Opinion: EWS Practice

This week Chris Ball wrote to riders about practice for the Crested Butte round of the Enduro World Series coming up next weekend. In his letter he touched on one of the biggest talking points in the pits this year - practice. It is a topic that has boiled to the surface every so often since Fred Glo's Tribe 10,000 in the 2003, the first true mountain bike enduro ever held. The reason why it is still unresolved 12 years later? Because there are no simple, clear answers to be had.

To understand the discussion around the Enduro World Series, you need to understand the two main influences that shaped the series: the French Enduro Series and Italy's Superenduro series. These are the two biggest and longest-standing series below the international level and their founders, Fred Glo and Enrico Guala, were taken into the Enduro World Series movement precisely because of this. Yet these two series took polar opposite approaches to practice.


In France the racing was always blind. The first time you saw the race trails were when you hit them on your race runs. In many ways this is the purest test of mountain bike rider possible, not only does it test bike handling and fitness, but a riders ability to read the terrain and the mountain. One big advantage of this format is that amateurs could show up Friday evening, race, then head home Sunday evening. It fitted around the real lives most of us lead.

The problem with this format was when people started to abuse the format. If you went to a resort and rode the trails and got a good feel for the mountain then you gave yourself a huge advantage over those who had not. And once one person abused the system, then it puts pressure on the other riders to level it back out again. While moral high grounds are a fine thing, when you make your living on the results of races the pressure can become intolerable - especially when that is amplified up to an international stage with the EWS.

Italy went for the other end of the spectrum, releasing the course maps several weeks before the race. There are two main arguments for this style of racing - first is, again, the amateurs. With several weeks to practice riders could take a day or a weekend to head over and ride the tracks without needing to take time off work. Then there is the economic argument - what funded the series was tourism, resorts paid good money to host the race because it would bring people into town to spend money. With this model, rather than just bringing people in for the race weekend, people were coming during the whole practice period increasing the income for the local economy and helping set the race series as a serious business proposition for the resorts.

The problem here is that if you are a professional rider who needs a good result, then the only logical thing to do is go as early as possible to maximise your chances. That then turns the series into a race to see who will give up the most for each round. It also fundamentally changes the sport. When riders have time to learn each root and rock then how is that different to a downhill race? It also means the speeds increases and opens up the possibilities for serious injuries and the element of reading the mountain that the sport evolved with would be lost.

For the EWS today most of the races run on two-three days of practice followed by one or two days of racing. This is the current best compromise - reached through discussion between the series and the racers, giving enough time for riders unfamiliar with the terrain to even the playing field somewhat, yet not so much that the skill of reading the terrain is lost. What complicates this further is the diversity of the series - each stop is unique with different challenges for the riders, different terrain and different formats to reflect the local styles of racing. It would not be possible to run the format from round one in Rotorua in Crested Butte this weekend, or vice versa. This week in Crested Butte the decision has been made to bend the rules that mandate practice, because the backcountry nature of the race would make it a six or seven day affair if you had to practice every stage. In the French races you have one practice run before your race run to keep the format somewhat close to the original feel of the blind racing. As you can see, there is no one size fits all solution to practice.

There are issues emerging too. While it may be outright cheating to practice the race course beforehand, showing up to the venue a week or two or even a month early and riding as much as you can in advance is not forbidden. It is a grey area, not outside the rules but arguably questionable. Enforcement is the elephant in the room here, there is no point having a rule that you cannot enforce, so how do you tackle the topic? The worry being that it is the beginning of the steady slide towards the series becoming a competition to see who can arrive earliest. For the EWS this would hurt both amateur participation and the emergence of new riders who cannot afford to level the playing field enough to make a breakthrough.


As you can see, there are strong positive and negative arguments on every side. When you step back from what you personally prefer and think about the greater good of the sport you start to see how tough a balance it is to strike. You also have to remember what racers are. They succeed by pushing the limits, regardless of whether it's their body and bike or the sporting regulations, they are always looking for edges on their competitors. That is what they do and who they are, and to hold up any kind of pretense that things are otherwise it to make a mockery of the sport. It's why ideas like the "spirit of enduro" hold back the discipline as it is a nonsense as soon as careers and paychecks are on the line. With a world championship on the line it is racing, pure and simple.

Chris Ball and the EWS team are doing the best thing they can do: talking to the riders. Ahead of the Whistler race they will be holding a riders meeting to discuss the topic of practice. After listening to everyone they will review the current compromises and maybe change them, maybe not. Inevitably, as is the way with compromises, not everybody will be happy with the outcome. If history is any guide there will be no definite answers found, this is a topic that will resurface time and again as the sport grows, develops and evolves, but what it is proof of is that the EWS are staying true to what made so many people hopeful for the series: they are keeping the riders at the heart of the sport.

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