UKGES TV – Preview
The UK Gravity Enduro Series in house media team bring us a preview on what is to come this 2015 season…
2015 UK Gravity Enduro Series from Felix Smith on Vimeo.
UK Gravity Enduro Series 2015
Welcome to 2015 people – UKGES TV is your new home for UKGES news and videos for the 2015 season. Throughout the year we will be dropping film and news stories for each round and will be doing our very best to ensure that we bring you the best coverage we possibly can. This is a new venture so bear with us while we find our feet…….. So, we’ve put together a little film to try and wet your appetites for the forthcoming races. Thanks to all those who took the time to get involved and make a contribution.
A Cunning Plan
Now, whilst we are financed by and have close ties with the main organizers you can be assured we are by no means in their pockets. You can expect robust critique of each round and we won’t be afraid to shine a light on any shonky goings on. Both myself and Felix have maintained total creative freedom, with the aim to communicate the voice of the organizers but also to keep them on a tight leash. We want to shape, develop and contribute to a blossoming format that has captured many riders imagination and brought together many disciplines and broken down the walls of what I call ‘ghettos of mountain biking’. Lets make sure we don’t end up in our own little pigeon hole and do what comes easy. We expect development and innovation and we will use this soap box to shout a message of unity and progression.
During the course of the year we will be largely focusing on the progress and pace of the top riders. However, at every round we will be picking a rider to follow over the course of the weekend to track their progress and get a little insight into how individuals who actually have to earn a living and manage family life, attack and ultimately enjoy their racing. Fancy being a part of this? Come find us! Whilst i’m getting back to fitness (a couple of months injuries and illness are keeping me from racing) the plan is to mix with all the categories through the course of Sunday’s racing to get a feel for how the racing varies for those involved and build a picture of the event across the board. So come talk to us and be part of the story, ill be trying to do a timed run against 5 different categories.
2015 looks set to have some surprises in store with both a new venue and a venue unannounced – at least this will stop all unofficial practice – scoping out of tracks prior to race weekend; clearly something that is against the spirt of enduro? Then, on the other hand maybe this could be a crafty policy to restrict such behaviour – maybe a rule change for next year is being trialled?!
Off-Season Retrospective
Rule changes eh? Yes, there have been a number of contentious issues in the off season that have had social media and forum types blathering away. I fear the decision to enforce the adoption of personal accident insurance may well lead to riders quitting UKGES. Especially if you only want to do a few rounds. Ultimately, if you want to race at the top level in the country you are gonna go along with it. Racing the British Downhill Series? Then shell out a similar amount of cash to British Cycling for a licence. Please bear in mind that somebody does have to lead. UKGES and the format as a whole has, be under no illusion, been abandoned by British Cycling. Without their backing, decisions about securing the stability of the series had to be made. You still have a top flight series to race this year in the UK and the building blocks are there to make it better – with your support. Before the days of racing enduro in the UK, you had to go abroad and I certainly had to turn up to those races with either a BC licence or private insurance cover; this is nothing new. Frankly, there are more important issues at stake, like expanding the number available race venues, increasing the depth and breadth of rider quality and ensuring that one day I can go to a race in the UK and not have to crap in a bloody portaloo! How many race organizers are investing in the infrastructure around the country that is needed to truly grow and develop the discipline? Much like the economy, its not just about numbers; we need depth, variety, balance and quality. Whilst this is an extremely popular format and growing every year, I can’t help but wonder if the race marketplace is a little saturated right now? Hopefully this will all result in some well thought out investment and the competition between events will only ensure that the quality of racing goes in the right direction.
That’s an end to the politics, lets talk 2015.
2015
Safety comes first! I’m sure this is not something that gets you super excited but lets (full) face it; it is an important issue. Big strides have been made in safety this year, for both riders and spectators. It adds graft and worry to the organizers and keeps things flowing for all concerned. Nobody ever gets credit for it but you can be damn sure that people will kick off if things go wrong. The levels of signage, taping and marshalling have doubled the work load in this area; securing the future of racing for you. The implementation of full face helmets is another positive decision in the interest of the future of the sport, not to mention your face. Standard practice almost everywhere else, sweaty on a hot day but much appreciated if things don’t stay rubber side up.
The quality of the tracks at UKGES have grown with the enthusiasm for the sport. Grizedale 2014, in particular, was a tour de force. With a committed in-house trail team the stability and variety of the tracks has progressed enormously. The balance of physicality and decent technical riding has been very good and because of a significant increase in way markers around the track this year, more time can be spent getting your groove on and less time spent faffing around wondering which tree to turn left at. Anyone up for laminated route maps with stage and transition times on?? Come on chaps. Maybe GPX files too? We have the tools, we have the talent: Get on with it.
Slowly we are growing a true Enduro discipline in the UK. It needs effort though. We don’t have big mountains and ski infrastructure but what we can use is creativity and intelligence. Building with a sympathy and respect for the landscape, building true enduro tracks. My old test was – can this be ridden quicker on an xc (or the other end of the scale, DH) bike? If so, then fail. The dedicated build and track team is certainly taking us in the right direction. No longer will we be left with what some call ‘technical’ but in actual fact are awkward, soggy, holes of misery that leave everyone loloping around with all the grace of a belly dancing wombat. I can cover the M6 with burnt out cars, get you to ride it and call it technical but it wont be much bloomin’ fun now will it? Step up local builders – there is a huge opportunity here. The guys and girls at Grogley and Eastridge are leading the way on what can be achieved at a community level. Help us spread the word on any other similar projects, racing and coverage means extra help and investment. You lay the roots, we’ll come and help you develop and expose it further.
So what else in on the up for 2015? Timing for sure, the first rocky years are now well behind us. There were occasions when I thought the last crew were using poorly synchronized sun dials to time runs. Not the case any more. Chris Robert and the Naked Racing team have been on it and with a new tried and tested timing chip system – times will be uploaded instantaneously to the web via http://www.actionsportstiming.co.uk/ , all runs are backed up using last year Tag Hueur system for added security.
Data
I was keen to have bit of enquiry over the course of the year to explore some of the numbers behind the race results. Over the next few articles we’ll be asking some questions to see if there are any stories lurking behind the podium. Seeing as we are yet to race in 2015, lets have a look at 2014 –
Lets start with an easy one: Who was the quickest rider? Sounds simple enough but there a number of way of looking at it. Who got the most points over the year is not necessarily the best way to look at it. What I’ve complied below are five different ways of measuring the overall results from last year. As all you guys know, its not what you measure but how you measure it that really matters! This analysis is greatly impacted by those riders who do not race all the rounds, however, there are some ways of reviewing the data to level this out. But lets see what we can throw up.
1) Overall series points from 2014
2) Taking the enduro format to its logical conclusion; who was actually fastest based on aggregate times over five rounds? Clearly this throws up some issues with those who didn’t race 5 rounds, elite male/female being the most obvious. The Don took last years series title but missed the last round due to injury. Excluding all those who didn’t race all five rounds the series’ results look like this:
3) What if we average out the stage times over the year to to see who had the fastest average stage time of the year? Again, we can only really review those who raced all five rounds, given the variability of stage lengths over the course of the year:
4) Now lets look at the average stage position over the course of the year to see how competitive each racer is across every stage; a good check on consistency.
5) The last measure is to only consider each riders best race, review their average stage position and in doing so, make some effort to eliminating the effects of riders not doing the whole series or just doing their favourite or home race, giving a more useful comparison against the whole field of racers within a category. This means we can include all those riders who only raced one or two races and it becomes a more interesting measure of performance and most probably a better tool for deciding on some peoples real category status. For example – an exceptionally fast Master who only turns up to do one or two races a year, smokes everyone, should really be competing in elite but will never accumulate the points to get there:
Where I’m going with this is that I think the categories need a little refinement to make them all as competitive as possible. I believe the distribution of pace throughout a category is not allowing some people to flourish and unnecessarily penalizing others for having jobs and not being able to ride and train every day. This is a topic we shall explore in the next article, when we start adding 2015 data to the pot. Im not say all faster juniors should be racing elite (works for Martin Maes though) but there certainly is a good basis of evidence to show that at the very least the seniors and masters need a little tweekeing. Its a shame there weren’t more elite woment competing over 5 rounds, Im sure Helen Gaskell would have had she not injured her shoulder at the last round.
I’ll be adding all data from 2011 through to 2014 and beyond to build up an ever-increasingly clear picture of everyones true competitive nature. Personally, I like the average stage position ranking over the course of the year as the truest indicator of pace. Maybe this is where you should be looking to see who is the fastest out of you and your friends?!
There we have it. We have come full circle and we are now back at the start of 2015, I must say it is a shame not to have Leigh Johnson tackling the top elite boys at least for the start of the year, out with a shoulder injury. As the results above show, he could have been a real contender for the year. Also missing, crowd favourite Neil Donoghue, concentrating on other duties and taking a well earned rest from full time racing. This will leave a nice gap for others to slot into at the top for the overall title.
See you at Triscombe!