Hello,
Last weekend’s Enduro World Cup round showed the sport in its best light.
Big mountain stages, flawless organisation and good vibes made the Aletsch Arena-Bellwald race one of the best enduros in years.
Read on for our notes from the event plus photos by Misspent Summers yearbook photographers Boris and Sven.
The future’s looking good.
Cheers,
James
+the Misspent Summers team
PRODUCT: CHOOSE MTB PRINT
ROUND OF APPLAUSE: Notes from a perfectly Swiss Aletsch-Bellwald Enduro World Cup
- Top-threes: Elite men: 1. Jack Moir: 35:31.546 2. Slawomir Lukasik +14.061 3. Richard Rude Jr +21.222 | Elite women: 1. Harriet Harnden: 41:25.488 2. Ella Conolly +28.277 3. Isabeau Courdurier +30.263 | U21 men: 1. Bailey Christie: 37:21.308 2. Jt Fisher +8.393 3. Sascha Kim +11.943 | U21 women: 1. Elly Hoskin: 44:27.939 2. Emmy Lan +37.466 3. Simona Kuchynkova +48.797
- Standings: Elite men: 1. Richard Rude Jr: 2226 points 2. Slawomir Lukasik: 1884 3. Charles Murray: 1773 | Elite women: 1. Isabeau Courdurier: 2238 points 2. Harriet Harnden: 2175 3. Ella Conolly: 1853 | U21 men: 1. Bailey Christie: 974 points 2. Jt Fisher: 972 3. Sascha Kim: 806 | U21 women: 1. Simona Kuchynkova: 848 points 2. Elly Hoskin: 688 3. Lily Planquart: 592
- Word: oxygen
- In brief: you can’t keep a champion down – Moir hadn’t won at this level since his last Enduro World Series win just down the road in Crans-Montana in 2022. But, despite various injuries and setbacks, he kept chipping away until everything came together for his first-ever Enduro World Cup win. His emotions on the finish line said it all. Harnden, meanwhile, was already sitting a close second in the 2024 series standings after a win and three podiums this season. She beasted Bellwald’s lung-busting climbs, winning the first stage by twenty-five seconds alone. With that start, it was no surprise to see her take the race win and move within 63 points of Courdurier in the series overall
- Full results and standings after Aletsch-Bellwald here
- Highlights etc.: check out the official highlights plus plenty of other top-quality coverage in our selection of EDR Aletsch-Bellwald videos here. Note: there’s no E-EDR in the official video – with regular and electric races moved to the same day (see below), presumably it wasn’t viable to cover both
- Vibe: only good times in Aletsch-Bellwald. The riders loved the tracks, the organisation was slick, and EDR racing being back on a weekend (instead of Friday as it has been at recent rounds) made for a good atmosphere. TV screens beaming out live action from the stages drew in crowds and built the storyline throughout race day. It was great fun and showcased the sport as it could be – top work by the local and series organisers and more like this please
- Trivia corner: the Enduro World Series and Enduro World Cup (as the series was rebranded last year) first went to Switzerland in 2019 with the race in Zermatt. Since then, there’s been a Swiss race nearly every year: Zermatt again in 2020 then Crans-Montana twice in 2021-2022 then a break in 2023 before the Swiss comeback with Aletsch-Bellwald this year. In 2025, Enduro World Champs hits – you guessed it – Aletsch-Bellwald
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Continued below…
- The long game: Moir’s winning time of 35 mins 31 secs was the longest elite men’s total race time (all stage times combined) since round four of the 2022 Enduro World Series in Whistler, Canada (Jesse Melamed won that race with a time of 41 mins 14 secs). Harnden’s winning time of 41 mins 25 secs was also the longest women’s race time since Whistler 2022 when the winner – a certain H.Harnden – finished with a time of 49 mins 33 secs
- Aletsch free school dinners rating: 8/10 (good snacks, no hot food)
- Two bikes, choose one (or both): forecast extreme weather forced a schedule change, moving the Open (amateur) race from its Friday slot to Saturday. In turn, the EDR World Cup was moved from Saturday to Sunday, the same day as the E-EDR. This made for two rest days in a row for EDR racers after Thursday’s practice day, and it meant anyone planning to race EDR and E-EDR had to decide between the two. Those who practiced on an e-bike (EDR and E-EDR practice is on the same day and there’s no rule about which bike you must use) and then raced the regular EDR arguably had an advantage – there were some hefty climbs and eebing up them in practice saved energy. The two days’ rest perhaps nullified the effect, but nearly everyone (except perhaps the rule makers) seems to agree there should be a ruling in place to remove any ambiguity
- Electric bike racing: not only the e-bikes benefit from electric assistance these days. The top-three elite EDR women all had auto-adjust RockShox Flight Attendant suspension on their bikes, as did the elite men’s winner (Moir); various Fox athletes have been using prototype RAD (Racing Application Development) shocks with undisclosed internal electric stuff and external green lights this season – including Rude on his race day coil shock
- Slinky: there’s no such thing as complacency in enduro. The elite men’s winning margin (between first and second place) in Bielsko-Biała this year was less than one tenth of a second and in Combloux it was barely two seconds; Moir smashed it on Aletsch-Bellwald’s long stages to win by 14-seconds. Harnden’s 28-second margin here was on par with Courdurier’s massive 38-second Leogang win and Morgane Charre’s 23-second Combloux win; in Bielsko-Biała the women’s margin was only two tenths of a second
More below…
- High (or low) pressure situation: pro mountain bike racers have precise settings for their bikes and components, but at certain enduro races precision requires constant revision. Aletsch-Bellwald threw two variables: temperature (mornings in the valley were fairly cold; afternoons on the mountain quite hot) and altitude (the race roll-out was at just over 1,000 metres; stage one started at around 2,600 metres). Heat and height affect air pressures, so some riders were carrying gauges to check and adjust tyre pressures before stages
- Multi-taskers of the week: rising downhill star Anna Newkirk finished eighth in elite women; pro skier on holiday Craig Murray (Charlie’s brother) finished 16th in elite men. Hats off also to Eliott Jamieson for a career-best seventh in elite men
- Loser: who accidentally dropped a 29-inch CushCore tyre insert out of their tyre onto the grass between stages one and two? If you lost it, we moved it 20 metres into the nearby bin for you
- Flat out: whoever the Cushcore loser was, they might’ve chosen the wrong moment to ditch the extra cushion. Stage two was brutal on bikes, and we mathematically guessed around a quarter of riders had a wheel issue, flat or double flat by the end of it. And that was just one of the five total rim- and mech-busting stages. Few bikes finished unscathed
- Screen time: ex-pro enduro racers the Gehrig sisters were out on the hill with a film crew all day and beaming live updates and rider interviews into the start-finish arena down in town. Not only that, but spectator information was distributed online, on social media and in-person (at an info booth), all of which led to good turnout and vibes all day
- Chat: is it better to sleep high or low?
- Diminishing returns: liaison times between stages are the same for everyone (U21 and elite men and women) and based on the overall time between each stage start. So, if you go slower on the timed race stage, you are left with less time to get up the hill to the start of the next one. Faster riders have an easier time getting between race runs
- Our view: heat, snow, dust, mud, glaciers, waterfalls, meadows, forests: Aletsch-Bellwald was a proper day out on a bike and riders were unanimous in their praise for the event and the improvements to the series so far this year. Everything seems to be going in the right direction – it’s just a shame there’s only one Enduro World Cup left this season (there’s World Champs too). It feels like things are just getting going
- Thanks: big thank you to everyone reading our waffle and staring at our pics! We love your messages of support and feedback – if you have anything to suggest, please just hit reply and let us know how we can improve what we do. It’s much appreciated. Cheers
