Squamish’s Lief Rodgers is having one heck of a season. After joining the newly-formed Priority Racing Team, he’s steadily climbed up the Enduro World Cup rankings. At the fifth and penultimate round in Switzerland, the Canadian moved into first overall.
It’s a thrilling season for Rodgers, building on a few breakout results in 2025. It’s also quite the debut season for the two-rider Priority team. The team’s other rider, Canada’s Evan Wall, also is in the top 15 overall. Both riders are proving Priority’s belt-drive and gearbox-driven Vanth enduro bike is more than just a one-off from a brand known more for commuters.
All of this makes us wonder. Gates declined to award Hattie Harnden the $100,000 prize for winning a World Cup on a belt drive bike, specifying that they meant downhill World Cup. But winning the overall? Surely that deserves the prize, especially if no one in downhill’s quite claimed it yet. (Harnden’s AON Racing teammate, Reece Wilson did come very close in Loudenvielle…).
Anyway, here’s the Aletsch Arena EDR from the perspective of Rodgers and Wall.
Lief Takes the Lead: One Race to Go for the EDR World Cup!
Here’s what Priority says about the duos exploits:
Round 5 of the EDR took place in the Swiss Alps at Aletsch Arena. Perched below a glacier, the course delivered one of the tightest races of the season.
After a tough day of racing, Lief was sitting in fourth place. On day two, he had moved into second overall, and finished twenty seconds behind winner Ryan Gilchrist overall and second runner-up finish of the season. The result puts Lief into the overall series lead.
Evan posted the third-fastest times on both stage five and stage seven and was right there with the fastest riders in the field all weekend. A flat tire on the final stage cost him serious time. He still finished and salvaged points and is currently holding the lucky #13 position.
With only one round left, PRT sits on top of the Enduro World Cup standings!