Enduro racing for the future.

The purpose of this post is to float an idea on how enduro racing can have an impact within the bike industry and open up the ability for bike companies to develop bike frames again.  Riders are migrating from enduro bikes to e-enduro bikes.

The Idea:
Run two day old school enduros on e-enduro bikes with a maximum battery size of 600Wh.

The goal:
To have more bike industry support for enduro.

EDR is dead. The Enduro bike segment has slowed to a crawl. E-Enduro bikes are selling at an industry influencing pace. Currently the best way to sell e-bikes is to convince the consumers that the motor they are buying is the most powerful in the industry and to have parking lot performance back up that claim. The horsepower race has to end before we have pedal motorcycles.

Regulating motor performance has proven extremely difficult to write and enforce.   In addition the newer electronically controlled electric motors are limited by software. More power is available with just a software update.  I suggest the regulation be put on the more static and measurable component, the battery.

Race on Sunday, Sell on Monday. Racing can have a way of standardizing the bike industry.  Part of the fun between the Race and the sale is all of the discussions of what makes the best e-enduro race bike.

Racing enduro on e-bikes with batteries no bigger than 600Wh could revitalize enduro racing and get the bike companies back into developing frame suspension systems. 300 Watts of power for 2 hours is like buying the power of a national level X-country racer. Add just a little more power from the person and the system is capable of producing the power of a World Cup X-country racer. Does biking need more power than the most elite athletes in the world can produce?  

E-enduro racing would invoke development of both the motor power delivery and the suspension system. As far as the motor goes the bike developer can use the 600Wh however they want.  Use 2400 W for fifteen minutes, go ahead. Use assist only on the transfers, go ahead.  Use the assist to go faster downhill, go ahead. How the 600Wh is used is up to the team and bike companies.  Suspension systems on enduro bikes have been reviewed and compared by media for years. With E-enduro the discussion would be debated in the media on battery capacity usage strategies and on suspension performance.

World level enduro courses should stay the same as they are today.  No silly massive uphill racing sections like previous E-enduro had.  Grassroots enduro racing would continue to support enduro and e-enduro racing.

To regulate the batteries they must be stamped with the maximum power rating by an independent testing lab. The bike will have to have a removable battery so that it can be inspected and stamped by race officials. As this type of racing is adopted I am sure there will be many more detailed regulations to control the 600Wh limit.

The goal would be to have the bike companies excited in supporting enduro again while aligning Enduro with the best selling class of bicycles with simpler regulations.

Edge Pizanno