Hi there,

This weekend the Enduro World Cup goes to Switzerland with the Aletsch Arena-Bellwald race, the penultimate round of the series (sounds odd saying that mid-July). Racing has been moved to Sunday due to extreme weather. Follow the live timing on our website this Sunday 14 July.

But before that, look back at last week’s chaos and brilliance in Les Gets, France, where we ran our summer pop-up, and (arguably more notable) Amaury Pierron and Eleonora Farina pulled out historic rides in near-impossible conditions in Saturday’s downhill race.

Read on for our notes from Les Gets, including photos by our yearbook photographers Boris Beyer, Sven Martin and Seb Schieck.

Hope you enjoy reading through.

Cheers,

James

+the Misspent Summers team

PRODUCT: SPENT 2

OVERLOAD: slightly frazzled notes from Les Gets DH World Cup 2024

• Elite men results: Amaury Pierron: 3:43.976 2. Andreas Kolb +6.498 3. Greg Minnaar +6.711 4. Rémi Thirion +9.842 5. Thomas Estaque +9.987
• Elite women results: Eleonora Farina: 4:19.168 2. Mille Johnset +6.768 3. Tahnée Seagrave +20.665 4. Myriam Nicole +21.261 5. Valentina Höll +24.051
• Full results and standings (elite and junior) here
• Quick recap: read George Gore Browne’s B-Zone Bullets here
• Gawp at this: watch the Sleeper Les Gets Shreddit and an alternative take on the action by Ripcut Productions in our weekday watch selection
• Ouch: shout out to the junior racers. With storms forecast for finals day, the organisers chose to cancel their races and shorten the day’s schedule – lightning and chairlifts don’t go well together. It was a tough pill to swallow for every rider and team, especially with the sun coming out early in the day, but you can’t blame anyone for looking out for rider safety. Junior results were taken from their qualifying runs, giving Asa Vermette and Heather Wilson the wins
• Word: Ditchie
• Fantasy league: check out the Race Companion scoreboard after Les Gets here
• New school crew: since the first of the modern era of Les Gets DH World Cups and Championships in 2019, every event has had a French elite men’s winner: Pierron, Dapréla, Bruni, Coulanges, Pierron
• Relentless: after ten years, nearly 60 races and five top-threes on the World Cup circuit, Eleonora Farina put in the ride of her life to take the elite women’s win and the first podium result for the MS Intense Racing It was also the first elite World Cup win on an Intense bike since Emmeline Ragot in 2011. Never, ever give up
• Vibe: Les Gets proved once again that you can’t keep a French crowd down. No matter how hard it rained or how unlikely it seemed that somebody might pull out a legendary mud run, the fans kept roaring their support, egging on riders to go faster, do the undoable and make the day their own. The energy kept the racing alive, and no doubt helped carry Pierron to the top of the podium. The party began the moment Pierron crossed the finish line, with the sea of fans moving into the town centre to celebrate long into the night

Continued below…

• Elite men standings after Les Gets: Loic Bruni: 1403 points 2. Amaury Pierron: 1187 3. Troy Brosnan: 1067 4. Finn Iles: 1061 5. Dakotah Norton: 974
• Elite women standings after LG: Valentina Höll: 1445 points 2. Tahnée Seagrave: 1221 3. Marine Cabirou: 1036 4. Myriam Nicole: 795 5. Nina Hoffmann: 752
• Always go full mud: Pierron rode uncut mud tyres (Schwalbe Dirty Dans, reportedly with a new rubber compound) for his epic finals-winning run. He was one of only a few riders on full muds – his 6.5-seconds margin of victory suggests it was a wise choice
• Not for the squeamish: Myriam Nicole managed a respectable fourth place in elite women’s, but if you’re wondering why she was riding with hand guards on the handlebars, it’s because she mangled a finger in a practice crash, slicing open the digit and requiring trackside stitches to hold her knuckle together. It was a nasty-looking injury, but to trooper Nicole t’was but a flesh wound
• Not old news: 20 years since the infamous 2004 Les Gets World Champs where Steve Peat crashed out within sight of the finish line, gifting the title to Fabien Barel, it was inspiring to see Peaty and Barel still at it, now in team manager positions. Meanwhile, the man who finished second on that day in 2004 – a certain Greg Minnaar – was still at it and back on the podium with his third-place finish in Les Gets this year
• ‘What’s wrong with a cow bell?’ Some say we’ve hit peak chainsaw and soon fans will return to politer noisemaking tools
• Unretirement of the week: it was great to see Mik Hannah back between the tapes in Les Gets after attempting to retire from DH World Cups in 2021. You just can’t keep someone like Hannah away from competition though: this year alone he’s raced Crankworx DH, Air DH and slalom in Rotorua and Cairns, had a top-five in an E-EDR and he qualified 115^th in Les Gets with a crash. But was he putting in the test laps on some fresh rubber and could we see his tyre sponsor, Kenda, back at the top level soon?
• Eyeballing: visibility is key when you’re hurtling down a mountain between trees, and riders chose varying ways to deal with flying mud and water in finals, some using goggle roll-offs (a plastic film that moves across the lens between two canisters when the rider pulls on a ripcord), many using tear-offs (a plastic film that is pulled off the lens and thrown into the forest where it will live forever) and one or two on straight-up lenses with no clearing device. A review of the top-three men: Minnaar – Viris goggles, no tear-offs or roll-offs; Kolb – Oakley, roll-offs; Pierron – Oakley, tear-offs. Top-three women: Seagrave – Fox, tear-offs; Johnset – 100%, no tear-offs or roll-offs; Farina – 100%, tear-offs

More below…

 

• Angle of the dangle: in the 2008 DH World Cup season there were six cameras filming the racing and the production team had to fake the start line with footage filmed during qualifying (nightmare if the weather changed, apparently). In Les Gets this year there were at least 28 cameras – mostly for the live broadcast, plus a few capturing slow motion and extra angles for recap videos. Thanks to camera operator Florentin Sack for the info – he’s been part of the broadcast team since 2008 and filmed DH and XC races every season since
• Spot a Scott: did we see a brand-new bike in Morzine after the race?
• A-listers: in recent years Les Gets has attracted many two-wheeled overlords. Troy Lee, Sam Hill and Josh Bryceland were trackside this time and loving the action
• That time of year: one of the most-heard words of the week was ‘meeting’: people heading to or from discussions about next season and beyond; riders, teams and brands wondering and pondering what the future holds. Whispers at our early morning coffee sessions suggested nerves all round. Could there be as many as 14 DH World Cup rounds in 2025 (most people say 10 or 12)? And no matter how many races there are, who’s stumping up for the extra costs? One thing was sure: without knowing how many races and where they’ll be, nobody can decide a budget. Ultimately, having more races sounds great to us, but uncertainty isn’t helping teams navigate the challenging state of the bike industry right now
• C’est it ain’t so: continuing that theme, this week, the Madison Saracen Factory Race Team announced that 2024 will be its last year on the World Cup circuit. CEO Dominic Langan said that ‘it is always important to review and take stock of everything you do and determine whether [the team] is still achieving the goals you have set. This and given the changes to the format of the UCI World Cup since last year and the addition of new and additional races all over the world from 2025, we have, following great consideration, decided that 2024 will be the last season for the Madison Saracen Factory Team. It has become increasingly difficult for a small team like Madison Saracen to be able to continue to race at this level and for it to be in any way commercially viable.’ (Read the full announcement here.) Hats off to them – some names that the team has fostered through its 14 years include Manon Carpenter, Phil Atwill, Jordan Williams, Danny Hart, Matt Walker and Greg Williamson
• Shufflers: we’re looking to produce a high-tech transparent umbrella with zero distortion to help spectators see the action during a rain race. If anyone can help, give us a shout. Umbrella LED screen with forward-facing camera, perhaps?
• Our view: it’s unbelievable how fast every single rider is going and how close to trees – downhill really is a game of millimetres and it is almost impossible to see any speed differences between riders. In the dry, that is: Farina and Pierron proved that when the going gets tech (and muddy), there’s always room to open a massive gap. Les Gets races always have the best storylines – we hope racing will return here in 2025 and beyond
• Thanks: we’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who made our pop-up possible. From the event sponsors Santa Cruz Bicycles and Fox Racing to the Misspent Summers team, via all the friends and companies who put in late shifts helping prepare photo prints, hang them on the walls and set up an entire store in just a few weeks, we owe you one. Cheers to Satellite Coffee for the morning brews and Outer Range Brewing Co for the evening beers. Thank you also to everyone who came to see us, especially those who bought a book, print or t-shirt. We can’t name every person or company, but you all know who you are. Cheers!