Enduro World Series: Winter Park - Canyon Report

Check out this great report from the Canyon Factory Enduro team and find out how they fared at the Winter Park stop on the tour! A good result for team!

This year's Enduro World Series (EWS) is a real nail biter! After a perfect start at the world series debut in Punta Ala (ITA), a little streak of bad luck prevented the CANYON Factory Enduro Team from standing on the podium. But now the team is back on track: the fourth round of the Enduro World Series was hosted at the Winter Park Resort (USA) during the Colorado Freeride Festival and the CANYON riders managed to secure three top 10 results for the team: Fabien Barel achieved third place, Ines Thoma fourth and Joe Barnes ninth. Only Maxi Dickerhoff had to contend with some falls. The overall results however, tallied up to award the CANYON Factory Enduro Team an excellent second place. CANYON is particularly proud of Ines Thoma: the talented German is currently ranked number 3 in the EWS overall rankings under the "Women's Individual" category.

The fourth race of the Enduro World Series at Winter Park Resort/ Colorado (USA) was completely different to the previous two races in Val d'Allos and Les 2 Alpes. The track sections were quite diversified and included a collection of the finest single trails from the bike parks well maintained trails. The Enduro race consisted of five stages which took place over four combined racing and training days. However, the two main lifts in the Trestle Bike Park shut down due to heavy thunderstorms on Saturday night, so stage four had to be cancelled. In order to fulfill the EWS regulations, which state that five stages are required, the third stage was split into two separate parts.

Fabien Barel demonstrated consistency and smooth riding through the stages – conserving both his physical strength and his bike for the thrilling final race when he battled with Nico Vouilloz. In spite of a powerful ride and great technical skills, Fabien just missed out on a 2nd place result in the Open Men class. First place went to Jerome Clementz (1st place) who has been in good form all season. Likewise, Joe Barnes demonstrated a durable race, even though unfortunately his favorite stage was cancelled.

Despite good results from the men, collectively the CANYON Factory Enduro Team is very proud of Ines Thoma’s efforts – she showed a powerful performance and achieved a well-deserved fourth place result. Ines’s determination is paying off as she gets closer and closer to her personal goal of a podium finish in the "Women Open" category. Standing between Ines and her desired spot on the podium in Colorado were big names: Tracy Moseley (1st place), Anne Caroline Chausson (2nd place) and Anneke Beerten (3rd place). After a short break, the CANYON Factory Enduro Team will start in the fifth race of the EWS circuit at Crankworx Whistler in Canada on 11 August. The team will certainly look to draw on their solid experience from Colorado to achieve high rankings at Crankworx Whistler.

For further information, interviews and pictures of Fabien, Joe, Ines, Maxi and Marco, please go to blog.canyon.com or www.facebook.com/CanyonFactoryEnduroTeam. For details about Canyon visit www.canyon.com, follow Canyon on Facebook at www.facebook.com/canyon, on Twitter via twitter.com/pure_cycling or check out Canyon on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/purecycling.