Wanted - Enduro World Series Whistler entry

^^ Crazy Train towards the bottom

Still floating on cloud nine from yesterday. It's sore here on cloud nine with some tired legs, arms, and hands.

that was the most excersize ive ever done in one day. I found myself making transitions with less than minutes left. Full survival mode for stage 4 I would have rode pretty ugly.

I found alot of the time i was riding by myself. Up especially i didnt have the legs to keep up with others.
It was such a big day, stoked to finish.

I did see alot of cameras out there but havent found any pictures? If anyone has any from the day i would love to see them, specifically of me, number 402, on a green kona process…

Thanks y'all.

that was the most excersize ive ever done in one day. I found myself making transitions with less than minutes left. Full survival mode for stage 4 I would have rode pretty ugly.

I found alot of the time i was riding by myself. Up especially i didnt have the legs to keep up with others.
It was such a big day, stoked to finish.

I did see alot of cameras out there but havent found any pictures? If anyone has any from the day i would love to see them, specifically of me, number 402, on a green kona process…

Thanks y'all.

nice work out there, buddy, you killed it!

That race was classic Whistler epic race styles in the spirit of the Samurai or the Royalty…pushing oneself pretty hard, challenging riding, overcoming mechanicals and crashes, making new friends, and stoked to toast each other over a frosty beverage at the end of the day.

good job laim.

Some photos here. http://www.bikeparkphotos.com/-/galleries/bike-park-photos/2014-bike-park-photos/race-and-event-photos

I had a great day too, everyone out there was very friendly. My shoulders are sore today, probably because i enjoyed stage 4 so much.

I did see alot of cameras out there but havent found any pictures? If anyone has any from the day i would love to see them, specifically of me, number 402, on a green kona process…

Thanks y'all.

coast mountain had a camera on the peak; looks like they got pretty much everyone:

http://www.bikeparkphotos.com/-/galleries/bike-park-photos/2014-bike-park-photos/race-and-event-photos/0810crankworx-enduro-stage-5

interesting perspective: http://theteamrobot.blogspot.ca/2014/08/the-whistler-ews.html

personally i don't get it, but to each his own i guess.

He takes the far side of the argument but I can see a few points. I would have loved to have made it to Stage 4 on time. I put in the effort to get there but I just wasn't quick enough. It's tough to be out of the race and know that you could ride the whole techy stage section and yet other competitors who can climb quicker but actually walk sections of the stage get to continue and place.

For me, it ended up being a 6:30 hr tech xc race (with a grand total of 3 mins spare time before the first 2 stages and 2 mins late for the 3rd) plus a Top of the World run. The bonus of it all is that because it was a race, I pushed myself way beyond and accomplished a bigger day of riding than ever before (by a long shot.) I am dissuaded that I couldn't get a time on all the stages, though.

Trolling for clicks.

If he has just put something up about not being prepared he would have gotten a few clicks and no shares. He puts up that diatribe and it gets tons of clicks and shares.

Re: stashing bottles…if bottle stashing isn't allowed, why is it that there were so many (judging by the images-graves, Keene, etc.) with just a bottle in the frame, and perhaps one stashed in Enduro specific bib shorts? If you had two successive stages, for instance, that shared the same climb why would you not want to just dump the pack at the bottom? :-)

They have water stations at the bottom of the stages…..or at least that's what we were told at the start…sadly they either didn't(after stage one and 2, although there was an unmarked water station on the 3rd transfer) or they ran out of water(after stage 3). Not really a big deal in 30* weather. Personally I didn't have an issue with water but I did hear that others did. Thankfully I was flagged down by a fellow rider that told me where a water station was which saved me some grief.

One that I thought was funny, they sent out an email at 9 am saying that the starting times had changed. My race started at 8 am. Not one official through the event told me

All in all the event was amazing though and I can't even fathom the logistics involved in putting something like that together.

I'm glad they added some time onto the transfer stages but sadly for me it wasn't enough. To those made all the stages, wow, great job.

Who is that "team robot" guy?
Whistler riding is an acquired taste, pretty tough and weird at first. Sounds like he doesn't ride here much.
I have a solid case of fomo going. Perhaps I'll do this again next year.

I would have loved to have made it to Stage 4 on time.

yeah, looking at the results it appears lots of people were in the same boat. i watched a couple people complete that gruelling climb only to be turned around at the start gate. sucks. i can understand the motivation to keep moving people through the course, but they probably could have padded the 4th liaison a bit more. though i suppose with the pros starting totw as late as they did, there wasn't much time left in the day. bit of a balancing act if you're going to run ams [HTML_REMOVED] pros on the same day.

Who is that "team robot" guy?
Whistler riding is an acquired taste, pretty tough and weird at first. Sounds like he doesn't ride here much.
I have a solid case of fomo going. Perhaps I'll do this again next year.

charlie sponsel. he does like to stir shit up. lots of his rants are on point (and good entertainment). evidently this course wasn't his style.

funny; sunday after the race i was thinking i probably wouldn't do this one again. now i'm already thinking about how i could improve my time. punishing, but weirdly compelling. hmmm…

He's just a professional whiner, mostly. Always talks about hating enduro, but then signs up for them. I'm convinced he does it just so he can bitch about it.

re. water, we were told there would be water at bottom of all stages, I figured something would go wrong (usually does) so made sure I had a couple litres in my pack for the first two stages. There's a vid I was watching that shows some kind of small water pack that Graves wears under his jersey…

I may be in the minority, but I kind of think an event like this should be hard to finish for some of the people racing it. It's a top tier event, and it's a bike race, not a walking race. Part of that is making it to the start of your stage on time. I walked way more shit than I normally do, due to gearing on a new bike and saving energy in the heat, and still made it with 15 minutes to spare everytime. No, not a lot, but frankly I don't like cooling down too much before racing anyway so I found it almost perfect.

As Clark knows, you definitely can't please everyone putting on these events, some will say it was too hard, and others would say it wasn't hard enough (although maybe not in this case!). Personally I found the day a challenge, and an adventure, and that's what it's supposed to be in my opinion. If you want easy, there are tons of grassroots events out there that don't push the limits like this event. That being said, it wouldn't be a horrible thing to tone down the overall hardness of the event/few of the stages next year and still have a fun and challenging day.