2025 EDR #1 - Pietra Ligure

ENDURO LIVES

https://misspentsummers.com/new-enduro-world-cup-documentary-series-for…

How much of the climbing is shuttle bumps? 

GC's vid lays it out pretty well- 4 long days on the bike. Amazing how much stuff he's got stashed in that Ripmo downtube! 

I love the discipline. Tough to get good coverage live, but I'm very happy to see it continuing at the highest level and looking forward to following the racing.

Wouldn't it be possible to give each rider a top notch action camera and hook it up to a system like they use for the drones at downhill and what not, and just broadcast it. Riders unlikely to finish in 15th place or worse can just get an extra weight attached to the bike. No need for a commentator, just put Josh Carlsson on an E-bike and have him cruise around and chat with the riders between stages. I'd watch that. 

Interesting to see a few more riders running a slightly shorter travel bike with a Lyrik on the front, maybe some on 36s also, wonder if we see more of this during the season or if riders switch back to a bigger rig for lift assisted races. The terrain doesn't look smooth or mellow so maybe it's a response to the big amount of climbing/pedaling, either way it's cool to see. If the trend continues maybe the general public will follow in future, or maybe I'm wrong. 

Here's the entry list for this weekend's race:

https://chronorace.blob.core.windows.net/webresources/20250509_mtb/entrylist.pdf

There are many more racers in almost every category compared to last year and riders seem genuinely excited for the comeback of two-day racing.

RR running the new Fox inverted fork on his SB160. But I don't think he has any concerns about pedaling.

Charlie Murray set the trail bike precedent by running a Stumpy and Lyrik for all of last season, and got some solid results.

Here's Tristan Botteram's bike check:
 

Crazy shakedown, front flips and all.

I’ve been in Finale this past week on vacation, and it’s rained everyday. Not a ton, but enough to make some trails slippery, while others were tacky and perfect. The weather has changed every day (currently it’s sprinkling and cloudy), but it looks like it will warm up over the weekend and be drier. It doesn’t take too much sun to dry up a lot of trails, but there always seems to be some slick turns and puddles when you least expect it.

The trails that are being raced on above Pietra have been closed all week. But I know there have been plenty of racers floating around the area the past couple weeks. 

Two days of racing, big practice days, no shuttles. The general sentiment chatting with people is that they’re stoked to see racing going back to the original vibe of enduro racing. 

Re shorter travel - I’m sure I read somewhere that you’re more likely to make up time on the sprint climbs than on the actual downs so they’re prepared to sacrifice some travel for a quicker bike..?

Yes and no because that's what they have electronics for the suspension to adjust between descents and ascents. But unfortunately also the UCI wants enduro bikes to have a stroke of probably 140 max 150mm of travel. 

But does anyone know what the point is with the starting numbers? 
Too much do not correspond to the classification of the 2024 season or the uci classification. Richie has 4 and he was and is first in erd24 and uci

I know Charlie went onto the Stumpy because it was UDH and they wanted to push Transmission and at the time there wasn't a conversion for the Enduro to UDH. That could be the real reason.

Was that the reason?  I know he put out a video about why he switched and it seemed to be based off testing.  But maybe that was just marketing bs?

It will be interesting to see how riders get on this weekend and see if there is a pattern with travel/bike capability and results.

He has not gone back to the Enduro following the new udh update it got recently. Some of the Cannondale sponsored riders seem to be on the Habit (UDH) rather than the Jekyll (not UDH), which  could be drivetrain related or not. A couple of years ago some of the GT team (RIP) were using the Sensor in preference to the Force, they were Shimano sponsored so not a UDH related decision. I suspect that some riders don't jive with the high pivot bikes, I remember Martin Maes being non complimentary about the high pivot Force. Maybe the super Downhill focused high pivot bikes are too much for Enduro, maybe not. Let's see how the season plays out in terms of bike choices and results. 

He has YouTube videos of him doing various testing.  "Enduro vs. Stumpy Evo" and later on "Stumpy Evo vs. Stumpy 15".  I kinda laugh at the SJ Evo vs. SJ15 "timed testing" video he does.  Like what are you are going to do if the Evo comes out faster?  Delete the footage and just pretend like it never happened?  No way Spesh would let an athlete use an older model bike over a newly released version to race on.

Everybody needs a Party Boy in their riding crew

A few years back Chris Blevins chose the "old" Epic over the newly released Epic World Cup/Super Caliber copy, and did quite well on it.

In fact, the Epic World Cup seems to be a big flop with most of the Team riders not choosing to race it.

Rudeau on the new Fox fork as well. 

Im so envious my friends in Riva del Garda could go for a ride with him at the Bike Festival 

CM swapping from a Lyrik to a Zeb... 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJbubA5MM6_/?igsh=c2t4M2Q4MTJwYmo0 

Practice action coming in hot:

Good video, feels like a good start, social media coverage seems good also, long live Enduro. 

Looks like Marco Osborne is riding a 36 rather than a 38 for Pietra, interesting to see! 

https://www.instagram.com/p/DJcXaEoyvEt/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&ig…

We bought 2 new 15's when they came out and luckily didnt sell our EVO's with cascade links, Ended up selling the 15's and bought a couple of spare EVO frames when they were really cheap - We Found the 15's just lacked something special the EVO had, maybe it was the links.
There's a solid argument the EVO and with cascade link are a better bike overal than the 15.

It's been increasing popular to see The downfall of the common 'enduro bike'
Is the ideal plan for Enduro racers to be strong and just hang onto it through the rough in trade for a faster handling bike ??

The Spectral is a similar thing to the SJ, they went DOWN in travel - however the new spectral feels like it has similar travel to the old one, they did mess with the geo to much though, 500's to long and 475 is to short.(6ft)

I can honestly see a reduction in Enduro bikes and is this why specilized hasnt jumped the gun on the ENDURO? - Im seeing more of these: 'One enduro bike for all trails'  dissapearing and the same people returning with a DH bike and a trail bike.

So with the talk of the shorter travel bikes being popular again for these longer days out who else would be excited if they made a hardtail class, or instead had a one off where everyone rode hardtails? First day hardtail, second day normal rig? 

Ill stop thread hijacking now, excited to see how enduro goes this year.

hardtail just abuses the spine to much

Are we back at chain guides? 

 Transmission is not the best with some suspension linkages i think, it slaps badly to the point the chain falls off, a friend on the new canyon torque was forced to run a chain tensioner and guide to prevent that, same another rider on a Transition patrol, another guy i know on the Nomad 6 had 0 issues, so i think it could be due to the missing B limit combined with some suspension/axle path more or less aggressive on chain pull 

Isabeau has retired from racing now, but she's taking on the next challenges in life with the same enthusiasm that brought her so much success between the tapes - getting into the media game while also preparing to become a mother! Best of luck to you Isa - and Peanut ;-)

Here's a comprehensive PIetra Ligure race preview from Isa with on-track footage and commentary to help set us up for the action (which starts today):

Lots running the trek slash also had issues with T-type.