Organiser Fred Glo’s trials bike stands overlooked by the mountains.
This weekend sees the World Enduro Series enter it’s penultimate round in Val d’Isere, the World Cup Downhill was here last season but this is a whole new ball game. Round 6 incorporates the Enduro of Nations, based on the format from the motorbike Enduro Trophy of Nations the top riders from each country will contribute to their team’s overall standing.
Stages will run as normal and in addition there will be a final mass start (40-50 riders) race that consists of just national teams. The combined times from each national team member plus their time from the mass start stage will give the overall time for the country and therefore define the Enduro of Nations winning team.
Interestingly there can be riders in each team who haven’t scored any EWS points, they just need to hold an Enduro Mountain Bike Association licence. So that means national teams can be made up from top end pro riders and one additional rider who may not even be ranked.
So basically there is a full Enduro race and then a mass start for the national teams. There will still be the individual prizes for the top men and women who are competing in the Enduro World Series and these points will be calculated as normal and added to their existing series scores.
The Enduro of Nations is really the first ever genuine team event in mountain biking. It is the only event of the year in which riders compete together. Athletes who normally race against each other will have their times added up, making them only as good as each other. – Chris Ball, EWS Director
Although there is huge competition between riders that share nationality the Enduro of Nations gets the riders working together with a single goal. I doubt this will have a huge effect on the way they race the individual stages but the Enduro of Nations crown will definitely be one any rider would be proud of.
Tracy Moseley, Katy Winton and Emily Horridge represent the UK for the women with Joe Barnes, Gary Forrest and Mark Scott completing our 6 strong team. Dan Atherton is out with a shoulder injury, check out the latest on that here.
Hopefully the team can put together some solid stages tomorrow and get their races dialled. The mass start should suit the team as many have raced the Mega. Good luck guys and girls we are all rooting for a good result here at Dirt!
Mark Scott ready to go rocking the Union Jack number board
Riders have been allowed to walk the tracks but riding of the stages before racing starts is forbidden. The rider briefing was very well attended and there have been some positive comments on the course so far.
@World_Enduro have done a lot of course taping too! There’s been some hours put in for sure, thanks guys!
Rd 6 of the @world_enduro in Val d’lsere is gonna be another amazing one. The views from up top are unreal!
Always with his phone in hand series Director Chris Ball took this snap of the start of stage one, could there be a better looking place to ride? Instagram – @World_Enduro
Race organiser Fred Glo was in charge at the very popular round three in Val d’allos so this race should also go down well with the riders. Fred and his team have been busy out marking the stages and with part of the event entering the French National Parks they have even made allowances to protect endangered flowers. Check out the stage map.
Riders will get one practice run followed by two times runs on each stage, with stages one and two on Saturday and stage three plus the mass start on Sunday. All stages are accessed by chairlift therefore removing the liaison stages that we saw at the last round in Whistler.
DirtTV will be covering the whole event and expect videos to be dropping over the weekend with the final round up early next week.
