Enduro Training for Marathon Racing

Mike Blewitt

10 years ago

How often are you the rider in a group who claims that they would ride something gnarly “but not on this bike.” Is there a point where the distance based mountain bike racing that many of us love so much becomes a hinderance to the riding and racing we do – and we don’t end up enjoying the ride so much. Between two Swiss marathon races, I’ve found myself in Zermatt, and then Verbier. While in the same canton, they don’t share the same language or exactly the same riding style either. Zermatt is dominated by the Matterhorn. It looms over the town, and draws visitors from around the globe to look at it, and walk to see it from a variety of views. Zermatt is a big outdoor and alpine playground, with lots of glaciers, and many peaks over 4000m surrounding it. It also happens to have great mountain railways and gondolas, which can take you well over 3000m. The riding has smooth trails, and steep, rocky trails. Plus long, long descents. Why beat up our hardtails (for more than the first day) and baulk at steeper sections when there were good hire bikes on offer?

You can take the racer off the XCM bike… but…

When you swap your pedals onto a 160mm enduro bike you’ve just got rid of any of your ‘not on this bike’ excuses. It then comes down to nerve, skills, and self belief. You can get your weight back and trust the machine and your line choice, and then go on from there. There is a little more margin for error, and you start to appreciate what a mountain bike (and yourself) is capable of.

Post by MarathonMTB.com.

With about 2.5 days of mostly gravity fed riding, probably the most intelligent thing to be said was by Imogen Smith, “If I get scared I just try to smile, it helps me remember to have fun.” We didn’t try things too fast, and when there are two wheels on the ground you’re normally ok. We ended up as a group of three for one day, with XCO gun Kyle Ward joining Imogen and I for a day in the mountains. He schooled us, and I managed to flail on everything, and even crash on the flat…

Kyle was happy enough to get around on a bike with more cush.

But just as I was wondering if the change of bikes and sore hip was worth it, we went to Verbier, and were shown around the bike park. Verbier has a bike park spread over the mountain, without too many trails jammed into one place. There’s not much easy terrain (as there isn’t much that’s flat…) but along with 21 Enduro trails there is a lot to explore. But we were back on our Bianchi Methanol 29 hardtails – which have great geometry, but it’s fast and steep. Just like the trails. However, with some new found appreciation of what we were capable of, our guide happily lead us down some demanding trails, somewhat slower than he was going on his DH bike, but fast enough to leave him impressed.

So next time you’re not riding parts of trails, or you’re not smiling, why not try getting out on a bike that isn’t your race machine to relax and find a bit more fun again?