New Category of Racing?

That's sorta what xce (xc eliminator) started off as before it was turned into urban mtb short track 4x. The descents weren't as gnarly but it had potential. 

Short course enduro laps? So like, extreme cyclocross? Because that's surprisingly fun to watch. I could get behind it.

We had this for a few years in Southern France: https://www.pinkbike.com/news/the-future-of-xc-xmb-challenge-aspremont…

They called it "cross moutain bike", basically looping around a course which would feature 2-3 enduro segments featured in a separate enduro race another weekend and brutal climbs that often involved hike a bike for the amateurs. The best bike would be a 120 to 140mm full suspension trail bike, but choosing tyres was a nightmare.

It didn't really catch on, they rarely got more than 100 riders, usually half that, while the enduro races were pulling 300 at the time. It was just too brutal and unenjoyable all around for amateurs: enduro bros couldn't handle the sustained uphills, XC guys had trouble with a lot of the tech climbs and just got in the way in the descents.

A similar style that is very popular still in the "transV" style which is the same as above but as a longer point to point race. It usually starts up high and finishes at a much lower point, featuring 3-5km of vertical descending and half that of climbing.

Final note: a lot of us have moved onto e-bikes and feel like an evolution of enduro is needed for ebikes, but it would still be closer to enduro, just with much longer stages featuring uphills.

Go and look at motorcycle enduro, which now has 2 World Championships - EnduroGP, and the newer series Hard Enduro.

The current MTB version of enduro is basically multi stage Downhill.....not what enduro should be about. It should be a mix of uphill, downhill, and an 'all round' test of a MTB rider.... Have 3 stages, and run them twice with a break in the middle for lunch, servicing - similar to WRC.

I would get behind a mountain bike race where racers would score points going up and going down (uphill and downhill stages). Something gnarly long and remote with a variety of stages. Some jump lines. some steep natural, some flow..etc. Something that would crown the best all-rounder. I think anything thing with the right edit and storytelling has potential, 
I don;t think the race format has anything to do with the popularity/entertainment aspect.. The most popular sports are the most boring (think about how un-eventful it is to watch Formula 1, Tour de France, Superbowl, Golf, Tennis)

I think that (sustainable, sensical business endeavor, professional) racing requires appropriate race courses, and this gets at a conflict really central to mtb. Singletrack trails are like the heart of mtb participation and a huge portion of mtb’s relationship with land and other land users. We leave very little trace, we cut down very few trees, we happily go along with the pretense that a piece of legislation can define a bicycle with a motor as not a motor vehicle (watch me pull a rabbit out of my class 1 hat!), we don’t like paying at the trailhead. This ain’t motocross, we’re like hikers on wheels! Yew!!

But too much singletrack can make racing less good regardless of format—xco, xcc, dh, enduro—head-to-head or time trial. The reasons are different, but the outcomes are the same. There needs to be room to pass, room to make meaningful line choices, and line of sight good enough for a single camera shot (or in-person spectator’s view) to have duration long enough at whatever speeds are being ridden that it can be commentated, contextualized, understood, and made part of the story of the race. Too little space for passing in head-to-head or too little time in which the action is in view in any format and it doesn’t work. Racing is interesting because you don’t know which rider is going to win. It’s engaging when whatever move or technique or stroke of luck we see the rider make somehow contributes to the race result. Being behind then being ahead. Making a pass. A split time changing from red to green. If you can’t see how a rider’s line choice or technique relates to the clock or position, then what are you even watching? Just somebody shreddin, and later you find out if they won? Why did they win or not win? A lottery, random chance, is a boring story. The winner had the best preparation and the outcome was predestined is a boring story.

DH has figured some of this out, and when it’s possible race courses are taped wider than regular trails. But even wide courses can have poor sight lines, and higher rider speeds make any given section in view last shorter in duration. XCO has figured this out and the best courses have sections that are nothing like your local loop on public lands. There’s infrastructure.

For people who want racing to be better to watch, i think there’s some hard thinking ahead about whether it’s possible to build and maintain more tracks in addition to trails. I don’t believe gadgets like strava and gopro and drones and video editing are ever going to realize the dream of making any trail a racecourse. I don’t think either XCO or DH are as good as they could be, and they’re head and shoulders above the other mtb disciplines.

4X, slalom, hard E-duro, marathon? I’m hopeful, but i think it’s gonna take plenty of money to do it to do it to do it to do it to do it right child

e-bike enduro would be super fun.  Steep, technical climbs and descents, bike version of hard enduro.

bring back super d

As a racer I want to race the opposite of that.

I want a chairlift up then multiple gravity stages with very little pedalling.

But referring back to the op I think part of the issue is the coverage isn't very good and the races are so long it would be hard to keep viewers engaged, be as boring as F1 to watch live.

When enduro first started there were lots of formats tried, anything where there were uphill stages  or transitions were timed were dominated by xc bikes regardless of how technical the downhills were. There was just far more time to be made up there than lost on the downs.