A string of top enduro riders are swapping to downhill for Snowshoe including the 2023 UCI Mountain Bike Enduro World Cup champion Richie Rude.
The Yeti/Fox Factory rider is switching to big bike to extend the season along with the likes of Lapierre Zipp Collective’s Adrien Dailly, Canyon CLLCTV Dainese’s Gloria Scarsi and Forbidden Synthesis’s junior 2023 Enduro World Cup champ Emmy Lan. Downhill World Cup regular Pivot Factory Racing's Matt Walker is also in the mix.
Hattie Harnden is another enduro rider taking the start line in Snowshoe after finishing third in the overall at the season finale in Châtel, France two weeks ago.
It’s not a huge surprise to see the Trek Factory Racing Gravity star in action in the US as she’s done eight DH races in 2023 including the season opener in Lenzerheide and the UCI World Champs in Scotland in August. She's also the current British national downhill champion.
But Rude, who is looking to race both North American World Cup downhill rounds, has also been chipping away on the big bike this season in between his enduro commitments.
He came fourth in the US national champs in July and sixth in the Canadian Open last month after starting the season at a Downhill Southeast round in Windrock, Tennessee in May.
And, in case anyone has forgotten, the Connecticut native is also a former UCI Downhill World Champion having taken the junior title in 2013 at Pietermaritzburg in South Africa.
He says he’d been wondering how he’d stack up on the downhill bike and, once he saw the World Cup calendar, Snowshoe and Mont-Sainte-Anne became part of the plan.
“I think ever since we kind of got the whole downhill bike idea together, this year was a year where we'd pick races here and there to do during the season,” he said.
“And yeah I think just the last two were the easiest to kind of go to and it would be stress-free from the enduro side of things.
“And, for a while, I’ve just been wanting to see how I stack up and kind of how my downhill speed is. But yeah, mainly just kind of wanting to have fun testing out the downhill bike and having Yeti back at the races.
“It’s a bit different just because with enduro you kind of have a full day to get up to speed or just do your race. And there's 26 minutes of racing, not three and a half.
“So I think I’ve kind of got to let the brakes go at some point and just carry that speed.”
Britain’s Harnden, who since 2015 has earned 11 cyclocross and cross-country national championship titles, says downhill seems to complement enduro in a way that cyclocross, in particular, never really did.
“You'd come out of the winter having fully bulked up and been in the gym for four or five months and I'd go to cyclocross worlds, which is like the end of January, start of February and you're almost at your biggest and heaviest then,” she said.
“I always found that a little bit difficult because it doesn't complement riding around a grassy field. Like having a big, strong upper body. So I think the downhill and enduro complements each other a lot better.”
“Having always raced more than one discipline, I find it helps me refocus and not get too drawn into just doing one thing.”
The 22-year-old says that the downhill and enduro approach to this season nearly didn't happen after she struggled at the first round of the UCI Enduro World Cup in Italy.
“Lenzerheide was the first first one [downhill] I did this year and there was almost a last-minute change of plan after the enduro race in Pietra [Ligure],” she said.
“ I didn't have such a good race, finishing ninth, and we wondered whether it was actually the right thing to go and race a downhill world cup in between enduros.
“So I chatted to my coach and we decided just to have a refocus, have a week of fun and it was the right thing to do to spend time with different people, even simple things like that. I think I came out better for it so it works for me but maybe not for everyone.”
The elite qualifying races and junior finals at Snowshoe are on Friday and the elite semi-finals and finals are on Saturday.
See the full weekend schedule here
