Hello Vital MTB Visitor,
We’re conducting a survey and would appreciate your input. Your answers will help Vital and the MTB industry better understand what riders like you want. Survey results will be used to recognize top brands. Make your voice heard!
Five lucky people will be selected at random to win a Vital MTB t-shirt.
Thanks in advance,
The Vital MTB Crew
Kade to Scott ( Warner mentioned he wants to become a freerider)
Seagraves +1 to Trek Factory
I can see Kade going with the Seagraves some where, it would be really convenient for them as they all live under the same roof.
Kade to team seagrave also makes sense for plenty reasons. Especially if Seagraves move to a bigger sponsor than Transition. Perhaps Trek or YT depending on where the mob ends up.
Would probably work out rather well for them from a marketing perspective.
Tahnee´s got a lot of untapped marketing potential and, maybe adding Vali into the mix, a girls first superteam does seem to have quite a bit of potantial imho.
So let's say Gwin and YT can't/don't come to an agreement, IMO the questions are: 1. Who can afford him? 2. Who needs him for their brand building? I would guess that list is pretty short:
Trek: Hype for the new session and limited WC DH Mens success since Gwin left.
Cube: Got dat cash and maybe want to stamp their name on the WC DH scene.
Giant: plenty of $ and limited WC DH success for a while now.
Of course YT got their moneys worth out of Gwin. I´ve been saying from the beginning, hiring Gwin was the perfect strategy to quickly establish themselves amongst the big names in the sport. What i meant by saving face is that in todays scene there are few personalities that carry the same prestige as a Aaron Gwin. Us nerds know there are lots of guys capable of winning, but Gwins chainless and tireless runs hold legendary status among the general public. He´s also already close to Greg in terms of wins even though he has lots of seasons ahead of him probably. He´s been as close to completely dominating the sport as noone besides Sam Hill before and people still perceive him that way.
So what i mean is that a company loosing such an important figure looses a lot of marketing power and while they won´t slip away into irrelevancy, YT need to keep momentum going now that they have established themselves as one of the big players.
For example, around here the Demo was considered THE BIKE to have when Gwin was on Specialized. They sold for ridiculous prices on the used market even though it was flooded with used Demos. Since Gwin left, there are a lot less Demos in the used market, prices are a lot cheaper and if you listen to all the younger riders THE BIKE to have now is the TUES even though a few years back most wouldn´t even have touched it with a stick. I´ve heard kids talk about the Tues as if it was a 10000$+ bike and many prefer it to the likes of Santa Cruz and other prestige brands.
Specialized all the while slipped back to being just another brand with no distinguishable feature.
So what i was getting at is that YT needs to at least keep themselves relevant to the younger group of riders which make up a huge portion of their future buyers group and somebody like Tahnee may fit perfectly into that.
She´ll keep the bike relevant while also avoiding the obvious problem of a winning rider leaving the company just for them to go back to mid pack results with the following rider. Add to that the "young talent" background which she also fits perfectly and you have a great new story to tell, taking a bit of the sting out of your no.1 guy leaving and making another brands bike popular.
Until some new young gun comes around, he´ll be the guy who sells your bikes and getting any other rider that doesn´t have legendary status such as the likes of Minnaar, Hart or Atherton to promote your bikes will surely result in a huge loss in prestige for a brand.
Hiring an established but young, attractive, top level female rider with a great personality seems like the next best thing to do to me in that situation, given they know how to utilize their riders as a marketing figure.
Adam Braytons insta story
Anyone thinking that Gwin won't be dominating world downhill for the foreseeable future needs to think again. Injury + new bike didn't work out for him. I'm not even a Gwin fan, but he's the real deal and any company who can afford to sign him should do.
Aside from that, yeah that´s why i proposed an all female team consisting of Tahnee and Vali under the Young Talent banner. That would make for a great story.
Want further arguments? The shit geometry of all Giant DH bikes from the ATX through the DH Team to the first Glory. With Danny and Needles they started to fix those problems, because that was a serious effort. BTW, in 2004 Ben Reid was sponsored by Giant and instead of riding the current bike he rode a heavily modified ATX from '99 that he and his dad built. Came in 4th at the Worlds in Les Gets, 0.001 seconds of a third held by none other than then superstar Kyle Strait.
Suddenly all Mongoose/Iron Horse/Jamis/Giant branded M1's pop into mind and the sad team that was Sunn Montgenevre, with Sam Dale and Remi Thirion, who had such awesome DH steeds that they rode Transitions for a full season and didn't even care to hide them. Oh well...
Mx
FMD to YT with Kade and Vali joining would be cool too. Tahnee and Vali for race results (with Vali getting some solid mentoring at the same time) and Kade/Kaos doing the free-racer thing would work really well for YT as a brand, and would really fit with their free ride/young talent image.
I doubt it will all pan out that way, but I hope the moneys there and it does!
The idea of Trek becoming the FMD bike sponsor is an interesting one.. Tahnee is hands down one of the 3 fastest women right now.. They just would need a guy capable to get up towards the podium...
All the hype on Vali right now... Not sure how justified it is... She's young and fast, but her times are usually 5-10 in elite.. Not terrible, but not setting the world on fire.. However, I'm sure the speed will pick up as she gets more experience... Hopefully she can stay healthy and we see her full potential over the next few years..
The last racer to this, regardless of gender, was Rachel Atherton.
Even tho Sven is in the know, he is also a media squid, and he must know what to say and how to stir up rumors..
I feel like the #teamrumors has become a focus for the PR, and even fun for the influencers. All of the pros must have some bonuses or benefits from retweets/reposts/comments on there accounts..
If we are talking about Junior World Champs then you have to mention 2005 when Amiel Cavalier won gold riding a Giant Faith.
As with any bike, geometry development is ongoing. Also it's very unusual for the top pro guys to be riding unmodified, standard bikes. They all have tweaked geometry, shock lengths, etc. You wouldn't say a V10 or a Sender are shit because Greg and Troy are using modified linkages.
The Glorys that were available to the public were fine. The geometry was 'of the time' and was more suitable for mass market than the extreme geometry of a pro rider's bike. Giant is a huge company with a conservative approach which is reflected in their safer geometry. Sure it was fashionable to rock a 63 degree head angle in 2006 but the world wasn't ready.
Talking about rebranded M1s? That was 20+ years ago dude.
And Amiel Cavalier winning on a (stock) Giant doesn't change much the fact that their bikes of 12-13 years before was far from the best.
Rebranded M1's were around 16 years ago and those Giants I mentioned were from 14 years ago. Much difference, eh? And I just mentioned them, don't worry!
Post a reply to: 2019 Racing Rumors