Founded by three riders turned race organisers, Ride My World is a global race platform that gives a ranking to any enduro race you might do to create a global ranking.
Whether you’re racing top tier World enduro or a grass roots event, it all feeds into the Ride My World global ranking that will feed into a one-off annual Enduro Riders Championship for the top 200 ranked riders.
Pete caught up with co-founder Tommy Wilkinson to find out more.
What was the impetus for setting up Ride My World?
There’s two elements to answer. My own personal views, and the views that have melded together to create Ride My World.
Chris Hutchens has been the driver for Ride My World, and it was him and Simon Ruszela who invited me to a barn in Wales back in January with an idea that they had been brewing. It works really well. Hutch is very focused on international competition, Simon is representative of the majority of riders; super into it, data driven and he finds events that look good to him, and he does them. I’m really interested in philosophical long term views, how do we make our sport function well across time and skill levels, and serve the whole community well.
Enduro was on all of our minds. I felt the narrative that Enduro was dead was poor and untrue. The EDR didn’t work out, but the sport as a whole is healthy. I thought it would be great if the thousands of riders who race an enduro get included in the narrative of their sport. At the same time, every sport needs a healthy top level and a pathway that is open to aspiring riders.
Since then and with all of our ideas on the table, we knew there must be a way to reconnect the levels and enduro community.
Once you’ve made that decision, what happens next?
We built it. Conceptualising took about 6 months, and the building has been phenomenally fast – about 3 months. We are building and developing in the open – so changes can happen as demand and ideas from the community land and we can iterate and improve quickly.
How many people are involved and what do they do?
Chris, Hutch to most of the paddock, pulled this team together. World Cup downhill and enduro, founder of the Trans Caledonia Enduro, decades on both sides of the tape.
Simon drives global transformation programmes for one of the world’s largest technology consultancies, helping large organisations and governments adopt AI at scale, and races enduro himself.
I’ve run race teams and built 800 rider + Enduro events, worked with major MTB brands, as well as raced at a high level. I’m a director of the Coquet Classic Enduro. I know how communities really talk to each other.
Tristan and Giulia built the platform, after years delivering technology for some of the biggest names in music, telecoms and media and running training from the United Nations to global tech companies.
Between us, someone who has raced at the top and run the events, someone who knows the brand side, and a technology team that builds at global scale for a living – and champions community, diversity and fairness as a matter of course rather than as a policy. That goes into the platform’s foundations, not bolted on later.
What made you focus on Enduro?
I’ve been involved in organising Enduro races for nearly a decade now. And they sell out, every time. Enduro is healthy, the narrative and positioning of it was not. For me, Enduro is rider, community and participation-led. There’s a huge opportunity to impact the sport we love in a really positive way, and bring everyone together.
Enduro lends itself to this way of operating. We think the whole sport can win from a bottom up approach. I’m sure someone will develop a new EWS equivalent, and our platform will complement that in a symbiotic way as much as it will a local series.
And, once a racer, always a racer. I love it and if I could I’d be between the tape. I think I speak for myself, Hutch and Si on that last sentence.
Did WBD dropping and then Crankworx picking up World Enduro cause any problems?
No. We aren’t a world series. Every race will be on our platform, every rider will get a global ranking and chance to aim for our annual event, the Enduro Riders Championship. Whether its Crankworx, one of the Europeans looking at a new global series or whomever, all events feed into the RMW platform and our whole sport approach.
We’ve consulted extensively with organisers over the last 6 months to understand the needs, risks and benefits to organisers, and shaped the platform around that feedback.
How does Ride the World fit into the future global Enduro series?
Any future Enduro World Series fits into our platform by design. Whether you race an EDR, a grassroots event or the Trans Madieria, our Global Ranking System, powered by our Performance Index will account for it.
We are going to operate one annual event ourselves, The Enduro Riders Championship (ERC). This will be open to the top 200 ranked riders, and another 200 who make the baseline criteria via ballot. It will move around the globe annually. Hopefully we’ll get world champions and unknown pinners at the same event, all powered by a platform that brings every race and every rider together.
We’ll be integrating, or adding separately, eMTB along the way and are consulting with riders to understand what this needs to look like. The ERC event can complement the already outstanding roster of events that are happening.
How did you learn what you needed to know to develop an app from the ground up?
We didn’t. We needed a team better than any one of us, people who could bring serious technology to enduro, and who still know what it feels like to be sat on a start line in the rain.
Favourite moments?
It’s all exciting stuff.
Any disasters?
No.
What’s next for Ride the World?
We’re only starting. The Enduro community will decide that for us but I hope it’s the start of an approach that sees Enduro in a healthy position over the next 5,10, 20 years and beyond.
For now, you can follow Ride My World over on their Instagram page here.
