How The Other Half Live – EWS La Thuile

Mountain biking to a lot of us is all about slumming it, we spend all of our money on bikes, riding, and the latest and greatest mountain bike offerings, that coupled with the usual day to day bills, this leaves our bank accounts looking very sorry for themselves.

Racing. How the heck can I afford to go racing on top of that? At a world level, it’s not all hotels and three-course dinners. There are many riders doing the rounds with little, if not zero funding, the guys who work two jobs all winter just to afford to race. The Privateers. The van life-rs. The nomads. These are the people who live, eat and breathe mountain bikes.

In La Thuile for the EWS, we decided it was high time we gave a shout out to our unsung heroes of the mountain bike community. In its first years, the EWS had carpark loads of privateers living in vans and also competing at a high level, we’ve noticed more recently the Van Living community is dwindling, fewer and fewer riders are doing it. There are many reasons that could be causing this. But the sport is growing, it's becoming a much bigger entity with higher levels of support for more and more riders. The locations that the races visit are now diversifying, in its first year many of the rounds were based in Central Europe, now with rounds popping up in places like Argentina, New Zealand, and Madeira it's harder to follow the series on a shoestring budget.

We weren’t able to look inside everyone’s world, but we stopped for a quick tour of a couple of the campsites.






James Shirley rides for the Radon Factory Enduro Racing Team which doesn't mean he's on a factory deal. He gets a little support from sponsors, he gets a budget and it's used to run the Enduro team. It's a small team and he needs to be careful as to where it goes. He has a self-converted van which is the team pits but also doubles up as his home for most of the year.







A group of mates from all over the UK on a road trip around Mainland Europe, they get a little support from small sponsors. These guys are out here on a road trip living in tents. They’ve also incorporated a few events into their schedule, including the Megavalanche and the EWS here in La Thuile. These guys are totally self-funded, basically out on a summer holiday making the budget last as long as possible.









Comfy living. Has a van and a caravan, loads of space. He’s from Denmark and touring Europe with his mate Bob (Bob isn’t here at the race). He’s out following the full IXS Downhill Cup, a few enduros and other races too. But mainly here to ride in as many places as possible.










Lachlan is from Scotland, just a few miles south of Fort William. He’s been out in a van searching for UCI points so that he’s able to race World Cups again next year, he’s been in Eastern Europe racing Downhill which give him the points he needs as it’s so hard to get the points in the UK at the minute. He’s been hoping in between vans to make his trip work, from his tiny Citroen Berlingo to hijacking his parent’s campervan holiday.














Gerd is out here from Austria, living in his van and attempting to remove a creak from his headset out the back of the van, on the side of the road.






Daniel Meilink is a seasoned van life-r. He’s travelled over from New Zealand for our summer for the last few years. He’s normally found following the Downhill circuit around, as part of the Vanzacs. This weekend he was over here with Cole Lucas to try out “one of these Enduro’s.”








Jonathan is from Southern Ireland and rides for the Irish Kona Grassroots team.








Word and Photos by Ben Winder. @BWinder / @EnduroWorldSeries