Team Wideopenmag’s Chris Hutchens looks ahead to the first race of his season, the Mondraker Enduro Team in Davos, Switzerland.
The Artist Formerly Known as Enduro2, the Mondraker Enduro Team event returns to Switzerland this September. Team Wideopenmag’s Chris Hutchens is heading out to race and gives us his thoughts on the event.
So we’ve been a little quiet on the racing report front in 2020 and I’m sure everyone’s quite aware why. We’ve been busy training, putting out different media as a team and keeping our hopes high that some racing will begin this year.
We’re however super excited to be heading over to Switzerland in September to race the Mondraker Enduro Team in Davos.
This event has been sold out all year and while a few months ago it was looking questionable to whether anything would happen this year, it was amazing to hear that the team running the event plan to hold this annual event.
Wideopenmag’s team
It’s certainly been an event I’ve wanted to go and race for a few years now and it’s looking like it will be my first foreign event of the year. I’m teaming up with fellow Bristol based rider Fergus Ryan.
We train together with Ben Plenge of The Strength Factory and have had this in the diary since the start of the year. While we both ride together a lot this will be a totally different sort of race. We won’t be battling it out against each other but trying to work together to put the best run we can together.
This event kept catching my attention over the last few years, as has Davos as a riding destination, so it is awesome to see this event go ahead. COVID has cancelled most events in the UK so I can’t wait to head over to race the Mondraker Enduro Team with Fergus. I’m not sure if I’ll be ready for those long descents. I had to make do with 30 second runs in Leigh Woods for most of the summer.
The event
The Mondraker Enduro Team is an alpine mountain bike enduro race for teams of two to six in Davos Klosters, Switzerland. This is a very different event to your usual EWS or even regional UK event. If you were going to compare it to another event it’s more like the EWS Trophy of Nations over three days without any stage practice. I’m pretty sure that the team in Davos had a few years head start on this team racing format, with the event formerly being run as Enduro2 over the past few years.
There’s a big focus on having fun, sampling the region’s first-class trails while racing alongside your mate amongst an international field. With 12-18 stages over the three days taking in about 12 vertical kilometres of descending and 120km of trails, it’s going to be a tough one
The trails in the area deliver real alpine, big mountain riding, with stunning views to the lakes below and mountain peaks dominating the sky line.
We’ll be covering the event this September with footage from the weekend, daily updates and sharing with you just a little bit of Davos and what it has to offer.
Can I still enter?
The event is super popular so by this point in the season the race is sold out however you can sign up for the waiting list. Just head to the event website for more details.
If you’ve still not booked your summer holiday and looking for a destination then from what we’ve seen so far then this should definitely be on your bucket list. Anyone staying in a hotel in Davos gets a lift pass included in their stay. If till not sure then keep an eye out for more on the event as we head out there on the 3rd to the 5th of September.
