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The Steve Peat clips while he was talking about it was great.

This is honestly shocking. WBD is a private, for-profit company. If they decide Enduro isn't profitable enough to broadcast, fine. That's their business. But why does a private broadcaster have a say in whether an entire cycling discipline gets a World Cup? The UCI is a governing body. Its job is to organize, protect and develop cycling for its members, not decide which disciplines survive based on the ROI of a commercial partner. And one of the most important jobs of a governing body is to provide a consistent pathway through the sport. Local racing → regional racing → nationals...

I'm so worried about how thin, fragile, and expensive riding pants are these days that I've quit sliding out and hitting my knee pads as a strategy for saving money. I still wear knee pads, but mostly as a mental/emotional safety blanket. This also allows me to feel total confidence in the new knee-sleeve style knee pads. YMMV

So back to team rumors... The Downtime Les Gets pre-race podcast had a bit of discussion about teams wanting to sign up and coming juniors, leaving riders towards/at the end of their career with few options. They didn't mention names, but I'm sure we can guess who might be in this bucket. Danny Hart jumps to mind first. Who else?

As someone who shot a bunch of those Vital slideshows during the peak EWS years, I recall that being the case too. For fans of the enduro format the long form coverage was great and the slideshows told a compelling story, especially over two day races. But for the average viewer or MTB race fan it never really got the same kind traction as DH content, even when the industry marketing and money was moving away from DH in favor of the EWS at that time. For those of us old enough to remember, the early years of EWS felt...

Thanks for the reminder to go back and watch this great vid on the SC Enduro Team in Chile and Colombia.

Apolgy for bad English Where were u wen EWS die I was at house watching wyn tv when vital post "EWS is kil" "no"

I agree with Jessie Melamed. This is an opportunity for some sort of international series to regrow without the pressure of having to answer to a giant corporation about viewership and advertising revenue. Seems like there is a new gen of racers really fired up about the format.

Yeah remember when they went literally all over the world, Feb to October to beauiful places with crowds that rarely got to see that level of racing? Maybe we can get a race series again that lets people build or come out from no where. I also wonder if some riders saw it coming and announced retirement while they were at the top this year....

Generally speaking, Irish people arn't particularly fond of monarchies... there were a lot of other ways they could have phrased that

Yeah, for me this is exciting. I hope we go back to a true EWS, the travels, tougher days, more day. And seeing Elliot Heap broadcasting the current races I can see a glimmer of hope that this can be so, so good. The coverage Jesse Melamed did from the Canadian enduro was heaps better than what has been produced for a long time. The potential is there for sure. Ut the “Red Bull Enduro World Series” could be a fantastic happening to ou beloved sport. Beautiful and exciting racing from around the world. Come on, be brave and invest...

Hopefully we get some kind of mashup between trans-x races and current format, some races with current format and some blind races, but straight up thinking that 1) trans-x race could be somehow organized for 400-500 riders without a gondola/lift is kind of ridiculous 2) elite field racing for 5 days straight when, they are beat up already with the two day racing 3) coverage of that would be even more harder to produce with some kind of timeline after the event. But hopefully this just opens doors to more exotic and new locations, but having listened Downtimes latest podcast...

UCI killed enduro as if they were private equity firm. The EWS was sick in its early years up until 2022. The highlight videos and race venues 2016ish-2022 were fantastic. UCI turned it into the European bike park series so they could attempt to televise/stream it, assuming because they could generate revenue that way.

Kneepads at ankles is the way to go and I refuse any other opinion on the matter. I prefer my knees not constantly feeling like they are going to get some form of trenchfoot (trenchknee?)

This is a sad development. Enduro as a sport changed mountain biking for the better. The fact that we are pedaling durable rigs that are nearly as good as DH bikes is a direct result of the EWS and its effect on mtb culture. It seemed to be an uphill battle in that the bikes stopped selling, both because they got to such a good place and [my lawyers have advised me to redact this reason for the death of the enduro bike as a growth sector]. It is a bummer because I will miss the 20 min recaps of...

It's an unbelievably vague press release. My first thought was that they were trying to sugarcoat "We're killing the series forever" in positive-sounding corporate-speak, but on second read it's kind of wishy washy and undefined, like maybe the UCI is exploring ways to offload the series to another organizer or multiple organizers, which is what it was all along until Chris Ball sold it to the UCI. Back in the day, the EWS was mostly a collection of events that were already taking place independent of the UCI, like the SuperEnduro series in Italy or Crankworx Whistler. After rereading it...