Hello,

The 2024 Enduro (EDR) World Cup ended with the mudder of all mud races last Friday in Loudenvielle, France.

Despite atrocious conditions, the world’s top enduro racers put on a show on a set of tech and at times treacherous stages to wrap up the season and decide the series winners.

We’ve compiled notes, photos by Boris and Sven, and links we think you’ll like below. Big thanks as always to everyone helping us put these things together and contributing to our yearbooks – it ain’t always sunshine and plain sailing!

Hope you enjoy the stuff below.

Cheers,

James
+the Misspent Summers team

PRODUCT: CHOOSE MTB PRINT

BOGGY: submerged notes from Loudenvielle, France, 2024 Enduro (EDR) World Cup R6

• Preamble: read our pre-race notes for a bit of build-up
• Full results and series standings (with downloadable PDFs) here
• Conditioned: after rain all week in Loudenvielle and heavy downpours overnight into the morning, the race stages turned from greasy-at-best to downright mud baths. Gusty wind forced the closure of a chairlift, so stage three was cancelled, leaving four race stages but still a hefty amount of riding and racing (roughly 35km riding, 1,500m uphill, 2,800m downhill)
• Peanut butter porridge with chocolate milkshakes: the first couple of stages turned into a sticky, slick mess. Later, when the rain turned back on, stages three and four were soaked and hard to judge but a bit less boggy. Riders either got stuck in the mud or excelled, meaning the results jumped around all day; there were some massive time gaps even among the top racers. Morgane Charre and Martin Maes battled through the chaos to show their technical prowess and take the elite wins. Jakub Pivnicka and Emily Carrick-Anderson survived to take the under-21 wins. But everyone who was out there deserves a round of applause!
• Results: Elite Men: 1. Martin Maes 23:29.244 2. Richie Rude +15.433 3. Greg Callaghan +17.116 4. Alex Rudeau +27.216 5. Hugo Pigeon +40.421. Elite Women: 1. Morgane Charre 28:45.070 2. Mélanie Pugin +5.420 3. Ella Conolly +9.475 4. Harriet Harnden +20.312 5. Noga Korem +1:11.543. U21 Men: 1. Jakub Pivnicka 25:16.652 2. Joe Millington +1.437 3. Urien Minuty +4.187. U21 Women: 1. Emily Carrick-Anderson 33:18.619 2. Simona Kuchynkova +55.416 3. Elly Hoskin +1:10.479.
• General battle: Loudenvielle was the sixth and final round of the 2024 Enduro World Cup season (the shortest-ever EWS/EDR season excluding 2020; all other seasons have had 7 or 8 races). The series titles were still up for grabs in every category, with only Richie Rude having a comfortable points lead before the race. However, anything could happen in these conditions, and Rude still needed a solid performance without any major dramas to seal the deal. He did what was needed, finishing second in the race and taking his fourth series title (more on that below). Meanwhile, Isabeau Courdurier had a nightmare on stage two, finishing over a minute behind her title rival, Harriet Harnden. Courdurier recovered time in the following stages, but Harnden was dominant on stage one and consistent through the day – her stage results and fourth place in the race put her 21 points ahead of Courdurier by the end. And with that, the series title was Harnden’s. Bravo!
• Word: rejig
• Honoured: thanks to everyone sporting our logo at the races! Mechanics, riders, media. Cheers. One day we’ll make an umbrella for you

Continued below…

• A walking statistic: Loudenvielle was Courdurier’s final EDR before she steps back from full-time racing (she’s said publicly that she wants to start a family; asked by the EDR broadcast team if she’ll be back racing one day, she said ‘If I can, I will’). Courdurier has raced every season of EWS and EDR since the first race in Punta Ala, Italy, in 2013. Since then, she’s scored 22 EWS-EDR race wins, 55 podiums, and three overall titles. She’s also won the Trophy of Nations event with team France twice. What a career (so far)! This week’s Enduro World Championships will be her last big race before she hits pause
• Rule of force: Rude has now racked up four series titles across EDR and Enduro World Series, as it was known until 2023. That’s the most-ever series wins in enduro. Tracy Moseley, Cécile Ravanel, Sam Hill and Courdurier all have three titles each (caveat: Karim Amour won four EWS Masters titles)
• Channeling: Jack Moir may have been out through a recent collarbone injury, but his spirit drifted over to Loudenvielle to continue vlogging via his YT teammates. Moi Moi TV and other quality viewing material here
• Flat out: Estelle Charles and Hugo Pigeon won Saturday’s E-EDR race, with Flo Espiñeira and Ryan Gilchrist taking the series overall titles. But will E-EDR be back for 2025 or, er, not, as rumoured?
• Hats out: our 2024 enduro and downhill yearbooks will be available to pre-order on our store soon. Tangent: should we sell e-books? Reply to this email if you have any thoughts
• Historic: Maes hadn’t won a race at this level since his EWS finals win in the Tweed Valley, Scotland, in 2021. It was also the first time Maes had used flat pedals in a race since 2013, when he dominated the junior category (and regularly beat the pros).
• Good things: Greg Callaghan also made a commendable comeback, scoring his first world-level podium since his last EWS win in 2017 (in Madeira) and winning the day’s first stage. Callaghan loves the slop and couldn’t have looked happier racing in the horrendous conditions
• FFTW: we don’t mean to bang on about flat pedals, but Charre is a full-time flat pedal rider and won the women’s race. Maes won the men’s. Alex Rudeau won stage four on flats. Dan Booker finished second on stage three on them. OK, it’s only a set of pedals, but it probably shows the technicality in enduro versus the sheer speed and precision of downhill, in which 100% of the field rides clipless pedals (mostly Crankbrothers Mallets). Having said that, at least one top-tier downhill racer was in the enduro pits begging for flat pedals when things got slick on the downhill track

More below…

And now, a track and tech breakdown by Misspent Summers Board Member, Loudenvielle winner and pro rider for Pivot Factory Racing Morgane Charre:

• Stages in brief: S1: grassy traverse, mud and roots, flattish. S2: long stage, long traverses up top, sticky mud, no momentum, steeper down low. S3: mostly fresh trail, steep into turns, ruts. S4: soaking, MX ruts in the grass, tech woods, fun
• Wet but dry: nearly everyone was on full mud tyres (the spikiest, widest-spaced tread patterns to cut through and shed the muck) or intermediates. Noga Korem, in her last-ever World Cup as a pro (she’s retiring after this season), meanwhile, doesn’t like mud tyres, so rode on full dry tyres. Despite coming from a hot, dusty country and the presumed tyre disadvantage, Korem finished fifth, her best result since Loudenvielle 2023
• Eye tech: how do you keep good vision when it’s pouring rain, there’s mud everywhere and you’ve got a full day in the mountains? It’s basically impossible, but riders were attempting to keep sight of the track with these techniques: 1. Massive mudguard. Like a full-length Mudhugger. Sounds basic, but it’s not often a full mudguard is needed so not everyone owns one. 2. Peak extender. A dedicated clip-on extension (Leatt makes one for their helmets) or transparent plastic fixed to your helmet visor to keep some of the rain off your goggles. 3. No-lens goggles. I tried this for two stages, but it didn’t really work. The theory is the frame of the goggles stops some mud from flicking vertically up off the wheel into your eyes. I’ve still got mud in my eyes days later. 4. Hole in lens. Cut a little rectangle out of the goggle lens where your eyeballs are. Same theory as no lens but a bit less room for mud to get through. (Isabeau Courdurier did this lens cut; I remember Nico Vouilloz doing the same at the Tweed Valley race a few years ago.) 5. Goggle swaps. Like the mudguard, stupidly simple but you need to have several sets of goggles prepped and the opportunity to pick them up. We’re only allowed to use kit we either carry with us (no trackside stashing allowed, although I heard a bit of that went on at the Combloux E-EDR) or we get at the tech zone. We passed through the tech zone twice during the day, so could fetch fresh goggles for the third and fourth stages
• Weight of the world: as Eddie Masters showed in his DH bike pre- and post-mud run weigh-in*, bikes can gain 10% or more weight once coated in Loudenvielle mud. The clay-heavy, sticky sludge also clings to clothes. It wasn’t an easy race, but one to remember!  *search ‘Loose in Loudenvielle’ on YouTube

 

Finally, from us:

• Quality, quantity or both: how many EDR races will there be in 2025, and where? Er, next question please. Anyway, as we mentioned in our pre-notes, we reckon there’ll be a return to the excellent La Thuile, Italy, and we’ve heard some positive murmurs about other events
• But first: the season isn’t over yet though. This week the first-ever Enduro World Championships takes place in Val di Fassa (aka Canazei), Italy, among the towering Dolomites. It’ll be the fifth time the enduro circus has visited the venue (2019, 2021 when there were two rounds there, 2022, 2023). Previous VDF EWS and EDR winners are: Mélanie Pugin (1 win), Isabeau Courdurier (4 wins), Jack Moir (1 win), Richie Rude (3 wins), Matt Walker NZ (1 win)
• Big thanks to everyone supporting Misspent Summers. We love this stuff and you make it possible. Cheers