Pinkbike Award Winner: Game-Changer of the Year
Sorting out the winning game-changer came down to determining the defining moment when an event, a decision, or an action took place that turned a page and launched us into a new chapter, yet to be played out in the history of mountain biking. The sport of enduro came into sharp focus after the Enduro World Series' second successful season captured the imaginations of both rank-and-file riders and the media. Enduro was no longer an enigmatic concept being carelessly lobbed about by marketing departments and media hacks. The EWS gave the sport of enduro shape and substance and put it in front of a truly global audience. The EWS had all of the basic ingredients in place: a groundswell of popularity, pro teams in attendance, key media coverage, and venues on three continents. Mid-way through the 2014 EWS season, almost everyone could tell you that that enduro was here to stay, but nobody, even the EWS, knew for certain what the series was going to evolve into in the foreseeable future. That defining moment was provided by the people who put together the EWS stop at Whistler's Crankworx festival.
Enduro World Series at Whistler, BC
The Enduro World Series at Whistler, BC, handily won our Game-Changer of the Year award for setting a high bar for future enduro venues - for its diversity of terrain and trails, for the intensity of its sometimes monstrously technical descents, and for pushing the top EWS athletes up to and sometimes beyond their athletic and bike-handling skillsets. Red Bull Specialized racer Curtis Keene remarked at the finish of the five-stage, single-day event, that it was the hardest enduro he had experienced, and then tipped his hat to the working-class competitors who managed to finish a race that put the hurt to the pros.
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 Nico Lau |
For Whistler, the 2014 EWS brought recognition to the ski-mountain and its nearby slopes for its stellar singletrack network rather than revisit its now-stereotypical flow and DH trails. For the EWS, Whistler demonstrated to the series organizers as well as to competitors, that professional enduro racers can handle a lot more fire than any of us believed they could. Admittedly, the small group of men who laid out the course and who put in massive amounts of shovel time to prepare it for competition did so because they wanted to showcase Whistler's lesser known gems. But, the outcome of their efforts exceeded all ambitions. Before the last competitor crossed the line - almost nine hours after the early morning start - the writing was on the wall for the EWS.
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| Jesse Melamed |
If the Enduro World Series wants to maintain its leadership position as the international series for enduro competition, then its venues must be upgraded to challenge the pros and to progress their skills. To make that happen, however, promoters must be willing to accept that many amateur racers will not be able to make the transfers - or in some cases, even ride down the courses. Enduro will always have venues for rank-and-file racers, but not the EWS. All signs point to a day when we will realize that the 2014 EWS at Whistler marked the decision point where the EWS was set on course to become a professional-only competition venue and eventually achieve status similar to that of the World Cups.
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| Jared Graves |
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Definition of GAME CHANGER
: a newly introduced element or factor that changes an existing situation or activity in a significant way.
You have used "game changer" incorrectly. please replace with:
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: the action of calling something to the attention of the public especially by paid announcements
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: advertisements the magazine contains much advertising>
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: the business of preparing advertisements for publication or broadcast
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Pinkbike Users
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1. To share an opinion or feeling; be in accord: " I agree with you on that."
As far as your claims of the awards being used as advertising, that's completely false. I can assure you that no companies paid for inclusion in the awards, and we, the editors, had complete freedom to nominate whichever products / events / athletes we wanted.
As for the FEST series, those guys rock. There's a reason we published coverage from every single stop on the series - their riding skills are simply on another level. They have a nomination in the Slopestyle / Freeride event of the year, and I'm excited to see what they come up with at next year's events.
I've just re-entered and, OH MY GOD, makripper has been massively downvoted (+36 right now). Sorry PB, but I don't believe this amazing miracle, you're like a poor masturbation.
theteamrobot.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-whistler-ews.html
One thing is sure, if other venues make stuff even more challenging, then Downhill will have to change to likes of Dan Athertons Hardline, for good and bad. Wait... it's always for good and bad, whatever you do. You want more Ying, you get more Yang baby, one fish does not chase other, it balances it. Preachers, scientists, news anchors, politicians, all sorts of paid smartasses and opinion shaping douches are persistently broadcasting the myth that good will prevail in the end, that we must fight evil, be better human beings and everything will be jolly good - that humanity heads for Ying. Just follow more, do less and buy more, and Ying thy shall recieve. Want MTB to grow? So eat your poop darling, you always were an amateur but now... it's official! The progress not only makes not good enough, your trails are not good enough, the only thing you can have as good enough is your bike... but only until the next big thing arrives.
Sell your GPS tracker, uninstall Strava, there won't be any use of this - buy a fatbike or an useless 120mm trail bike now! All you have left is... riding a bicycle on a trail: For good and bad! Kumbaya my Lord, Kumbayaaaa
And my message was just for fun
This was a "game changer" for the professional endruo racer crowd. Despite the best efforts of the bike industry, most average people who ride their bikes couldn't care less about it. You can't even make the case that this race is going to improve bikes for everyone because that's already been happening.
LMFAO
they really laid into the course
Enduro was the introduction of a race format that allowed everyone to use the bikes they had, the bikes they were casually shredding on every weekend, and race them. It has exponentially increased the excitement in the lives of everyday mountain bikers and encouraged many more everyday mountain bikers to enter races, become better, faster. Everyone I know and everyone I see on the local trails is enjoying mountain biking by a factor of 10 because we have a race that's fun, for everyone and as competitive as you want it to be. It is a race format that has definitely changed the game of mountain biking in Ireland.
It has also brought about the improvement of mountain bikes. In three to four years, 160mm mountain bikes have become brilliant machines that are immensely capable. It now makes sense to invest in a bike that can hit some seriously gnarly trails because you can cycle it back to the top again. With no uplifts, owning a DH bike used to be a bit of a waste of time in Ireland.
I'm sick of seeing the obvious "Enduro" slating comments on here. It's just a race format. And its a great race format that lets you and me race our bikes against our mates.
Pro-only Enduro in Canada: not a game changer
Enduro for all: totally great!
I'm not surprised though, this is Pinkbike.
The Whistler EWS could win an award for the WORST race of the year.
theteamrobot.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-whistler-ews.html
22 reasons that enduro race sucked: spoiler alert- 18 of them were how much pedaling there was. The other 4 were timing issues.
“I should have signed up for a cross country race. There would have been less f*cking pedaling.” -Everyone with half a brain who has ever entered a lame regional enduro event.http://trivialmtb.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/so-how-was-your-enduro-race/
trivialmtb.wordpress.com/2014/06/07/enduro-the-suffering
"I want to mention something that a lot of people have started talking about, and it certainly came up this week. I want to talk about this because it’s been building amongst riders all season, and I agree with a lot of concerns people have. And what’s the good of having a blog if you can’t share some honest opinions. This year there seems to be a fair number of race organizers pushing how far is too far within the sport. It seems like one race keeps trying to out-do the last, as far as making it difficult for the riders to race. Races like this one won’t do a whole lot to get people into the sport. Stages 1-4, while fun to ride, were a whole different ball game to race. Where was the flow…there was no real variety in any of Stages 1-4. We need to be tested and pushed, but these stages weren’t enjoyable to race. And that’s been happening more and more this year. The 2013 race in Whistler was tough, and it was almost doubled this year. Seems this course was picked without a thought of potential rain getting involved. If it had been muddy, a lot of sections of most stages would have been extremely dangerous, even borderline unrideable. People have said to me that they don’t like the direction some races have taken, but then say the exact opposite to the organizers. Seems to me, the best direction for the sport to go is finding that happy middle ground between being pushed to our limit and keeping it fun."
Personally my game changer for mountain biking wasnt the fest series, or EWS Whistler, it was Peaty's student taking on the world and winning - the year of the Rat
And my personal game changer was EWS Tweedlove, 5 days in reality, wed/thurs practise, Friday bike prep/service/mechanicing (as I'm not a pro with team mechanic) and rest for the pedalling legs before Sat/Sun 2 massive days on the bike with a great selection of stages.
Here's to 2015!
Enduro or Endurance Race?