Rotorua enduro...

being couched out with an injury i watched a lot of the bits and pieces of this race at the weekend. how is this Jerome Clementz guy so incredibly good. and dominant! howdy doody time, mad mag mascot next to the ripped athletes he competes against and he dusts them time and again. unreal. it says something about the discipline of enduro i reckon. Keene, who looks like a massive boss in any promo vids didn't even finish this race…

For one he stays on his bike. He likely rides most everything with less raw speed but more smooth over the course of a long day of racing.

He was a national level DH racer in France so it's not like he is some scrawny roadie.

with 5 guys within 24secs apart and 3 within a 3secs apart i would say he had a cleaner section for a few seconds here and there , to me that is not dominating the others . these guys are the best of the best and on any given stage can take the overall .

i would like to see these guys race the courses with no practice and see who comes out ahead , spending days prior to the event mastering sections and filming everything makes for very close races .

i thought it was each riders first time down each trail? not the case? they sure ride it like they built it. the speeds on some sections is staggering. the one on the home page of Josh Carlson is wild. i guess it's his consistency that's amazing because it's like you say- so tight at the top. they are all so close.

i thought it was each riders first time down each trail? not the case? they sure ride it like they built it. the speeds on some sections is staggering. the one on the home page of Josh Carlson is wild. i guess it's his consistency that's amazing because it's like you say- so tight at the top. they are all so close.

The rules change between certain races because some of the EWS events joined the series from their former national series (notably in France and Italy) where some rules differ, although they're getting closer. But no, for each race there is at least one day of official practice. Beyond that, sometimes riders that target the EWS specifically will show up days or weeks in advance of a race.

Even if they don't know what trails will constitute each stage, they can still get a really good idea just by being there. And, of course, they also get used to the dirt, the food, and other conditions…you'll hear grumbling from DH riders especially about how serious some of the Enduro guys are about training for weeks on a track before racing on it. I call that 'preparation' but they think it's uncool. In any case, everyone has ridden the next corner at least once but usually more often than that - just not at race pace after hours and hours of riding.

Blind format is far more interesting to me.

they all have mad skills and fitness, but I think cornering skills wins enduros, even more than in DH racing. Inefficiency through corners adds up big time, especially on a pedally course.

^for sure. energy management / extracting maximum efficiency is critical in long events like this. definitely need to be strategic.

amazing result from wyn.

Blind format is far more interesting to me.

I think the 2 run semi blind format used in France is cool. They get one set run down the course then a limited amount of time to get back to the top and then it's the race run.

I think the 2 run semi blind format used in France is cool. They get one set run down the course then a limited amount of time to get back to the top and then it's the race run.

i did the vedder race semi blind for the most part , i did hike the 2nd stage a week before but did not remember much and actually got lost twice LOL . so that did little for me , and then watched a video of some of the sections , truthfully all it did was psych me out . the stuff i road blind i enjoyed and forced myself to commit more in sections .