This has been taken from our newsletter. Sign up for our newsletters here to receive this in your inbox before each DH and EDR World Cup.
Hi,
Hope you enjoyed our recent online zine from Enduro World Cup (EDR) round three in Pietra Ligure.
This time we’re out in the Austrian Alps in Leogang. For the first time ever, downhill, cross-country and enduro World Cup racing take place at the same venue during a week of competition.
The action kicks off today with round four of EDR racing and the second E-EDR.
Scroll down for our enduro notes and preview photos from Leogang and stay tuned for plenty more action, including our downhill notes.
Cheers,
James
Misspent Summers
Tennis elbow: Notes from Enduro World Cup #4 in Leogang, Austria
- As with all the EDR races this year, this is a one-day race with six timed stages and physically challenging transfers between the stages
- Start lists and other information can be found on the MTB World Series event page for Leogang here
- Riders practiced the course on Wednesday and racing is today, Thursday 15 June
- Terrain check: Lots of berms. Dust and holes. High speeds. Some nice natural stuff in the woods
- Plus some freestyle course marking taking riders off main bike park lines into off-cambers and other fun diversions
- Watch the official practice video here
- Weather check: Mostly sunny with clouds
- Vibe check: Light moaning with intermittent positivity
- There have been some grumbles about the tracks and course marking, but most riders seem to be getting on with the job and enjoying themselves. Despite an abundance of machine-built stuff, there’s loads of decent tech in the woods
- Race day: Riders leave from Leogang on Thursday morning before transferring over to Saalbach, another ski resort on the other side of the mountain
- En-route, they swing by Spielberghaus, a hotel in the hills famous for the person who grew up there. Nope, nothing to do with filmmaking! Downhill World Champ Vali Höll was raised in this very place and learnt to ride bikes on the nearby slopes
- The first three stages are in Saalbach. Stage two is one of the better trails of the day
- Then riders head back to Leogang using much of the same root-infested transfer trail but in reverse. We rode this yesterday and found it, err, less jiggly on the return
- The final three stages are on Leogang’s bike park slopes and criss-cross the hill to access some sections of earthy, rooty, hand-cut trail and lots of machine-built berms, oodles of dust and a good helping of braking bumps
continued below…
- Stage six is a fast blast down part of the old downhill track, starting from after the big wooden wallrides and ending in the resort’s famous arena
- Racing starts late and the final stage will be at around 8pm for the top elites
- Check out the course map on Trailforks here
- Official course stats: 70.9km distance*, 4,726m climbing**, 4,696m descending***
- *Including chairlifts
- **Nobody seems to know what percentage is pedalling and what is on the lifts – riders skipped a big transfer in practice and could access all the trails using the ski-lift network, so they don’t have their own stats; the information isn’t readily available without doing some high-level mathematics
- ***We’re not sure where the other 30m went (the course starts and ends in the same place in Leogang)
- There’s also an official course map graphic here
- Stages two and three are absolute beasts. S2 is physical and S3 covers more than 700m of descending
- If you’re wondering why riders mostly chose to drive around to Saalbach to practice the three stages there instead of pedalling the transfer to find out what they’d be up against in the race, they probably wanted to save their energy as there isn’t a rest day between practice and racing like there has been at other rounds this year
- There is one tech-feed zone during the race. It was going to be in Leogang but has been moved to Saalbach, so teams must zip around there (about a 45 mins drive) and set up ready for riders to drop in and fuel up after stage three
- Hot tip for parched mechanics: If you find yourself at a loose end and famished in Saalbach, Bäckerei Unterberger serves a mean cream and strawberry croissant and coffee. For savoury tastes, try the cheesy swirly pastry thing. For more culinary recommendations, please dial 1-800-GLUTTONS
- Unlike in downhill and cross-country, course marking doesn’t appear to have changed since 2022 – tape is still needed to ensure nobody misses turnings or cuts corners. Having said that, tapes are only in place where it seems absolutely necessary. We’re all for reducing the amount of plastic strewn around
more below…
- E-EDR: There’s also e-bike enduro racing here. Ex-downhill World Champ Fabien Barel has announced he isn’t not making a comeback after all. Barel won the first E-EDR in Pietra Ligure a couple of weeks ago but only planned to race that one. But then he couldn’t resist the urge to try his luck again here
- Legend Tracy Moseley is back racing E-EDR too
- Other stuff: As well as EDR and E-EDR practice, Wednesday was also junior downhill practice; on Thursday, as well as the enduro, there’s junior downhill qualifying, elite downhill practice, and under-23 cross-country short track finals
- Series rankings: Jesse Melamed leads the elite men’s EDR by 18 points with 1,070 points coming into Leogang. Morgane Charre and Isabeau Courdurier are level pegging with 1,231 points in the elite women’s but Charre will carry the leader’s jersey here as she most recently won an event (Pietra Ligure)
- Fabien Barel and Laura Charles lead the E-EDR series after winning in Pietra
- It’s going to be a busy week in Leogang! Stay tuned for more from the enduro and downhill racing coming up
- Boris, Sven and Seb are out here snapping all the best photos for The World Stage and Hurly Burly. Thanks to them for the hard work and Sven for the photos in this email and to you for reading!
