Saskatchewan Enduro Series brings gravity racing to the Prairies

Saskatchewan’s vast prairies may not be the first place that pops to mind as a location for the gravity-fed discipline of enduro mountain biking, but the infamously flat province does have some sweet trails. Enough trails for the Saskatchewan Enduro Series to put together a few weekends of racing every year.

While SES weekends are races, co-director Matthew Froehlich is more focused on creating a good atmosphere than an intense racing environment.

“It’s a really chill kind of vibe,” Froehlich says. “It’s fun. It’s a funduro!”

The series, which takes place at Buffalo Pound Provincial Park, evolved out of an old downhill race at the same venue that ran 15 years ago.

“They’d shuttle everyone to top, which was kind of funny because there is only 300 feet of elevation to the whole valley. But that’s the root of the event.”

That event evolved into Froehlich organizing more low-key enduros (“funduros”) through a local club. Then his new co-organizer Russ Down, a high performance coach at SPS Athlete Development, got involved. “He approached me about the series, and we thought it’d be good to bring the two together as a way to fundraise for the athletes and for the trails. That’s how Sask Enduro Series was born: just a couple of like-minded guys that thought it would be a fun thing to do.”

Any funds raised at SES events are split between youth athlete development and to trail initiatives in southern Saskatchewan. With those fundraising goals being the main focus of the series, Froehlich and Down refer to the weekends as events instead of races.

“There’s a lot of racing ties, but we really try not promote it as a race,” Froehlich says. The series uses Strava segments for timing instead of any official system, which he admits isn’t perfectly accurate but fits the vibes just fine. “There’s always a little bit of error in Strava. So we try to structure it around fun and, you know, people don’t really care what the results are. Don’t get me wrong, we get feedback about our timing. But at the end of the day, I don’t see anyone at the top of our results sheet that didn’t deserve to be there.”

Strava helps keep the focus on fun, but it’s also free. That aligns well with SES’s goals as a series.

“Because the initiative of our events is to give back to the cycling community, we wanted to maximize that. I don’t want to downplay the importance of the timing systems out there but, honestly, they’re expensive,” Froehlich explains. “If it’s the difference between us donating several thousand dollars or donating just a thousand dollars, we’re going to pick the one that puts the most money back into the cycling world.”

After a few years of organizing SES using Strava, the event organizer has a few tips for how to avoid problems with the free platform. Like any other part of race organizing, it involved time and effort.

“You gotta put into the effort to build the stages digitally online, getting out and riding them,” says Froehlich, then adding a few tweaks for the digital world. “Knowing things like your digital start line and your physical start line should be different points – so you get people up to race speed for maximum accuracy – helps minimizes the error. If you eliminate the human error side, it’s reasonably accurate.”

Froehlich on the mic. Photo: Lewis Images

Photo: Lewis Images

All kinds of bikes and riders show up at SES events. Photo: Lewis Images

XC rigs arent out of place on the fast Buffalo Pound trails. Photo: Lewis Images

But there are lots of bigger bikes, too. Photo: Lewis Images

Canadian Ski Patrol shows up at all events and the series has support from tons of local Saskatchewan shops. Photo: Lewis Images

Saskatchewan Enduro Series just wrapped up its second event of 2022 at Buffalo Pound Provincial Park. Just shy of 100 racers showed up to race across men’s and women’s, short and long course and a kid’s race. Which is a pretty awesome turnout for a province not exactly known for its mountains. The series is done for 2022, but check out the SES website for news on the 2023 events.