Five Questions: Enduro Racer Marco Osborne on Winning the Mammoth Mountain Pro GRT

Marco Osborne surprised everyone, and may have blurred the boundaries between DH and enduro, by handily winning the Pro GRT at Mammoth Mountain last weekend on the same bike that he uses for his day job as a professional enduro racer. Enduro bikes had already been used with some success at the pedally Pietermaritzburg World Cup DH course, and while the Mammoth downhill also featured a stretch where riders had to get on the gas, it also had plenty of technical and steep - with a couple of rock gardens that gave big bike competitors the shivers. Watching Osborne come down caused more than a few doubletakes. For one thing, you don't see too many DH racers sporting Leftys, and it's almost as rare to see competitors aboard a lightweight carbon machine like his Cannondale Jekyll. We caught up with the WTB/Cannondale rider to get the back story.

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What were you thinking, bringing your Cannondale Jekyll to a US National Downhill race?

I knew that the course was rideable on a trailbike, as the year before, I raced the same track on my 26-inch Jekyll with a Fox 180 fork and finished eighth. This year, I brought my new Cannondale Jekyll 27.5, equipped with a SuperMax Lefty and I knew that it was capable of riding this course. After racing the EWS race in Whistler, I knew that this bike could basically ride any trail. There were only two sections on the course where I had to sacrifice a little time and be smooth just to get down it safely. Once I got through those sections, I was able to open up and really throw down power everywhere I could. I just thought of it as another enduro stage, I just wanted to have fun.


The trails I train on at home are fairly steep and loose, but not very rough. I have to earn all my runs by climbing big steep fire roads that tear your body apart. When I train with Mark Weir, we do shuttle runs out at the ranch. All the trails at the ranch are ridden-in tire ruts that flow through oak trees and wide open fields where you can reach over 45 miles per hour.

In the beginning of the EWS, many DH riders switched to enduro to leverage their technical skills to podium in a new venue. Now that younger faces are dominating, what are the chances of the next enduro star emerging from DH?

Any downhill star who wants to start emerging into enduro definitely has a high chance of being successful, since they already know how to ride fast downhill. However, in enduro you need to be a complete package. You have to want to go on big rides and do big climbs. You have to be able to last all day and ride more than one DH trail without much practice. You have to be very fit on the bike, as well as have the skills to go fast on the downhill stages. You have to learn to suffer and push through the pain.

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