The news is important, but it is probably not that surprising.
Already a few weeks ago, when a first draft of the 2027 calendar began circulating, there were signs that were difficult to ignore. Only two events dedicated to enduro they were saying, even before any official communication, that something was changing.
Other clues could have been added to this: progressively less structured post-race coverage, visibility that struggled to find continuity, and, above all, a mountain bike market that has since taken a different direction.
This is why the end of the Enduro World Cup does not come as a bolt from the blue.
But simply recording the championship's cancellation would be uninteresting. Because the question to ask today is not only why the Enduro World Cup didn't work out as hoped.
The most interesting question is another:
Did enduro really need to become a discipline built along the traditional World Cup model?
And, even before that, are we sure that the crisis in competitive enduro really coincides with a crisis in enduro as a way of experiencing mountain biking?
The market has changed. But what about the desire for enduro?
There is one element we cannot ignore.
In recent years the electrical world has largely cannibalized the market for all-mountain and enduro mountain bikes, the very segment that had represented the commercial driving force of the discipline.
Denying it would be pointless.
Many bikers who until a few years ago would have purchased a trail bike or a full-size enduro bike are now choosing an e-MTB. This transformation has profoundly altered the market, manufacturers' product lines, and likely even the way some enthusiasts spend their days in the mountains.
But does selling fewer muscular enduro bikes necessarily mean that there is less desire for enduro?
It's not for sure.
Watching the races, for example, you notice a growing presence of young people. This is perhaps one of the most interesting signs: a foundation continues to exist and, above all, a new generation is arriving who still find the idea of competing on a course, driving fast and competing against a stopwatch fascinating.
Then there is another signal, much less scientific but equally interesting.
After the announcement of the return of Superenduro I received several messages from people who told me, more or less, the same thing: If the format returns to how it was in the beginning, I might go back to racing. And I might do it with a muscle bike.
It doesn't mean that the market will suddenly reverse direction tomorrow.
But it means that perhaps there is still a desire that the current market cannot fully capture.
The desire to work hard. To prepare. To put yourself to the test.
And above all, the desire to live that special experience that an enduro race can offer.
It's not just race day
Anyone who has raced enduro knows that the experience rarely begins on the morning of the race.
Start earlier.
There's the journey, there are the days spent testing the trails, understanding the terrain, getting to know a place. There are the lines to remember, the ones that don't come, the evening discussions with friends, the feelings that change with each test.
Then comes the race.
And of course everything changes.
There's a number on the bike, there's a stopwatch, and at the end there'll be a ranking. The adrenaline is flowing, and rightly so, because without that excitement, it wouldn't be a race.
But when you enter the first special stage you haven't simply arrived on Saturday, tried a route, raced and set off again.
In many cases, that territory has already been experienced.
We were there in the days leading up to the race not only to improve our performance, but also because preparing for a race also means riding in new places, discovering trails, and sharing days with friends, teammates, and rivals.
And this is where the meaning of the experience changes completely.
Going to Finale Ligure, La Thuile, or Pogno for a weekend bike ride is wonderful.
Going there knowing that in a few days or a few weeks there will be a race on those trails in which we will participate is different.
Every step takes on meaning. Every trail becomes part of a preparation. Every difficulty becomes something to be measured against.
Maybe our true rival is a friend. Maybe it's someone we'll only meet in the standings. Or maybe it's simply ourselves and the time we set the year before.
But there is a goal.
And it's that goal that makes the experience more intense.
And what if the product started right from here?
This reasoning could have consequences that go beyond the races.
Because if part of the transition towards the e-bike also comes from the thought “If I just have to go and shoot, why should I make more effort?”, then a goal can change the perspective again.
Explore.
Getting ready.
Put yourself to the test.
Measure your technical, but also physical and mental abilities.
From this perspective, a full-size mountain bike continues to offer a different experience than an e-MTB. Not necessarily better overall, but different: Effort management becomes a part of the experience again, and the journey is not just something to be driven, but something to be conquered.
And perhaps right here a space could also open up again for the product.
Not necessarily going back to extreme enduro, with excursions and geometries ever closer to the downhill.
It could be exactly the opposite.
Modern, lightweight, and pedal-friendly all-mountain bikes with 140-150mm of travel that climb well and are, above all, fun to ride.
Bikes designed for routes where technique, pushing ability, endurance, and terrain reading count.
Perhaps a new way of understanding racing could even help bring back interest in a type of mountain bike that the market has progressively overshadowed.
It wouldn't be the first time that competitions have influenced the product.
Spectacular sport and real mountain biking
Cross country and downhill They have found their own very precise sporting identity. They are accessible, spectacular, and relatively easy to transform into a television product: a limited competition area, athletes competing on the same terrain, and immediately understandable times or positions.
But they are also extremely specialized interpretations of mountain biking.
How many riders regularly tackle artificial rock gardens like those on modern XC circuits? And how many descend at World Cup speeds on DH tracks that, in some sections, would be impassable for most enthusiasts?
Very few, and that's normal: Top-level sport thrives on the extreme nature of performance.
The daily experience of mountain biking, however, is different. It means covering kilometers, discovering trails, traversing a landscape, reaching a summit, and tackling technical descents.
Even a day at a bike park often follows this logic: the most interesting destinations aren't necessarily those with a single extreme trail, but those that allow you to move across the mountain, choose different trails, change sides, and build your own day in the saddle.
And this is precisely where marathon and enduro have something special: they don't just need a circuit, they need a territory.
Over the years, the marathon has succeeded in transforming this characteristic into a strength, creating events in which competition, participation, and discovery of places coexist.
Maybe now it's time for enduro to find its own path.
Maybe the problem was the container
The Enduro World Series had built much of its appeal around the idea of the journey: different locations, natural trails, long days in the saddle and races in which interpreting the terrain and managing energy and difficulties were all part of the competition.
Entering a more traditional structure of international sport has brought uniform rules, recognition, and the theoretical possibility of building a global product.
But it also highlighted a contradiction.
Not all disciplines can be described using the same model.
A format strongly oriented towards pure performance and television production works when the competition area is limited and the action can be followed almost entirely.
Enduro, on the other hand, is born from transfers, mountains, distant trails, changing conditions and the need to manage an entire day.
Trying to compress all of this into a standardized sports product risks eliminating the very thing that makes it different.
Enduro doesn't necessarily need to become more like downhill. It might need to go back to being even more enduro.
From crisis to opportunity
The disappearance of the World Cup inevitably leaves a void. For teams, organizers, professional athletes, and companies, the consequences are tangible and should not be underestimated.
But the breaking down of such a rigid structure can also create a new space.
We can rethink formats and regulations that no longer necessarily have the same rationale. We can imagine longer races, larger territories, different formulas, and above all, greater freedom for organizers.
The goal could be to build events more accessible to the many without making them less interesting for the best.
Because those who go strong will continue to go strong.
But a great race isn't just about the caliber of its winners. It also becomes a great race because so many people want to be there, prepare for it, run it, and maybe even return the following year.
And this is where the territory can once again play a central role.
A race that leaves something on the territory
An enduro competition can be a tool through which to discover a valley, a trail network or a destination.
A location may decide to host an event not just to have a few days of racing, but because through that race it can showcase what it has to offer to those who will return to ride there in the months and years to come.
Competition, experience and tourism can become parts of the same project.
And perhaps the future could be made less of a single, rigidly standardized championship and more of major events with a strong territorial identity, possibly connected to each other, but free enough to interpret the characteristics of the places that host them.
It wouldn't mean giving up on competitive sport.
The clock would continue to determine who was fastest and the best would continue to be the best.
But what made enduro special from the beginning could once again have more weight in relation to performance: arriving a few days early, pedaling, trying, discovering new places, competing with friends, making the wrong line and then going back to try it again.
Then put the number on the bike and see what happens.
It is that combination of travel, discovery and competition that makes an enduro race something more than a simple sequence of timed trials.
The end of the Cup or the beginning of something else?
Of course, the opposite scenario also exists.
Without a major international circuit, enduro could become fragmented. Teams could reduce investment, professional athletes would have fewer opportunities, and companies would shift their resources further to disciplines with greater exposure.
It's a real risk.
That's why it would be wrong to simply celebrate the end of the World Cup.
But it would be equally wrong to automatically interpret it as the end of enduro.
Perhaps the time has simply come to ask ourselves what this discipline wants to be.
A more difficult version to tell on television than downhill?
Or the ultimate competitive expression of a way of experiencing mountain biking based on exploration, technique, territory, effort and adventure?
If the answer were the latter, the end of the World Cup could even represent an opportunity.
Less obsession with fitting into a container designed for other disciplines.
More freedom.
More territory, more trails, more travel, more effort and more experience.
And of course always a stopwatch at the end of the special.
Because enduro remains a race.
But perhaps, to become truly interesting again, you need to remember that it was never just a race.
The World Cup ends.
Now we will have to understand if an era will also end or if, freed from a format that was perhaps becoming too narrow for him, enduro will finally be able to find its true dimension.
