maes. |
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| Although Maes may have technically overtaken him, in the overall results, Barel still held onto third overall, to finish the season with yet another podium. |
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| Chausson watched her overnight lead disappear into the dust as she slipped back to the second spot. |
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| Moseley was back to her usual form, winning the final race of the season to make it clear why she deserves the title of champion so much. |
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| At the front of the men's competition, the racing was tighter than some of Graves' line choices. |
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| In the end, the talented, little Frenchman showed the Aussie powerhouse how it's done, putting the icing on his series title with his fourth win of the season. |
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| The overall women's series podium. |
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| Your three top men from the 2013 Enduro World Series. |
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Enduro is great and but it's pathetic that the promoters of the EWS aren't even making attempts at providing live coverage of the races when it would actually be fairly easy and very entertaining. The formula is easy, when will they listen? Put a gopro on about 10 racers and then just switch around the live camera feed throughout the day.
But World Cup DH will always be the big show with the big bikes, big jumps, and steep, dangerous tracks. I did see a couple pictures above of steep sections, but overall enduro is flat compared to real DH racing.
And trust me, enduro is not flat compared to anything. Ok, in the USA it might be, but in Europe and South America it's a real sport.
Most ski resorts have wireless connection available, so it would definitely be possible at some of the races. The Shimano camera would make it possible, I don't know if gopro has the same connectivity features.
m.pinkbike.com/news/Shimano-Joins-in-With-a-POV-Camera-System.html
"• Advanced connectivity and intelligent integration – The CM-1000 utilizes WiFi connectivity and custom iOS and Android apps for mobile devices to allow live views, video playback, remote adjustments to camera settings and shot framing."
It wouldn't be too difficult, just need a guy in a van switching between the cameras and putting it on the web. The racers wouldn't mind wearing the cameras if it meant more publicity for the sponsors, and it would probably be a lot cheaper than what RedBull has to pay to broadcast a World Cup race with all those paid camera people.