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Bummer
For context, Bex finished in 21st place 6:38 minutes back. Imagine being Hattie Harden who trained her ass off all year, competed in multiple XC and DH races and smoked the competition to hear 21st place say the pace “violated human rights” lol, gtfo
To be fair, it seems I've seen this on a few racer recaps so far. It seems like the time gaps between stages were too tight for a lot of people to even make the stage start. Not that we'll ever know with non-existent coverage.
Seems Bex needs to find some perspective, choosing to race a cycling event that no-one forced you to do, and one you can decide to stop at any time, somehow amounts to a violation of human rights? Get a grip.
Last two seasons the professional EWS racers have been asking for big race days, especially as now all races are one day events. That's what they got here it looks like and racing was tight regardless. Look at how tight the men's top three was before final stage.
Seems to me that those who prepared correctly for the season got on OK? no?
yeah even richie said the time gaps were tight, but wording of bex's complaint is a bit exaggerated IMO. it's the enduro world cup, the best of the best and fittest athletes in this category, not some weekend warrior for fun event, i think the pros should be challenged. all the usual top riders seemed to be able to manage it, so please stop with "violating human rights".
but that's just my humble opinion from my comfy mourning table, so can't really say what went down on site
I think we can all agree that the phrase "violating human rights" is extreme hyperbole, and harms her argument here.
However I've spoken to a few athletes and it seems the entire liaison timing and feed timing was just a shit show. Terrible organisation. It was incredibly punishing to anyone who had a mechanical, as you were pretty much done, as it takes 3-10 minutes to fix, then the liaisons were so tight you had to hammer back up the hill.
The crazy part is, Finale is the most common site for an elite level enduro race, it was obvious before they attempted it the timings were unnecessarily brutal.
If the liaison times/distance/route were not published last year, I would say it is a bit unfair considering they were much more relaxed in past years. It would be like training for a 100m sprint and then being asked to run the 10k - sure you could probably do it, but it would be sub-optimal compared to training specifically for a longer race.
I really think the enduro courses need to go back to being big, unassisted days out on the bike and the Finale course looked like a step in the right direction. Making the liaisons super tight really can ruin a race though and turn it from a tough, hard fought day into a miserable and dangerous suffer-fest. Finale has always been a physical race with quite tight liaisons and brutal stages. To put some numbers on it; in 2016 the first climb of day 2 was 1000m vertical from the beach to the nato base and the time given was about 2 hours. Tough but comfortably doable with 15 minutes or so to get ready for the stage. This year the climb to stage 3 was over 600m up and the riders had 1h10m to recover from stage 2, make the climb and get ready for stage 3. I'm not surprised some riders where dropping out and complaining about it.
Here's a good look at the race day action - not easy terrain to go fast on, this!
"The crazy part is, Finale is the most common site for an elite level enduro race, it was obvious before they attempted it the timings were unnecessarily brutal. " --> That's my point.. you pace yourself and carry on.. they know this place inside out... winter and summer.. stop crying.. head down and pedal up. ; ).. dont become a bike park rat hahah
Official race coverage video from Finale just dropped: https://www.vitalmtb.com/videos/member/race-coverage-finale-ligure-uci-….
But it's not like the previous races were easy, and there isn't really an argument to make that fit riders weren't already doing well with previous liaison times.
But now it's incredibly punishing, and my biggest complaint is if you have a mechanical on one of the stages before a big liaison, your absolutely stuffed.
There are already punishments for using extra parts, and getting a flat on a stage you already suffer for that stage, but now the stage after is wrecked too. That's not a good way to run a competitive race series.
If we want to make fitness a bigger part of it, put climbs IN the stages, which we've done before.
Might want to check your numbers there- surely you mean 10th and 1min39 back?
Disagree, climbs in the stages is the wrong direction .. all riders had the same conditions and the mechanicals + time to fix being super tight is just giving pros a taste of what unfit weekend warriors face on these EWS100 haha.. keep it pinned on the climbs, goggles on and go down gassed ; ).
Great to hear such a qualified opinion from a couch commentator who probably couldn’t even make the first two liaisons in time
ill stick to those of the actual pro level racers who experienced first hand how it went down
that's what internet forums are for ; ).. in al seriousness we have seen a lot of lift-access races (including the last stop in Chatel, which was very very mellow on liaisons even for weeked warriors) and multiple day events are history.. if you have a race in which the super fit prevail, so suck it up and prepare for the others, may be other races suit more other riders.. it's no coincidence Hattie came on top.. but making a post while still fuming after you got your ass kicked may end up having the wrong words and approach there..
by the way, go and ride Ingegnere or Supergroppo at race pace ; ) those flat sections and little climbs.. horrible...
Now I’m hearing that riders are even more pissed because they ended up not enforcing penalties for missing liaison cutoffs. So some people were redlining to make it. Others dropped out because it was too hard to make it. And at the end of the day, those who just pedaled leisurely and didn’t try to make the cutoffs suffered no penalty? Anyone have the story on this?
I'm curious if the men and women had different liaison times? They probably should.
I like the stress of a timed liaison- it punishes mechanicals and mistakes- minimizing those is part of the game.
Bex should have taken a deep breath counted to five before posting.
Here is Remi's take on it.
From my POV, I like the move to tighter transfers. I've always felt we needed to put a little more emphasis on getting through the day a bit more swiftly and rewarding this kind of stamina a bit more. By not having any real pressure around the transfers, you create a culture of snail pacing the entire day to conserve energy, which I always hated. Made a long day even longer and didn't reward those who had the endurance all that much.
Looking at results, it doesn't appear many men dropped out. The women's field looked to be a bit of a different story ~1/3 didn't finish), but its not like zero women were able to finish. Maybe this will push teams to reconsider part of the bike setup (lighter), and put more emphasis on XC type training to be ready for this?
Not that it matters but I've done a handful of solo big days in Finale in the months of June/July (6-10K vert, 35-50 miles, enduro bike/dh tires, following old EWS course configurations). Yes, it was always hot and humid, but its also basically at sea level with a lot of climbing on roads. The weather this year was 66 degrees with 50% humidity. Hardly "brutal". Go ahead and look at some of the pros strava times, what stands out to me is how their heart rates are hardly pinned on the transfers. No, they aren't at 50% like times of old, but they are nowhere near anaerobic threshold or similar.
Point I'm making, if you want to race enduro put some emphasis on XC type endurance. If you want to race DH, go race DH. Enduro should reward all around bike riding ability - fitness is a part of this.
Personally I think enduro was better as it was. Finish your race run. Wait for a couple homies to finish theirs. Climb to the top and go all out on the next stage. Talk about your last run and life on the way up.
Tbh I barely care about World Cup enduro at this point. Pretty much every change that’s been made has been in the opposite direction of what made me a fan. And tight liaison just makes the sport less exciting. If you want endurance to be a factor go back to the monster races of yesteryear.
I agree with you at the amateur level we should be pretty generous with transfers and make sure the non-pros have a good time first and foremost. However, call me a masochist but anytime I see the word "professional" or "elite" by a cycling category, I don't really expect to parse bro time into the equation. Its a race, and it should be a bit hard.
As to transfers making you less a fan...how? Also, I mean this sincerely, but what would make you more a fan? I agree the EDR stuff is about as boring as a submarine race, but this has always been the case.
The only thing that really held my attention was Sven's Vital slideshows. Yeah, I know, Misspent Summers - but I just dont care to go there. Ever since this ended, so too did my real interest in the story of the sport.
We've discussed this a lot previously, but I don't think there is any easy way to make enduro cool from a fandom perspective without investing Saudi Liv type money. Otherwise...nothing is going to save it IMO.
Geez the result sheet says a bit - so many DNFs and time penalties. Wow.
2 day racing at venues that have enough quality raceworthy trails (such as maydena last year), more new venues somewhere other than Europe and more European venues nowhere near a bike park. Guys/gals redlining to the top of the hill is the opposite of what I want to see.
What was so cool about ews is that it provided a form of racing that exemplified what I enjoyed about mtb (making it to the top and blasting down cool/challenging trails) at a high level and amazing locations anyone could aspire too. And “bro time” is a big thing that made the sport so cool. Having 4 or 5 pros huddled around trying to fix a broken wheel or Cecile ravenel spending 20 some minutes helping out a fellow racer, blasting it to the top, and still winning the damn race was a lot cooler story than her just being fitter than her competitors.
#make ews/edr great again.
Here is Jesse's Strava - https://www.strava.com/activities/11390721124 - where is he "red lining" to the top of a hill? He's comfortably aerobic the whole time. I'm sure it was hard, but he's an athlete, it seems he handled it just fine.
I suppose I just don't understand how putting more limitations on transfers has any impact on your (or anyone's) fandom. As I noted above, there are plenty of issues with enduro as a sport for fans, but making the race day go a bit swifter isn't one of them.
BTW - I see 13 DNFs and 5 penalties in the men's field of roughly 100. I don't think that's crazy.
The shift that caused enduro to lose its magic and appeal to your average racer/fan seems to be a push from multiple high level race series to "legitimize" the discipline by removing aspects that made enduro uniquely enduro. Long days, chats on the transfers, community cohesion, privateer participation, accessible qualification, and affordable racing.
ESO seems to think they can broadcast these races but still won't do it. If the races aren't broadcasted then why do the liason times need to be shorter? Why are many races staged entirely within bike parks? Why the same venues year to year? All of these changes seem to be made with coverage in mind, yet the coverage is still worse and provides worse stories than years ago when enduro was still enduro. Jack Moir wouldn't have had time to hammer his rim straight with a rock at finale this year.
Enduro was never meant to have a world cup. Bring back EWS.
Only 84 finishers and 14 DNFs? 14% men and 24% of women didn't finish. That's pretty gnarly compared to the last few years man.
Last year only 5 DNFs at 2023 Finale with a bigger field and the most DNFs was Val di Fassa with 8 DNFs and 106 finishers.
Seems like the heat must have made it pretty bloody hard for them with short liason cut off times.
I raced in the Open category this weekend and managed to reach every stage on time, with a few minutes to spare. The racers both in front of me and behind me also made it to the transfers on time. Although our transfer times were slightly longer than the elite's (by about 5 to 10 minutes), and we raced earlier in the day when the heat was more bearable, this shouldn't create a significant difference between us amateurs and the elites. I also competed in Finale in 2017, which was much more challenging with its two days of racing and extensive liaisons.
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