5 Key Stats From Enduro Racers in the Pinkbike State of the Sport Survey 2024
Welcome to the 2024 Pinkbike State of the Sport Survey. This anonymous survey is designed to highlight key issues and riders' perspectives on the sport that we, pro riders, and Pinkbike readers all love so much. We surveyed the best riders in the world to hear their thoughts, ideas, concerns, and criticisms on mountain biking in 2024. Now, we're breaking down what we've learned. We're now publishing a series of articles that break down sections of the results, and you'll see the results in full shortly. This year, we introduced the public survey, which will help gauge public views on the sport and should make for some interesting comparisons to what the racers say. Stay tuned for that. To read the introduction to the survey click here, and to see all the other currently published SOTS articles click here.
Overview
After ten seasons of EWS racing, 2023 marked a change for Enduro racing as it became an official World Cup event under the race organisers at Warner Bros Discovery (WBD). The first season of World Cup racing saw incredible achievements on the track with closely fought battles and surprise results. 2023 also saw rumours about the future of Enduro and raised questions about how to run the discipline alongside the spectacles of XC and Downhill World Cups.
After asking some of the world's best Enduro racers what they think about the state of the sport, here are our takeaways.
After asking some of the world's best Enduro racers what they think about the state of the sport, here are our takeaways.
Quick Stats:
Percentage of Respondents Racing Downhill World Cups: 31.5%
Men/Women: 61.8%/38.2%
U21 Racers: 14.7%
Percentage of Elite World Cup/EWS Winners: 20.6%
Percentage of Riders Within the Top 10 Overall in 2023: 41.2%
Mode Wage: 50,000-100,000 USD
Median Wage: 30,000 - 40,000 USD
Home Continent:
Europe - 50%
North America - 29.4%
Oceania - 17.6%
Asia - 2.9%
Percentage of Respondents Racing Downhill World Cups: 31.5%
Men/Women: 61.8%/38.2%
U21 Racers: 14.7%
Percentage of Elite World Cup/EWS Winners: 20.6%
Percentage of Riders Within the Top 10 Overall in 2023: 41.2%
Mode Wage: 50,000-100,000 USD
Median Wage: 30,000 - 40,000 USD
Home Continent:
Europe - 50%
North America - 29.4%
Oceania - 17.6%
Asia - 2.9%
78% of Racers are Dissatisfied About the Current State of Enduro World Cups
While the Downhill racers had mixed feelings and the XC racers were mostly positive, the view of the current state of Enduro World Cups is fairly negative. 25 of the 32 respondents were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. Of those surveyed, only six didn't hold strong views either way and just one rider was satisfied with the sport. Looking deeper into the numbers of those dissatisfied there were five past race winners and ten riders who were top ten in 2023's overall rankings.
We do not want to speculate on what might be causing some of the world's best racers to be unhappy about the Enduro World Cups, but we hope whatever problem they may have can be fixed for the future health of the discipline. Although some of the other takeaways in this article could be contributing factors to the general sense of dissatisfaction we have seen in our data.
No World Cup Enduro Racers Surveyed are Happy with the Current Prize Money
Prize money for World Cup racing has been a big topic for the past few years and in our latest State of the Sport survey we have found that of those surveyed, there were no Enduro racers happy with the current financial benefits of a top result. Currently, a win at an elite EDR and EDR-E World Cup offers €1,500, a drop from the €3,750 offered to XC and DH riders. The amount for a win after a full day of riding and racing is €250 lower than a win in the sub-20-minute XCC Short Track World Cups.
When we asked all riders who took part in the survey how they felt about the prize money for the top level of racing, we received five who didn't feel strongly either way, eight who were dissatisfied and 21 of the 32 were very dissatisfied. It is worth pointing out here that riders will nearly always ask for more prize money and as State of the Sport is not a mandatory survey and doesn't cover the full field of racers and so there may be those at World Cups who did not answer the survey and are happy with the current financial compensation for a race win.
For reference here is the complete prize money table for 2024.
84% are Worried About the Future of World Cup Enduro Racing
After some of the currently unproven rumours began swirling last year about the future of Enduro racing, we decided to ask racers how they view the outlook of the discipline. When asked about the statement "I am worried about the future of World Cup Enduro racing', 27 of 32 respondents agreed with the statement, while four were neutral only one outright rejected the notion. While there has been nothing to prove the rumours about the end of Enduro, part of the reason why racers might be worried is that 31 of the 32 surveyed who race EDR feel there has not been adequate communication from the organisers at WBD about this year's racing. The 97% of Enduro racers feeling communication hasn't been adequate tracks far above the 64.8% across all disciplines answering the same way.
46.9% of Riders Wouldn't Race eMTBs if the Current Format of Enduro World Cups Ended or Became Inaccessible to Them
In a follow-up question and after rumours of Enduro switching to just eMTB racing in the future (again these rumours are so far unfounded), we wanted to know if the world's best would switch to electrified stage racing. Nine racers were neutral on the issue with eight either agreeing or strongly agreeing that they would switch to eMTBs if the current format of Enduro Worlds Cups ended or were inaccessible to them. 15 of the 32 racers surveyed disagreed, suggesting they would not move to eMTB racing.
The Current Coverage of Enduro World Cups is viewed as either Poor or Very Poor by 80% of Racers
One aspect of Enduro racing that has remained consistent throughout the years is the vocal opinions around its coverage. While there have been some suggestions over the years about live production, the official coverage has stuck to the same format of live results and a highlights package uploaded shortly after the race.
For this year's survey, we offered the top racers a chance to share how they view the current coverage offering from the race organisers with 26 of the 32 respondents feeling it was either poor or very poor. Three riders thought it was acceptable with another three thinking it was at a good level.
The difficulties of covering a full-day event across multiple stages live will always be both a tough task and a very expensive one and while riders may not be asking for this level of coverage, they are not happy with the current offering.
We have contacted the World Cup organisers and broadcasters Warner Bros. Discovery for its comment on the State of the Sport data and we will update this article if a statement is provided to us.
Author Info:
Must Read This Week
Why don't they just drop the motorbike racing and pay it all to the EDR winners?
Like most things EWS was doing it better
Now manufacturers have saturated the 'enduro bike' sales, all they want to push is e-bikes.
Go back 15 years people had whatever mountain bike seemed good enough for their trails and probably aspired to get a DH bike for rougher, steeper gravity based days. With the advent of enduro and the 'enduro bike' the focus by media and marketing was switched to that. Remember how many 'enduro' specific items and components there were? It became a joke. Like ebike specific stuff now.
The racing really was an extension of this - a contrived attempt to create something people could buy into to sell the enduro bikes. That now is not needed.
Ironically the media now present us with what we had pre-enduro, bikes with lower amounts of travel and more 'fun'.
If ebikes hadnt come along in force someone would have touted a downcountry world series I'm sure!
The formulation of enduro racing was just a way of making the kind of MTB riding most recreational riders were doing, that is going fast down designed trails and pedalling to get between them, into a competitive format.
I’m doing so, it progressed these kind of bikes to descend better and be more reliable. Before enduro you had XC bikes, DH bikes, and then just a bunch of slightly longer travel XC bikes that sucked, as well as freeride bikes that also kinda sucked.
Derby shows us that not all enduro stages need to be full DH tracks. However, It would be interesting to see a rule that forces rider to stick to one chassis (and fork/shock stroke) for the whole season.
A downcountry series would be awesome, but the coverage would be terrible.
Base the coverage around POV camera footage. Have the race series furnish a standardized POV camera to each of the top 10-20 racers (with anyone else having the option of running their own and submitting footage afterward). Run long-form (2-3 hour) race edits, with nearly full race runs back to back, showing direct racing, rather than the hacked together stuff we get now. Include a few odd track-side camera shots when possible. Provide commentary (have commentators watch the long-form edit and record their live reactions and then include that in the edit), rather than just narration over a short highlight reel.
Think WRC/rally coverage.
The organizers and the JCF (Japanese Cycling Federation) pocket the rest of the money. If you want to really feel screwed over move to Japan.
Can’t you just ask them then. This would be far more interesting than anything else the survey has revealed so far
Really it should be 5-6 mini downhill races, where the top 15 in the series get their runs full broadcasted. Times and positions would be available to everybody at the end of each stage. I know a lot of people probably hate what I just said, try to think of the perspective of a *non-rider* viewer.
Please make the follow-up to this an interview with the UCI about these results, what they admit they have got wrong, what they will do to improve and when they will achieve this.
The old EWS seemed to be a much better state of affairs (are there any comparable surveys from the 'old days'?) so they need to analyse what went wrong.
I appreciate it has not been helped by the industry difficulties we’re currently experiencing , but as the parent of an ex- EWS and then E-EDR professional rider , who has placed top 10 in EWS, and podiumed in E-EDR , it’s been sad to see his frustrations with the sport increase , particularly last year . The coverage used to be good , however the UCI format destroyed that .
Someone please sort it out .
It needs its own organisational body to get a grip once more of what used to be a great format in the EWS days .
300 plus riders , good coverage , good stages . Exactly what it isn’t any more !
You are going to kill Enduro unless it’s improved dramatically!
I understand the sentiment here, but not sure I believe that half the riders would give up their pay cheques* and leave racing
*checks
With respect, this comment by the author clearly shows that they simply have zero understanding of how business operates.