There aren’t many mountain bike events around where you can clock up over 15,000m of timed vertical descending in a three-day weekend and make it back to your day job for Tuesday morning. There are still fewer that include proper enduro stages in the French Alps, gnarly enough to see me crash four times on the first stage alone.

But this is no ordinary race, called Enduro2, it’s a multi-stage race that takes place in Meribel every summer and has to be one of the most chilled out events around, considering how serious some of the terrain you’re racing is. And, as testament to the quality of the race, there were tears of laughter rather than sorry in that Alpine meadow, on my backside after doing double donut 360s on a wet ski piste. It’s definitely a bucket-list destination, somewhere that’ll take you above and beyond even the best mountain bike routes in the UK.

Racing this kind of terrain on your own can be pretty daunting, add in a mate and it’s transformed into a fun ride

Agonies of enduro

Racing against the clock can be seriously fun, but oftentimes I find myself taking it all too seriously and spoil the fun. Unless you race all the time, self-doubt and nerves too easily go the way of self-loathing, and for many of us, the fact we never seem to ride as well as when we’re just ‘out for a ride’ gets in the way of maximum enjoyment. 

On top of this, paying good money to race also too often means not enough actual riding in your precious leisure time either, what with all the queuing, faffing and generally being bossed around to someone else’s strict time schedule. 

Friends who ride together drink French lager together

Enduro2 magic

But what if I told you there was an established event that gave you the buzz of racing against the clock and that motivation to take bigger risks? That lets you push yourself to the limits physically and pump adrenaline through the roof, but also takes away all the reasons and excuses listed above not to? 

Well, for my money, that’s exactly what Enduro2 offers by adding one simple rule into its winning formula: rather than racing alone inside your head with demons and excuses, the event operates in pairs, so you race as a team of two with a mate and it’s on both of you to navigate the three-day event quickly and safely.

Switchbacks are not rare in this part of the world, make sure you practice your endo turns in advance

It’s pretty amazing what a mindset shift this brings, as you kind of end up looking out for each other, egging each other on and ultimately accepting one of you will be slightly better at certain aspects and playing to your strengths as a pair to get through all the stages in one piece. 

In this way, Enduro2 is as much about being gifted some insane new trails to ride as much as managing physical and technical efforts as a team. The fittest rider can lead on short climbs and pedal heavy stages and the fastest rider can crack on, read the terrain and scope the best lines and braking points for the partner to copy and paste. Or if you’re well matched like my partner Jon and me, just take turns on the front and turns to take more risks.

High alpine singletrack at its most sublime

Two’s company

Talking to everyone at the event, the consensus is riding like this just somehow shakes off the inhibitions and tightness that hamstring you when racing solo. Bung a mate in the mix and you basically focus less on the serious pursuit of the best result and find yourself whooping and hollering down the trails in a whipped-up frenzy that’s hard to replicate elsewhere. 

It’s clearly not only me that thinks Enduro2 offers a winning format, as the event in the chi-chi ski resort in the Three Valleys looks like a bit of a who’s-who of the UK mountain bike scene with many industry professionals, journalists, presenters and brand marketing folk making the pilgrimage to get a slice of the stoke. And with no set times to make the stage start lines, you just dib in and go off whenever you’re ready, so there’s nothing to stop teams of two turning into trains of up to eight riders all setting of together as mates, and that’s when the fun really ramps up. 

My first time at Enduro2 back in 2015, one amazing trail after another

I’ve raced almost every Enduro2 since it started in 2015 in Les Arcs, and almost all my favourite memories are of the carnage that ensues when big groups of similarly matched riders swap the lead due to peer-pressure enforced mistakes and, err, issues. 

One memorable run saw four different riders (by accident, not design) lead the train out until multiple crashes and overshot hairpin corners saw the ‘lead’ sacrificed about ten times in one run. At Enduro2, what starts out as a supposed ‘pairs race’ can easily turn into a mini Megavalanche, and riding with a big group of pals down some of the best trails ever while being obliged (forced?) to never stop for air as the clock is ticking so you never rest or break really long trails into sections like normal would pumps those feel-good hormones to maniacal levels.

To access the good stuff you have to put the hard yards in

The new Enduro2

Enduro2 moved over to its new location last year and because the event has the full support of the resort and Belleville Bike Park (St Martin de Belleville), riders get to ride all over the mountain from the tops above the treeline to deep into the loamy woods all the way down to Bride les Bains. And, unlike than loads of enduro events (including EDR races) where it feels like locals just feed you well-abused and easy to find bike park scraps or ‘older’ trails so the racers don’t trash all the good stuff, you get to ride plenty fresher trail gold here.

Enduro2 is aimed at the intermediate not expert rider, but that means you’re still riding huge Alpine trails, just that you can really let rip knowing no feature is going to kill you unexpectedly or you’ll ride off a cliff by accident or anything. There’s a good mixture of the best bike park trails and some fresher, rawer tracks where you get to kick up some dirt and loam. This latter part is especially true lower down in the forests where a chunk of the trails are only made possible thanks to a special telecabine being opened for the riders, including one special stage with almost a thousand metres of descending on singletrack that took our team almost 18 mins on the clock!

Stage1 in Davos – exposure and high speed racing is a recipe thrill seekers will love

On stages this long, you go through a full gamut of emotions and it’s inevitable one or other of the pair is going to have a few moments and it’s often the waiting for, the catch ups and the encouragement that make enduro2 so cool. Basically, so long as you both get to the bottom in one piece, that’s all that really matters, so you just don’t ever have that sense of stressing about the time or every micro mistake and bad line you’ve taken; unlike when you’re racing on your own if you’re anything like me.

In terms of stats, Enduro2 takes in around 16 stages over three days (Sat, Sunday, Monday) with the shortest around 5 mins and the longest around twenty for most riders. Our total race time for the three days was almost 100mins on the clock and around 15,000m of downhill gold. Try clocking that up in the UK and you’ll be at it for months! During the liaison sections, there is some serious climbing around the ski lifts to keep you honest (usually around 1,000m per day), but it’s done in such stunning scenery that it’s a pleasure rather than a chore. 

How good?

The event’s really well organised with minimal queuing, plenty friendly marshals and all feed stations are really well stocked with exactly the kind of sweet and savoury snacks and drinks you need riding in the heat. There’s also a proper sit-down rider lunch included, although the pasta party on the first day proves that the French chefs could do with looking down the road to Italy to see what proper decent pasta looks like. The rest of the food was great. In terms of accommodation, you likely have to bite the bullet if you don’t have a camper van and pay for an apartment, as one crappy thing about Meribel is there is no campsite. Instead, racers just kind of hang out in a bit of a ghetto village at the leisure centre car park, and while it’s OK, it’s not quite the ‘living in nature in the Alps’ vibe you get at some resorts. Eating out in Meribel will have your eyes out too, so be prepared to re-mortgage to fill up all the food you’ll need to keep going or be sure to have a place you can cook.

Enduro2 is for pairs of riders, but often those pairs link up to create great trains of riders

Nearly all of the stages were great except for a couple of average bike park tracks that are clearly just to get you where you’re going, but by far the best finish of the entire weekend had to be when organiser Ali extended where the last stage naturally ended into long sprint. Blowing out of your backside when you thought you were done after counting down the metres to the valley floor, you had to pedal like hell across grass at the bottom of the ski lifts to finish right at the bar with pumping house music, the timing lady dressed up in a sexy policewoman outfit (!) and a cold beer about 5m from the finish line. That last pedal in the scorching heat just about wiped everybody out but kicked off the after party and made some of the best memories of the whole weekend.

The fact a few riders commented that if you do the race every year a few stages get repeated (it was my first time in Meribel) doesn’t stop the event being so popular it sells out fast every year (with many repeat customers too), so my advice would be to get in early if you fancy it. 

Enduro2 doesn’t scrimp on the afterparty either, which is (almost) as good as the racing

Next year there will also be a brand-new edition – a completely new enduro2 edition in Verbier in Switzerland in July and this Meribel event will be moving to late August, so keep an eye out for entries as I can’t recommended this event enough and hopefully, I’ll see you at both if I can in any way wing it.