Eddie Masters On The Current State Of World Cup Enduro Racing
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- čas přidán 18. 05. 2024
- Eddie Masters provides a candid breakdown of the challenges faced by enduro riders and World Cup racing over the last couple of years. He reminisces on what the 2020 Enduro World Series could have looked like if it wasn't for COVID-19 and asks the question of whether that season could have helped develop enduro as a sport.
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Ed Bull Media House ,MoiMoi TV and WynTV are 95% of my online viewing of Mountain biking.
Keep up the great work guys.
Same lol but throw in Pinkbike and VitalMtb as well. Without them all hope is lost.
The pay to watch platforms are definitely contributing to lack of viewership. Redbull TV was leaps and bounds better than what we currently get. And not televising the semis are just top tier brilliance shining through from UCI.
Exactly, it’s already not popular so let’s make it pay to watch.
I have no interest in watching the semis. A recap is more than adequate. IMO
I have no interest in watching the semis. I don’t care those who don’t make the final place
@@CM9999999999 The semi format is its own problem wouldn’t you agree? I’d love to see more riders… on race day.
I also love the juniors being free on YT. Even if it wasn’t live, this is a great way for young talent to get some exposure!
@@dont_hit_trees No. I have no problem with the format. I think it’s much better. It now means race day is just finals with only those who might make the podium. 60 was far too many in the final and wasn’t even broadcast so you had a gap in the show whilst 30 riders came down the hill that were never going to make the first page of the results sheet. I know that sounds harsh and they will all be better riders than I could ever hope to be but it’s about the show. Who watches all the heats and semis for the Olympic 100m compared to the number who watch the final
I find it very strange that Chris Ball, the man who initiated the EWS series, now seems to be presiding over its decline. The decline began when it was brought in under the UCI umbrella and now WBD. It's a great pity. I guess it's all about the money for those parties. The riders and teams have just become an afterthought.
Ed and Jack got me interested in following enduro ✌
Love Enduro its my personal favorite. It’s the best of both worlds of racing. We need more coverage and hype for these riders. Some of the best rider in the business and great fun to follow. UCI is not doing well in coverage the riders should break free and go back to Red Bull.
It so disappointing to hear this is where its all at. I think Enduro has the ability to get a massive following if presented properly. For me its the most interesting event to watch. The fact that there are mutil stages really does make it a more exciting spectacle. It feels closer to what I do as a trail rider and it also gives me a bigger desire to go and ride at these locations because I get to see more of the hill watching enduro. A way of maybe getting more backing behind Enduro would be if UCI engaged with the tourism boards in the race locations and got them buying in on helping to sponsor some filming at some primo locations along the enduro tracks. Show the beauty of your country and your trails through the median of Enduro racing.
I agree with the sentiment , The free coverage on you tube IE the course preview , the raw practice footage and highlights are all OK set the tone well , and give a overall but view of the race , they could be better but also faster , by the time highlights are out you have heard numerous accounts of who won , and what happened so by the time it comes out the need or interest in watching it has waned somewhat .
That said from an industry viewpoint i don't see the fascination with downhill i rarely see a downhill bike for sale in a shop , the downhill trials near me are now way more than 50% use by enduro bikes and he enduro trails are rammed busy so why does the industry support downhill when the product is such a small amount of the factory output ?
Also adage that its the formula 1 of Bikes is not really true speed maybe but Enduro would be very close on a wider track that had been practiced to death but what tech has the industry gained from downhill recently , 12 speed NO, dropper post No , carbon frames No AXS shafting No not even 27 or 29 wheels can say they came from a DH background
It’s crazy because I remember during Covid in 2020 the talk was that downhill was dead and bike manufacturers were looking at not producing downhill bikes for the public because the market was enduro focused.
I like enduro more than downhill .
Enduro is an extreme version of what most mountain bikers (across the age groups and abilities) actually do. It's an inspiration to a broader base. Downhill is a bit like F1 compared to going for a drive on a Sunday in your average car. To make Enduro more TV/Social media viewer friendly: Live tracking of the athletes with icons on maps. The data will include live HR readouts for example. Live TV via CZcams (or smart TV channel) for the curated commentary version and Twitch for user selectable feeds with at least 3 cameras per stage. Even have cameras on long transitions, especially a transition after a long stage. A TV broadcast feed is ok, but people can watch on a TV AND follow a separate stream via a PC or a smartphone. The manufacturers will sell bikes, components etc that they see on the course.
Why are they killing Enduro. Been bad since uci took over.
Putting on enduro races is way harder logistically than DH. It's also far less spectator friendly, even if they did manage to have full race coverage available online there would be so much more content to digest to understand the race dynamics. That means less eyes on riders and thus less money from sponsors. So any top level gravity athlete will want to focus more on DH than enduro, since it's more likely to provide a career in the sport.
They are intentionally doing it so because it takes effort to cover it. They are greedy fuck, just stop watching UCI and watch only riders with youtube.
Who is they? Enduro takes alot more organising. There will be fewer places with the trails v needing 1 dh track. Sponsors need convincing to travel to more places if we get more events. I bet it costs a fortune for the top teams in logistics
@@CM9999999999 I’ve never been a race organizer but I don’t think it’s hard to tape up 5 trails at a ski area. What’s killing Enduro is it’s difficult to televise.
@@johnlinvill8819 It harder than taping 1 DH track. Enduro will always be hard to televise. Look at world rally cars. They cant do it live and they have a way bigger budget and resources
UCI using Enduro as the 'fluffer' for the DH events in Europe is killing it. Thats why Maydena/Derby was so good. Enduro was the main event. If it wasn't for Moi Moi, Edbull, Wyne and a few others, it'd be hard to find Enduro action worth watching. Keep it up folks🤘🤘
Down hill is ok but Enduro is far more interesting and relevant to the majority of Mtn bike riders. Bring back Red Bull to run both and ditch the UCI !
Red bull never covered enduro. EWS did it themselves
It's a tricky puzzle as everything is there, great bikes, awesome racers and great format etc. The coverage though, wow! This needs sorting by the powers that be.
It's a difficult one and yes it's difficult to do a show when you have 1 hour + transitions between the stages but surely it's worth the investment in working out the processes, phasing and cameras/drones to make it work. Surely enduro bikes are one of the biggest sold category of bike by top brands?
There is some iterative cycles that the sport, coverage and brands need to go through but surely, if UCI can get people to watch and invest in road cycling, enduro is possible?
If it was based on sales at the moment then ebike enduro would dominate the coverage
@@CM9999999999 if there was a segment with the most to gain from model development it would probably be that as well.
There has been some amazing live footage of hard enduro races, such as Erzberg Rodeo, so it can be done....
I feel like the industry is looking at enduro the wrong way. They seem to only be considering media opportunities and viewer numbers. But it will never be as easy to cover as downhill. However, enduro is more relatable to the every day rider. It’s what most of us enjoy (pedalling up so we can rip down) and it is the style of bike most of us ride. So rather than looking at it from televised opportunities, the manufacturers should look at it as an R&D opportunity for the bikes that they probably sell most of. Think of it like the constructor title in formula 1. DH is cool to watch, but how many people have a dedicated DH bike? Vs how many people have an enduro style bike? Sport shouldn’t just be about clicks. It should be development and refining for the consumer. This is actually why Porsche hasn’t joined formula 1 - because they don’t see the formula 1 R&D translating to the cars they actually sell on the street.
The tech is there to cover Enduro well and at a low production cost. GoPro on the top ten riders and an iPhone at each interesting part of the track and drones which they use pretty well already in cross country. But if you need help just ask red bull media how to use a drone in production. It is not that hard
There is no enduro representation in ESO. It used to be their thing and they built it to be enough for WBD to invest. Then they took all the other disciplines which triggered full investment.
The investment from WBD is all about the numbers and will look to maximize there.
ESO are now a cog in WBD with very little room to be flexible and ‘do what they want’like the hayday.
As a rider of the enduro series pre EWS, then EWS and then working for ESO as the interim CTO (helping with the acquisition) I am sad to see our wonderful sport be in decline.
I encourage Ed and all the riders to band together and keep working on independent coverage. ESO simply don’t have the bandwidth or budget to be able to get deep into the sport. And yes, it is easy to use an iPhone, but it requires going through the branded machine and all that comes with it.
Really valuable comment. Thank you.
Enduro format isn't entirely different than that of WRC. I've been a WRC+ member for a few years now and UCI/Enduro World Cup would do WELL to take a few pages out of WRC's live race coverage which is obviously, above and beyond. Live helmet 'onboard' footage, drone footy, panning shots, etc with commentary and live timing/leaderboard!
Enduro mountain biking belongs in the Olympics... it is the ultimate test of a well-balanced rider.. and it would help to concrete MTB into the minds of the world.
Pretty heavy when moi moi tv is the best coverage you can get. And that’s just a bloke with a go pro and one guy with a camera hahaha.
They need to fix it and also make it more DH vs up hill pedals and keep those shitty XC stages out of it
Surely it's all about not being able to set up TV coverage 🤷 or at least an unwillingness to invest enough to get decent TV coverage. Unfortunately TV is a bit of a double edged sword, on the one hand it's great to see coverage of the sport but on the other tracks often have to be dumbed down and opened up (clear mine of sight, no trees etc) in order for them to have as few cameras as possible on the tracks. Downhill suffers the same problem to an extent. Enduro as a sport really IS mountain biking, the tracks are awesome and varied, little practice makes for interesting racing. The sport is for bikers rather than viewers which to be fair is what it should be.
Sadly with having to make such a huge investment to broadcast the events in any meaningful way to quite possibly a small audience means that no-one is interested in putting money in the sport.
We can only hope Red Bull might take up the reigns but wasn't Enduro coverage bought up by Discovery together with DH and XC? I can only hope they can get something together as Enduro is incredible and quite potentially the real future if mountain biking.
I’ve been riding and done some racing for 30+ years, but I really don’t understand enduro. That’s part of the issue.
I watch downhill because it’s exciting, a spectator sport - the best. I can also relate to it.
Enduro, I just don’t really have the desire or inclination to get involved in another downhill racing type event.
I hope this doesn’t offend it’s not meant to, I’m just being honest from a somewhat casual rider/viewers point of view.
The UCI should be trying to grow the sport that should always be the goal. However they are single-handedly shrinking it
So why dont RedBull step in for Enduro and do what they did for DH. Get warner back on the mike and in the booth?
UCI is greedy af and took the rights from the RedBull and gave it to Discovery. RedBull did pick up DH and other MTB categories to another level with passion over the years. Discovery and UCI did intentionally stopped promoting Enduro because they know it takes effort and they will blame viewers for it that. So again why would RedBull invest their money and time into preserving and developing the sport & building up a streaming platform, just to get it taken away from them once it blooms?
Because they didn’t ant to pay as much as WBO were prepared to
Yeah so sad when you can see them trying to destroy this wonderful sport. Home of cycling yeah right. They're intensely killing it 😢🤬🤬🤬🤬
So hard to watch and follow. The old 20min highlight reels were awesome.
Not to mention some of those downhill tech sections on the enduro track looked better than the downhill track!!
You would need to develop with GoPro or any other big company a chin mounted camera that can live stream. Then instead of trying to get enough cameras on the descents , you would just need to have a good internet connection so you can live swap between chin cameras. Can’t see any other way of saving enduro. At the end of the day it’s a mix of xcountry and DH.
How many would actually watch several hours of chin mount footage. Enduro is always going to be a highlights package. It just could do with being an hour not 30 mins to show more of the stages and how the race unfurled
DH has never been what mountain bikes were about ,its always been long hours in the saddle which is what Enduro is about, go to any bike shop and you will be lucky to even see a DH bike on display
Why can't the racing, for the World Cup, be with all of the types/styles of racing throughout the season. One race, downhill, next Enduro, free style, similar to hardline race with jumps and burms, etc. Last race, the combination of all of them. World cup to me mea s they can do all types of track/trails. But... apparently, it's all about money and not of the sport or about the riders. Sad to see. Tired of the carnage!
I feel that enduro was pushed by the industry because the bike was more approachable than downhill. Sad because the raw track sectors were removed from dh for reasons of broadcasting rolled into enduro only to be never shown in coverage worth a darn. So really it made dh and enduro worse now.
UCI intentionally promotes XC more (that's not MTB, put that in road racing category) and UCI DID IN FACT DESTROY enduro, because they don't want to cover it, promote it or have anything to do with it. Plus let's not talk about taking rights from RedBull and locking the viewing options.That's why I refuse to watch any UCI content and I only watch RedBull events, Riders that have CZcams channels and to support people like Eddie. FK UCI and their greed.
pay riders to give u their best footage..
UCI is a joke
The pay to watch is killing viewership. Also there’s just too much going on. There’s DH and XC, why do you need Enduro coverage? It’s like having an XC bike, a trail bike and an enduro bike, it’s not necessary. I think maybe that has part to do with it, enduro is literally just a multi stage DH race.. it’s not really necessary 🤷♂️
I love enduro almost as much as I love DH but I have zero interest in a live steam for enduro. The current highlight videos are fantastic in my opinion.
Also, for the folks that whine about having to pay to watch DH is $9.99 for the base Max subscription to much for you? Seems like people claim to be super fans but then try and watch some weird eastern european stream to avoid paying what amounts to two coffees.
Streaming the DH races on max isn't available across the globe, AUS and NZ are getting shafted right now specifically. The other point being, is that we are now expected to pay for something that is worse on all accounts than the previous free streams from Redbull. Full on enshitification, and we are supposed to say yes daddy, we want some more?
Red bull should start a new enduro called rally with all these riders
Only if is going to make them enough money
still no idea why the uphill sections are not timed - everything seems so casual in enduro from a spectator pov, I mean its a sport, it should be timed
Or technical climbing with points off for dabbing
Thats the entire point lmao. Every enduro rider would stop riding enduro if the uphills where timed.
It's not an easy series to cover logistically it's not like DH or slopestyle, combined with low viewership it's probably a financial thing , the UCI is a money hungry parasite tbh, not productive to anyone in the mtb universe except a few who fill up their old fart pockets, the mtb community should walk away from the UCI, boycott
"Enduro ends next year..." What? What is Ed talking about?