Rider Perspective: Finale Ligure EWS

Four weeks to the day after departing for the cross-country World Championships in Hafjell, Norway I was now on my way to Finale Ligure, Italy for the final, and my first, EWS! The weeks leading in consisted of school, BC Enduro finals and antibiotics for a two-week sinus infection – that was my September.

After spending months on the EWS wait list an opportunity came up to race for the Norco Enduro World Team(NEWT). No hesitation whatsoever. I was fully solo for this trip as Lukas Anrig was out with an ankle injury and Nick Geddes not being able to miss school. The Norco Factory Team was very supportive and set me up with everything from a brand new Norco Range decked to the nine, to my first-ever full face and set of pads.

I departed Kelowna, BC on the Monday morning. Bound for Milan where I then took the train to Finale. I hoped to run into the Italian Vogue models at Milano Central, but soon realized that was going to be less than successful. Shortly after arrival my bags were nowhere to be seen. Baggage claims reported “Missed the flight”. Fabulous. Although it did make the train travels easier.

Wednesday the sunrise woke me up and the coast of Finale was glowing. An Oceanside walkabout began with the hopes of finding a rental bike, as my luggage was now officially “missing”. Jordi Cortes from Fox Racing Shox was beyond gracious and offered me up his bike, camelback and helmet. What a stellar guy! With one set of clothes I purchased some swimming shorts and a cotton tee as kit before heading out to spin.


Thursday was the first official practice day while still using borrowed gear and a bike. I was off solo to ride the stages, as I didn’t know any of the racers or teams closely enough. All the shuttles were also booked, something I obviously overlooked as an XC racer.. After getting three of the four stages ridden for Day 1 I was quite tired. I met Manuel Fumic in St Anne this summer and we bumped into each other that afternoon. He offered a shuttle with the Cannondale Factory Racing (CFR) crew of himself, Marco Fontana, Anton Cooper and their mechanic Jacomo. We set off to ride Day 2 stages. Five hours and 80 km later we ended our ride to the sunset. What a great crew of guys.

Friday was the final day of practice and, yet again, on borrowed gear. After a few espressos I was pedaling up the hills to practice. I then ran into a past junior XC competitor: Nicolas Prudencio who was able to shuttle me for a couple stages. I could get used to this enduro shuttling! I was able to ride all the stages at least once. Not ideal especially with none of my race gear, but I was just happy to be there.


After fifteen or so calls with the airline it was discovered my bags were found Wednesday PM and arrived into Milan Thursday AM. Delivery companies have a 24-hr delivery period, which was well past when I heard the news, and I was a little panicked Friday afternoon. After hearing the dreadful news the luggage wouldn’t arrive until Saturday – meaning I couldn’t use my own bike for the race – there was a knock at the door and everything was in!

It was a crazy week. Firstly I was riding commando in swimming trunks with…mesh netting(enough said) and secondly, the amount of support within the cycling community truly showed its colours this week. Alpine Star and Kenda Europe offered to be my venue base. People were more than willing to help me out and very friendly to the XC dude. Words can’t explain how helpful everyone was this week. The whole trip defined why my passion is riding bikes and the environment is so contagious.


Now, racing time! My bike was built and I finally had my own chamois to ride in. Not having ridden my bike in practice, tested tires and pressure or set up the suspension wasn’t the best preparation. The first stage took some getting used to after a few slide outs, dumping the bike on a loose turn and finishing 53rd. Sometimes starting out with a frustrating run adds fuel to the fire.


I was lucky to be seated around the CFR team and Team Norco Internationals Lorenzo Suding. Riding the transfers was social and enjoyable. Stage 2 was quite a bit better with only one slide out! This stage had a good little hill and I used that the best I could. Tight sections and hard pack trails that were covered with loose dirt made for a thrilling stage. It turned out to be my best stage finish in 17th.


Stage 3 was one of my favourites. Consisting of everything from pedaling, loose rock, loam, ancient ruins, tight switch backs to cobble-ish stones that finished near a castle. This run was pretty clean, but some sections were just a little outside my XC comfort zone to 'huck' through. Ended the stage in 20th

I do have to say how hard it was to ride around all day with that big clunky helmet, a backpack full enough to camp with and a 160mm bike for riding up roads that should be only ridden on light road bikes!


Stage 4 was loose, open and full of raging spectators. The RedBull stage ended our day in a fine fashion. The corners were very loose and some of the wide-open sections had too many lines to chose from. Only riding it once I opted for the point-and-shoot strategy. It was my cleanest runs of the day with not even putting my foot out once. It had enough pedaling that I was able to keep up and pull out a 23rd and end the day in 28th overall. It was a pleasant surprise after feeling like I lost too much time in the early stages. A top-20 was only 9 seconds away.

Day 2, on our transfer to stage 5, we climbed 17km from the ocean to 1000m. With it being such a steady effort it was easier than the previous day's transfers. We started at an old mountain top naval base and pedaled for a quite a while before dropping into a fast and flowy descent in the damp woods. This stage had new lines all over the place that was almost confusing me during the race run. I felt great on the pedal up and thought the stage was solid, but my pedaling legs weren’t as good as I hoped and I finished in 46th. Another stage I had only ridden once and wished I rode at least once more.


The final transfer to stage 6 was the first time we walked a little, which had to done so we could be fully-enduro. I fuelled on a box of chocolate biscuits before dropping into the longest descent. There was pedaling and lots of it! Early on I shouldered a tree in effort to not tag my bar and succeeded without even venturing from the line. This stage had it all and the wide-variety was great for all riders to showcase their strengths. It was great to have a long stage and get into a rhythm while getting a little cross-eyed. I’m trying to recall the stage, but it seems blurry now and went by too quickly to remember! Finished this final stage in 47th.

Ending my first EWS in 29th is a great platform to build off of. A great learning experience and major opportunity I'm glad to have had. Looking forward to doing another in the future and improve.

This Enduro thing is fun!

Full results: here.

Evan Guthrie
www.evanguthrie.com
www.twitter.com/evanwguthrie

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Until next time...