Hello,

The opening round of the 2024 Enduro World Cup series was no walk in the park and received mixed reviews from racers, but the action was exciting and inspiring as ever, with flat-out riding and hard-fought racing.

We’ve gathered up some notes below, including facts, opinions and tangents. Big thanks to our yearbook photographers Sven and Boris for their graft behind the lens.

Hope you enjoy scanning through.

Cheers,

James
+ the Misspent Summers team

PRODUCT OF THE WEEK: ENDURO YEARBOOK ’23

OH DIO: Notes from a hot and brutal Finale Ligure Enduro World Cup (EDR) R1 2024

• Results: Full results and standings here. Elite men top-three: Richie Rude (1), Charlie Murray (2), Martin Maes (3). Elite women top-three: Harriet Harnden (1), Isabeau Courdurier (2), Ella Conolly (3). U21 winners: Bailey Christie (U21 Men), Lily Planquart (U21 Women)
• Video: watch the highlights and plenty more in this collection of Finale EDR vids. We’re really enjoying the insight and upbeat manner from Josh Carlson, the ex-Enduro World Series and E-EDR pro who appears to have taken over the presenting role for this year’s official enduro coverage
• Word: infrastructure
• Limits: when elite athletes are passing out exhausted (Alex Storr) and others are barely able to move through full-body cramps (various), you’ve probably pushed a bit hard
• Salt coated racing: most people said race day felt more like a marathon than an enduro, with extremely short time to get from one stage to the next (if you turn up late to a stage start at an EDR, you get a time penalty). Several top elite riders had written to the race director after practice to say the transfer (aka liaison) times should be extended as they didn’t seem long enough, but they were told it was not possible (presumably as there were too many people to fit into the day’s schedule, with Open racing on the same day as Elite and Under-21 EDR racing). During the race day, as it became clear that the transfer times were too optimistic, time was added to two transfers (most riders found out too late); regardless, many elites dropped out of the race or incurred time penalties. With so many riders struggling, penalties were scrapped for the U21 categories but only after they’d already ridden most of the course. Enduro racers are incredibly fit and adaptable, but they train to be efficient on the climbs, recover quickly and then put in explosive efforts on timed stages
• Didn’t not fail: 13.2% of elite men did not finish the race; 26.5% of elite women DNF. At the 2023 Finale Outdoor Region EDR, DNFs were 5.3% of men and 8.8% of women
• Change of tone: series organizer Warner Bros Discovery said in the Finale pre-race official press release that ‘the sprawling nature of and enduro race makes a live broadcast difficult’. On the official MTB World Series Instagram in the last week or so the account has started replying to some lightly critical comments – well, at least one – saying they will take the feedback on board. The account also joked about retiring ‘the trusty Nokia 3310’ and sticking to iPhones for live updates from the stages after several video uploads were highly pixelated (posts now deleted). This might seem minor, but it’s definitely a departure from blanket positivity. Admitting difficulties and owning cockups will go a long way in winning fans’ trust
• Vibe: another big thanks to everyone who came to our pop-in event at Finale Work Space (our open-doors office where you can rent a desk during your Finale visit). Check out some photos and stuff from the event here

Continued below…

• News in brief: read a concise account of the Open racing in the official race report here
• When 5 becomes 4: after a long delay to extract an injured rider (get well soon) from stage 4, eventually the stage was cancelled for elites and U21 women (it still counted for U21 men). In the elite and U21 women’s results, the final stage – stage 5 – is listed as stage 4
• Elocution: Finale Ligure = Finn-gnarly Lig-oo-ray. Ligurian = Lig-oo-Rhian
• Perspective: Richie Rude’s win in elite men was only his second time winning in Finale (the first was in 2018). Two wins at a venue would be a career highlight for most people, but Rude is the winningest male rider of Enduro World Series/World Cup history, now with 20 total race victories and three series overall titles. Jesse Melamed is the second most winning male with eight total race victories
• Multi-tasker: elite women’s winner Harriet Harnden has raced pretty much everything in cycling and has 17 national champion’s titles to her name across various disciplines. Harnden finished 2023 with a podium at the Mont-Sainte-Anne DH World Cup and began 2024 with a big win in Finale, taking the victory by over eight seconds
• Great day out (on paper): the course was a classic Finale route – follow it on a shuttle day for a taste of everything that makes this place brilliant (leafy loam to undulating rollercoasters to rocky horror). Its flattish stages made for some hefty sprints when ridden in a race scenario, especially stage three (seven kilometres of flat-out, winding singletrack with some savage power climbs)
• Feedback: the tight transfer times between stages clearly made for a stressful and probably not entirely healthy day in the saddle. U21 racer Sascha Kim told us he averaged a heart rate of 159 BPM over nearly 5h30m of effort, which is comparable (well, kind of) to a mountainous Tour de France stage
• Pond-R: does enduro need something like road cycling’s SafeR or an official riders’ union?
• The age of MTB: the average year of birth of the elite men’s top-10 at Fort William DH World Cup R1 2024 was 1995; in Finale, it was 1994. For elite women, the years were 1998 (Fort W.) and 1994 (Fin. L.)

More below…

• Standings: the top-five series standings are identical to the race results, which you’d think would be obvious as it was the first race of the season. But in Enduro World Cup racing, on rare occasions riders might score more points than someone who finished ahead of them in the race. This happened to Vali Höll at R1 in 2023, where she finished tenth and scored 269 points, 49 more than the rider in ninth, Noga Korem
• Explainer: an elite Enduro World Cup win scores 400 points. There are also points awarded for each stage results, with 20 points for a stage win. There were 480 total points available in Finale, with Rude racking up 470 and Harnden 462. Read about the points structure and calculate something in this handy feature we put together
• Vibe+: enduro Saturday, hangover Sunday
• Back on track: huge congratulations to Iago Garay for finishing the race in 40^th nearly a year after his brain aneurysm at this very venue
• Randoms: Isabeau Courdurier has still never won in Finale. There are over 190 trails in the Finale Outdoor Region. Mirco Vendemmia finished fourth in elite men riding for local bike brand Exept. Who gave WBD their camera memory card by accident? Trash Free Trails were in town, but why’s there so much rubbish anyway? Was the live timing down for most of the EDR because of network issues or too much traffic? Finn Ileswas in town to support his teammates, party and get the word ‘Specialized’ into a few videos. Ride of the day goes to our pal Greg Callaghan with seventh in elite men on an all-new solo setup for 2024 (he has personal sponsors but no factory team)
• On an-E Sunday: racing wrapped up with Sunday’s E-EDR that took in nine stages across 58-89km depending on whose stats you read. Whatever the case, the racing was hot, technical and hard-fought and riders were positive about the course layout, terrain and difficulty. Ryan Gilchrist won the E-EDR men’s race, with Flo Espiñeira winning the women’s race. Read the full report and results here
• Proto-proto: who was on the new-new top-secret motor though?
• Trivia: at the 2013 Enduro World Series race in Finale during the first-ever season of the EWS, Tracy Moseley won the elite women’s race and took the series title. That was already over 15 years into Moseley’s world-level racing career and more than a decade after her first DH World Cup win. In Finale 2024, Moseley was still there battling for the win in the E-EDR race. Inspiring stuff
• Our view: alright, quite a lot wasn’t perfect about this EDR, including riders getting lost during practice, shuttles missed due to impossible departure times, and the tight transfer times. It was all the more surprising as Finale has hosted so many smoothly run races since 2013. But apart from occasional chaos, the tracks were awesome as ever, Finale was still the dreamiest destination and, looking around the race paddocks, enduro looked healthy: Commencal’s massive setup and after-party with DJ, free beers and great vibes, Shimano’s enormous booth, and many other brands’ presence. Plus, there was a lot of online output from riders, media and the organiser, with everyone seeming to put in an extra effort to show off the sport and put any deathly rumours to bed. Now we just need the Enduro World Champs announcement and we’ll know things are on a true upward trajectory
• Thanks: as always, thank you for reading, helping spread the word and for any purchases on our store. It all helps keeps our wheels turning so we can continue recording the history of the sport. Cheers