Fashion Over Function in Downhill Mountain Biking?

I think skin suits just gays up downhill

I much rather see a racer in lycra then no shirt and just body armour suit with gut hanging out.

What I find the most intresting is that dudes want to ban lycra but then put there sisters jeans on after ther race... or now all the big guys are waring "compression" clothes under there baggies... Compression gear is the same as waring a skin suit. ..the ban is stupid. Ware what ever you want.

Theres a saying that I heard when I was starting out Snowboarding and was told to me by an older guy.

"If you think you look good, you ride good"

And its true to any sort of sport/Night out. If you think you look good it sets you in a positive mindset, and a positive mindset generally improves every facet of your life/situation.

So Lycra may increase my performance by 0.5% but trust me Im am going to feel like a dickhead and I am going to ride like trash and more then likely not have fun.

If I put on my jersey and shorts and think I look like a badarse. In my mind I am going to ride better and have more fun.

Yes, but that is because you don't have the confidence to feel good in tight clothes.

Look at ski racing (like mentioned earlier) no one wears baggy clothes, they don't look bad, it is just the attire for the sport, as it gives the athlete the best possible advantage.

-KT

I am kinda sitting on the halfway point with this. The skin suits do kinda change the racing a bit into the whole who has found the latest greatest thing to use however leaving it uo to the rider isn't so bad either. People are able to win races in both uniforms.

Thats the point im trying to make Thom, Its how you feel, its about your confidence.

Someone who feels confident in Baggy clothes will ride better and faster then they would if they were in lycra and had no confidence.

I think both Uniforms should be allowed and riders can shred in whatever they like.

Hell Ill even let Rachel Atherton ride in the nude if she wants

Look what skin suits have done for trials. They look like ballet dancers

dudes: make skin-suits legal only if they have sequins that will shred the skin off said participant in a crash.

This debate is going to go on for years and drive me fucking crazy, because I am right.

DH is mountainbiking. Mountainbike racing as we know it came directly from roadies who got high and pushed shitty beachcrusiers to the top of hills. They wore protective clothing with pockets to hold their drugs and protect their skin. When they got even higher, they decided to race the things cross-country, and they wore the right clothes for the job.
DH racing, technology, rules and athletes developed out of XC DH, except for the notable entrance of Carter/Lopes et. al., as such, the historical legacy of our current style of DH racing is linked to XC racing, anyone who denies that is just patently wrong, sorry. Leathers were only viable on the "short" steep tracks available at some Ski mountains. Even then, leathers were a sign of a clueless BMX or MX goon who was likely higher than you were, and liable to explode half way down the track after his lungs imploded. The general thinking was "what sort of pussy is afraid to race in Lycra? What a goon"!

Moto GP and Ski racing fashion have a much more appropriate association with the historical roots of DH, when we went fucking fast in open air. Most of the first Euro full-faces were based on ski helmets, and the first TLD fullface was an XC helmet with a chin bar bolted on. To fully honor the sport, we MUST acknowledge and celebrate our common history, and our connections and evolution with the simple rigid hardtail while integrating the fact that we now go wicked fast over very rough ground too.

What developed originally in mountainbiking over the first 15 years of competition is 2 aesthetics, which are complementary, not exclusive- traditional racing clothes, and baggier performance-oriented clothing made by passionate and visionary companies ala Swobo and Nema. Clothes that you can still do a pro XC race in, and wear to win a pro gravity race in the same day.
The logical choice for clothing for racing bicycles down hill is clothing made for bicycling, as bicycling has very specific and unique demands. Moto gear should have been a transitional item bridging the gap between existing performance baggy and racing-based clothing with some of the protective benefits and features that the moto gear offers. TLD Sprint shorts are non-offensive to the historical legacy of DH, nor are they any sort of performance decrement. A flappy fucking NoFear jersey an 3 pound pants with leather inside the knees is a disgrace, and completely unacceptable from a rational aesthetic vantage point.

MX racing is one of the most badass sports sports on earth.
Downhill bicycle racing is really fucking badass, I'd say the pinnacle of man's interaction with machines. The mental demands, physical demands and incredibly sensitive equipment demands are beyond compare, especially when evaluated as a total package. Our exposure to grizzly high-speed flying W's goes far beyond any other gravity powered sport in the world. The images created by downhill racing are, in my opinion the most spectacular in the world. We ride a VERY fine edge in this sport- A run by any of the top 15 riders in the world is sport at it's very highest level.

A perfect run is the closest thing to absolute perfection and consciousness that exists in the human experience. Nothing else even compares.

DH does not need the image of MX and those who advocate for that are wrong-headed fools and demagogues that are holding the growth and exposure of this sport back an unprecedented amount. They really ignore that DH mountainbike racing is one of and in my opinion, the very best sport in the world.
We need an deserve and have waiting in the wings our own image, our own historical legacy and a near-infinite capacity to create our own clothing that is absolutely perfect for our sport. We can and have started our own clothing companies and worked intelligently to establish the unique culture and aesthetic that should be the goal of the industry and the participants- but many short sighted or un-informed individuals are so slavishly wed to the idea of emulating MX that they have massively lost sight of the long-term picture.

Fuck motocross.

Support our sport, get some fucking spine, and wear clothes, not necessarily lycra, but clothing that we have and are developing that represents the very best aspects of our past and a continual quest for optimization on every front.

That's my opinion, and it's the right opinion to have. Win races at any cost, continually improve our technology- continually improve our tracks- continually improve our technology- we have already surpassed motocross on every front except salaries. No one races DH for money- they do it because it's the best sport on earth.
Moto should be looking to our clothing technology, the technology that many powerful interests are denying the existence or validity of to reap some ill-gotten, short-sighted and insignificant financial benefits, our material and structural optimization, our rapidid implementation of composites technology and our grass-roots environmentally-conscious participant-based fan base as the model to follow.
Wear some fucking well tailored clothes, designed and made specifically for DH, or hold back the sport. Or we die.

Never happened.