Jesse Melamed retires from professional enduro racing
Canadian won Enduro World Series overall title in 2022
Decorated enduro racer Jesse Melamed announced his retirement from the highest level of the sport this week.
The 33-year-old Canadian said in the Grit and Glory docuseries that 2025 was his last year racing a full-time Enduro World Cup calendar.
“I know how much I’ve given to this and to show that I am where I think I should be it’s all I really wanted,” he said. “I never wanted to overstay my welcome, you know. Yeah, I think this might be my last full World Cup season.”
Mountain bike news website Pinkbike intitially reported the news as a “semi-retirement,” but Melamed said on social media that “it’s full retirement.”
Melamed’s statement in the video did leave open the possiblility that he could enter some races and not the full World Cup calendar. Either way, it appears that the racer will stay involved in the sport of mountain biking beyond racing.
“Proving I could win again and having an opportunity for the future in the sport were the final pieces in allowing me to step away,” he wrote.
Melamed has been at the top of the sport since earning his debut win in 2017 at his hometown Enduro World Series race in Whistler, British Columbia. Now called the Enduro World Cup, Melamed won the series overall during the shortened 2020 season as well as the 2022 season. In addition to that, he is the second most winning enduro racer of all time.
Melamed made headlines in 2023 for leaving his longtime bike sponsor Rocky Mountain for Canyon. He finished 2nd overall in the series that year. To close out his career, he finished second overall again in 2025, and won the final round of the season.
The Canadian hasn’t said what he’ll be doing now.