After the Europe block with stops in Scotland, France and Italy, it was off to overseas. It was time to start the second half of the Enduro World Series (EWS). Destination: Winter Park, Colorado. This time, like last year, a race in the test-tube ski resort in the heart of the American Rocky Mountains was on the agenda.
Last year we arrived at very short notice and felt the full force of jetlag. That was a lesson for us and so we arrived over a week early and shook off the eight hour time difference before the race in good time. However, the altitude in Winter Park presents another challenge not to be scoffed at. Although it looks like a low mountain range, the valley station of the "Trestle Bike Park" is already at 2.800 m above sea level. We often don't even get that high on the peaks of the Alps... Breathing becomes difficult and the heart beats almost twice as fast as usual, even at night. Altitude training camp including competition – the advantage should clearly lie with the locals.
The well-known daily thunderstorms in the afternoon caused a new feature in the race format: the fifth round of the EWS was held in seven stages over 3 1⁄2 days. Racing was the order of the day in the morning, and the next day's stages were announced at noon and training was given. Long days for the whole team, especially our mechanics Marc and Dougie.
Day one was all in the bike park. As an enduro racer, you are not so used to parked stretches with doubles, berms and nasty brake bumps. A look at the list of results should quickly confirm this. The locals knew all the routes inside out and placed ahead of many favourites. Nevertheless, Joe Barnes was very satisfied: “Last year I was 30th on the same stage. Finishing 17th now is a good step. The stage itself was good, but from the middle my stomach didn't cooperate anymore. Very weird feeling. Then I pretty much skipped another jump. I was definitely faster there than in training. I then hung halfway over the bike like a motocross racer. That was pretty much perfect right there. After that I was so flashed that the rest ran like clockwork. It's pretty brutal out there."
Thanks to the route layout, the second day promised more variety and lured with hitherto unknown and unused hiking trails away from the resort. Unfortunately, that wasn't to Ludo May's taste at all:
“Stage 4 and 5 were extremely short, sometimes even less than two minutes. We're not used to that. These hiking trails are very dusty and quite narrow, especially at the beginning. Actually not suitable for mountain biking. It gets pretty tight between the trees, even with the handlebars. It's also very flat – I don't like that at all, it's pretty unsexy. But that's the American interpretation of Enduro. They proved that again this time and we should have known it before we came here.”
Right at the beginning of the third day there should be great excitement. Unfortunately, a local racer had such a bad accident in the women's race that the course had to be closed for the men's race. Unfortunately, this only happened after the first ten men had already gone through. Of course, the times weren't usable, so Chris Ball, the EWS Managing Director, decided that all men had to go back up for a re-run. Of course, that caused some misunderstanding and completely messed up the schedule, but from a fair play point of view it was absolutely the right decision.
The racer is stable and made it to the hospital in Denver quickly. So the 6th stage had to be driven twice – you couldn't choose that it was the most strenuous of the whole weekend. Stage 7 was similar to the first and everyone was able to turn the gas tap hard again downhill. In the end we looked at the list of results with mixed feelings: Joes was seventh, Ludo was 52nd and Ines Thoma was a respectable 10th. Joe's summary after the race was positive:
“That was actually a top race for me. Much better than last year and also than expected. It's good that I'm consistently at the top and almost won a stage on Saturday. I felt really good all weekend and now I'm pretty disappointed with the last stage. My run was okay, but then I saw the time - and thought: That can't be true, so slow? But the timing back-up has also confirmed it. There would have been two more places, but at least it's a solid top ten result again. Now hurry to Whistler!”
After a day of rest for man and material, we board the plane to Vancouver. Check-In: Denver-Vancouver. Whistler, the bike Mecca par excellence, awaits us. The next Strive Diaries will be out in less than two weeks.