Initial support surpasses Enduro World Series organiser's expectations

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Jerome Clementz (Cannondale Factory Racing)(Image credit: Ale Di Lullo)

The Enduro World Series (EWS) launched with a ground-swell of support from the mountain bike community this spring. Within 48 hours of opening, the newly formed Enduro Mountain Biking Association (EMBA) had signed on its first 125 individual members - a wave of support that continued to grow over the first 30 days of registration to 19 teams, 10 official supporters and over 220 members.

While Ball is pleased by the strong uptake of event registration, he's even more satisfied with the response to EMBA's invitation to become a member. "We put ourselves in the hands of the industry by choosing this model. We knew that industry-wide support would be critical for EMBA and would give everyone a chance to be involved in the development of the discipline and to show their support for the sport. We believe that this is how to build the sport - from the ground up, through our members."

"We wanted to ensure that the core enduro athletes who have built the sport were there at the starting gate, so for this inaugural season we painstakingly looked at enduro results from around the world and tried to get as good a cross section of committed international racers as possible. We worked diligently to ensure there was as good as balance as possible between the pros who have built the sport up so far, top riders from other disciplines and the community of riders who are critical to keeping the momentum moving forward for enduro mountain bike racing. The essence of enduro, after all, is the chance for the public to race amongst the pros."