Your Essential Guide to EWS Millau 2017
Rest // Re-focus // Prepare
Race.
Race.
We’re now past the halfway point in the 2017 Enduro World Series and the race for the title is becoming a hard fought war. With four races to go, we’re in for some epic battles.
Round 5 of the series sees us moving from the verdant Wicklow in eastern Ireland, to Millau in the Aveyron département of South West France. The racing coincides with a five-day outdoor festival being held across the same weekend—the Natural Games. Not only will the locals be seeing the top Enduro riders in the world compete on their mountains, but also climbers, freeriders (there’s a FMBA Silver event being held too), paragliders, kayakers... in fact you name it, they’ll be competing in their preferred adventure sports disciplines, all against a backdrop of bands and DJs playing in throughout the evenings.
Enduro is nothing new to the people of Millau; in the previous two years, the Natural Games has played host to the French Enduro Series which has seen plenty of action on the ancient rocky limestone trails. For the Enduro World Series, we’ll see riders racing across nine stages, comprising 88km in distance and 4,200m of total descents. It’s usually pretty warm and dry here but this week we’ve seen mid-Europe deluged with rain, so expect the unexpected when it comes to trail conditions. Could we see yet another mud-fest race weekend?
Photos from the French Enduro Series held at Millau last year.
Tourist time
Millau dates back to around 1000BC, so it’s safe to say this place has a lot of history. From Romans to the Knights Templar, Millau has been an important trading hub for centuries, and although the mediaeval bridges that span the Tarn and Dourbie rivers have long since gone, a new British designed bridge (officially called the Millau Viaduct) now spans the landscape, taking the title of the world’s tallest bridge, at 343m high.
The picturesque town of Millau is home to numerous historic buildings including 12th Century churches and in case you hear a language spoken other than French, that’ll probably be one of the estimated 100,000-strong native speakers of the local Languedocien Occitan language dialect.
The area’s gastronomic specialties are the delightfully stinky Roquefort cheese and an unusual variety of asparagus with three leaves. The terrain is a mix of natural grasslands, dramatic gorges, ravines and rock-laden forests. You’ll find a diverse mix of birds of prey, lizards, wild boar, deer and mountain sheep in the area, though hopefully not on the trails. This place is basically packed with nature and history.
Course maps
What happened at the last round?
Round 4 in Ireland delivered an incredible race yet again; Wicklow was full of drama, ramped up by the massive crowds who were out to cheers everyone on, not just the home favourite and current series leader, Greg Callaghan.
The incredible atmosphere aside, the racing was on point, and with the weather throwing down some rain for race day, we saw the fine Irish dirt turn dark with saturation, giving the competitors all sorts of tricky conditions to contend with. Where some riders floundered, others rose to the challenge and made the most of the wet weather.
With Dailly, Maes, and Hill all charging for the top step in Pro Men’s, it was Dailly who shone through, winning three of the six stages and coming a close runner up in the others. With the pressure of riding on home turf, Callaghan couldn’t find the ‘on’ switch and failed to make a dent in the top cohort of riders. Everyone has a bad day every so often, and Greg had his there. He managed to grab a few crucial points for the overall title battle, however, leaving Hill only 30 points behind, with Dailly catching up fast behind them. Meanwhile in Pro Women’s, Cecile Ravanel went three better, winning all six stages, solidifying her dominance of the top step. Katy Winton was hot on Ravanel’s heels, securing an EWS podium finish for the first time, 36 seconds behind first place, with Canadian Andréane Lanthier Nadeau in third.
The weather forecast
Weather forecast as of Tuesday 27th June.
Rider rankings
PRO WOMEN
PRO MEN
Team rankings
Predictions
 | In Pro Men, after a strong start to the season, Greg Callaghan is leading the title race and is the one to watch this weekend. After his win in Madeira, Greg has silenced the doubters as to his ability to be at the sharp end on any and every track, and with his back-to-back wins in 2015 and 2016 he’s also proved he can deal with the pressure that would crush many a racer. The fastest rider on course this season has undoubtedly been Adrien Dailly. He’s absolutely flying with confidence and commitment—particularly when it comes to high consequence lines on the track that virtually nobody else is even trying. In Wicklow many of his rivals thought that the course wouldn’t suit him, so to see him take the victory there was a big boost for his title hopes. As much as I’d like to see Callaghan hold onto the lead, Dailly is difficult to bet against right now... just as long as he keeps it upright. Of course, those two don’t have the party to themselves; Sam Hill has ridden almost an understated season to put himself in second place in the overall standings, just 20 points behind Callaghan. While Richie Rude may have had the season to forget compared to his last two dominant years, he’s still in a dangerous fifth place in the overall, and a handful of stage wins show us that the speed and fitness are still there. If he can find a way to turn his win switch back on, he’s close enough to the leaders to still walk away with the season if he starts to build some momentum. There’s also Martin Maes and Jesse Melamed in the mix too—with rumours circulating that the latter might be racing on something with extra diametre this weekend. That said, if I had to put my chips on the table, I think this weekend we’ll see the third win for Dailly, Callaghan in second, and Hill rounding out the podium in third. In Pro Women, Cecile Ravanel is in a class apart right now and failing a mechanical or big crash, it’s hard to see anyone beating her right now, especially on home soil. Isabeau Courdurier looked like she might be able to take the fight to Ravanel this season, snatching her debut win at Round 2, but after being struck down with illness in Ireland, it’s not clear whether she’ll be fit enough to threaten her fellow countrywoman, but I reckon she’ll find enough in the tank to grab the second step. It’s the third step of the podium where we’ll see the toughest fighting—with Ines Thoma currently holding second in the overall, Katy Winton coming off a career best second place EWS finish in Ireland, the Gehrig twins always there or thereabouts, and privateer Noga Korem shocking the Pro field with a series of breakthrough performances. So for the third step, I’ll go leftfield though—Andreane Lanthier-Nadeau. The young Canadian may not have found consistency yet, but when she’s on her pace, she starts to look like a future race winner, and it seems a real shame she’s not on a full-season program this year. |
Social snapshot
The schedule
Pinkbike will be providing you with the best daily coverage from our nug-harvesters (AKA our photographers), as well as the official EWS video crew in Millau this week. There’ll be content coming in from training on Thursday, and more race day action recaps from Friday 30th June (Stages 1–5) and Saturday 1st July (Stages 6–9), with the final rider crossing the line around 1530 CEST. You can catch the riders’ times as they progress through the stages on both days via the EWS live timing feature.
MENTIONS: @fraktiv / @EnduroWorldSeries / @mattwragg / @davetrumpore / @BWinder / @glg-photography / @urgebikeproducts
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2nd: Sam Hill
3rd: Sam Hill
Plus Gally is like 1h and a half from the place, so he won't have too much of the home turf pressure on his shoulders. And like I said if it rains a lot, Galy could make the difference on some of the "holiday on ice" rocky trails.
Best of luck to everyone, and I hope they will ride under some nice and sunny conditions.
Fine.
4th: Galy
5th: Dailly
6th: Maes
Watch and learn
BTW >> Maes should not get injured.. we need him next week @ the Megavalanche ... together with Sam Hill and Ratboy... Galy ....yeah...
Feels like I am a random Kart racer and Michael Schumacher is in the same start field...
2nd: Batman
3rd: John Wayne