Video: The Importance of Racing to Canada's Next Generation of Enduro Riders

The Norco Canadian Enduro Series is Canada's largest mountain bike race series, but it is more than just racing. This spring/summer we've taken some time to chat with local communities about why racing, events and trails are important. You can view our past videos on Instagram or YouTube. In this episode, we connected with Adam Walker and his Dirt Squad racing program. Read below for some more insight from Adam

Bike racing is big here on Vancouver Island. This region has been the breeding ground for so many incredible riders of every discipline in cycling and we love being a part of it. We are lucky to be able to ride year-round here. The various series such as the Island Cup XC and Enduro series are doing really well. There seems to be renewed interest in DH. Cyclocross is massive and the road scene is big too. We have seen tremendous support that has developed from our local Island Cup race series. The enduro events see over 200 riders registering for each event. The corresponding support for trail initiatives is impressive. Local trial organizations on the Island are doing great things for all the networks here.

While we all miss racing, we are looking at the positives that this time provides and finding the best ways to improve as athletes. We have taken the opportunity to focus on more time doing strength work, skill development and building our base of knowledge. Each week during lockdown we had Zoom video strength sessions, video skills challenges, as well as a weekly speaker series with talks from experts on sports nutrition, mental performance, strength and conditioning, exercise physiology, injury prevention and management and more. The riders on the Racing Development team are prepared with the tools to truly become athletes. Now that we are riding together again, it's amazing to see how stoked they all are, but also to see how much they all improved over the past few months.

Events form bonds that last a lifetime. Through bike racing, I have met many of my closest friends and I see this happening with the youth in our team and in our mtb community on the island. Sporting events can teach many life lessons if you pay attention - the value of hard work and determination, how to win at racing or in life, dealing with success and failure.— Adam Walker

MENTIONS: @canadianenduro

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canadianenduro
Member since Mar 9, 2013
216 articles

7 Comments

ian408 (Jun 27, 2020 at 21:53)

Sport is important because kids learn life lessons. Like being part of a team. Organization (knowing what needs to happen to continue to be involved in the sport). I think it makes better people too.

sickmansick (Jun 27, 2020 at 9:15)

Racing is so important for the health of mountain biking. Keep up the good work!

shockdonkey FL (Jun 27, 2020 at 11:02)

Awesome stuff guys! Love seeing the next gen of racers developing their skills with coaches who "get it"!

dkidd (Jun 27, 2020 at 21:13)

This is awesome! Nice work guys!

5chmaus FL (Jun 27, 2020 at 23:31)

Good stuff. Plus the norco looked mint.

mbourget (Jun 27, 2020 at 14:28)

Yeah Ted!!

pedarree4 (Jun 27, 2020 at 14:56)

Lol