EWS Recap: What's the Story After the First 3 Races?
For the season opener the Enduro World Series headed to the New Zealand mountain biking mecca of Rotorua as part of the Crankworx festival. Over a single day of racing riders would tackle 60km and 1900m of descending in the humid rainforest. In practice rain threatened to turn the trails into mountainside swamps, causing stage two to be cut short to avoid the worst of the slop, but as the week went on conditions perked up and the weather held for race day.
The jungle of Rotorua is quite unlike anywhere the series has been before with the dense forest and perfect hero dirt.
Before the action even started there was disappointment as defending champion, Jared Graves, revealed that he had suffered injuries to both shoulders in pre-season training and would miss the first half of the season. With Jerome Clementz back up to full fitness it was a battle many race fans were excited to see, but we will have to wait for.
Local favourite Wyn Masters had a storming weekend - lightning firing his way to third in his first ever EWS appearance.
Fast, consistent. The more DH-oriented nature of many of the tracks here in Rotorua clearly played to Anne-Caroline Chaussons strengths. After coming so close to taking the title last year she opened her 2015 account in the best way possible, with a convincing margin over Tracy Moseley.
After an injury-struck 2014 Jerome Clementz was back where he belongs - at the top of the timing sheets and the podium.
Round two saw another new venue for the series - Wicklow, Ireland. After the Whistler race last year there was much talk about the direction of the sport and whether ultra-long, ultra-hard races are the future of the discipline - Wicklow was that pendulum swinging back towards the more obtainable. With 50km and 1,700m of descending it was by no means a short race, but with fairly relaxed transfers times it was much within the grasp of mere mortals. Talking to Chris Ball about the format he said that these shorter, more amateur-friendly races have a place in the future of the EWS, although there is equally a place for longer races push the limits of the riders - the trick for the future will be finding the right balance between the two. While the trails were great and the racing tight, the real stars of the show in Ireland were the fans. We saw the greatest and wildest fan turnout at any EWS race so far and it's no understatement to say that they were one of the biggest reasons why so many riders came away talking about this being the best race yet.
There's nothing like good, Irish hospitality.
Coming into the weekend with a sore shoulder and a cold Jerome Clementz struggled to find pace and dropped back to eighth.
Alex Cure won the hardest man in enduro award. He snapped his handlebar on stage two but carried on regardless - sending the gnarly rock garden on stage three with no brake, grip or righthand side of this handlebar.
Tracy Moseley was back on form in Ireland, winning six of the seven stage to take a dominant victory and re-level the points at one win per piece.
What better finish to a great weekend of racing than the local favourite taking his first ever win on the world stage? Greg Callaghan joined the Cube Action Team over the winter and used the support of a factory team to train like hell all winter and he showed the world how far he had progressed at his home race. It was a true fairytale weekend and sent the fans into raptures with more than a few grown men shedding tears to see his success.
For round three the series headed for more familiar ground, returning to the Tweedlove festival in Scotland. With no break between the rounds it was a test of who could recover from the previous weekend. Over two days of racing riders faced nearly 90km and 2,650m of descending with a mix of physical stages and steep, rooty goodness. Once more the weather played a big part in the race and with the threat of high winds on the Sunday the decision was made to cut stages six and seven from the race because winds were predicted to reach 40mph in the afternoon which would have made the forest unsafe for riders, spectators and race staff.
There is always a lot of community involvement at Tweedlove and on the Wednesday night before the race kids from the local cycling clubs gather in the park to receive riding lessons from some of the sports top professionals.
Greg Callaghan proved that he is no one hit wonder in Scotland, backing up his win with a very handy third position.
Local girl Katy Winton stormed to a very respectable seventh spot in her home race, continuing up her consistent run of top ten finishes.
Tracy Moseley was supreme in Scotland, Anne-Caroline Chausson couldn't get close to her this time putting the score at two to one to give Tracy a small edge in the title race.
After coming close so many times Justin Leov finally found the sweet taste of victory. He's been so close since Scotland last year and the victory combined with his two strong finishes in the previous rounds meant he left Scotland with the points lead.
So there we go, the story so far... Heading into round four Justin Leov is 100 points clear of Greg Callaghan, 120 ahead of Florian Nicolai. Despite two disappointing rounds by his own high standards, Jerome Clementz is sitting in fourth in the championship, just 200 points behind Leov. The bad news for the title race is that Greg Callaghan is out injured with a broken hand and a sliced up knee - he is on the mend, but he will miss at least the French round, maybe America and Canada too. Last year in the French race Justin Leov was oh-so close to walking away with the whole thing until a puncture denied him the win. Coming off the win will he take that moment to break away from the pack, or will Clementz and the rest of the pack start to reel him back in? With the womens race it's too close to call - racing the French format, Tracy Moseley won in Val D'Isere in 2013 and Anne-Caroline Chausson took Valloire in 2014, so it's hard to split them there. While Chausson has shown she has the form in Whistler over the last couple of years, Colorado is a complete unknown that could go either way... As ever, we will be bringing you all the action here on Pinkbike.
Full mens standings
Full womens standings
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Yes, on 5 different bikes for the past 4 or so years, never had an issue, ridden over 60 Km over that time. Look after your bikes and stuff typically, typically doesn't fail. I also don't buy Race Face products, which helps.
I simply dont ride anymore cause no bars are safe.
One round in the USA is a joke....
B/C WE are the birthplace of mountain biking.
WTF does scottland and rainy-ass Ireland need their own rounds for? The UK has entirely too many EWS races.
Who cares who 'invented' mountain biking? You could argue the bicycle was invented in Scotland but you don't see us arguing for more rounds.
Mountain biking has evolved so much in the last 30 years and it's great that the rounds are being spread out. More diversity would be good, not less.
Never mind the fact that hosting an EWS event is neither easy or cheap and aren't actually run by EWS, but by the local organizers.