2020 Mountain Bike Team Rumors

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shreda
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shreda 12/22/2019 2:49am
12/22/2019 2:49am
mariyo wrote:
Gamux Racing with Andreas Kolb and Faustin Figaret on a interessting bike. You know what it is? [img]https://p.vitalmtb.com/photos/forums/2019/12/21/8712/s1200_Screenshot_20191221_153421.jpg[/img] :whistle:
Gamux Racing with Andreas Kolb and Faustin Figaret on a interessting bike. You know what it is?
Whistling

It‘s Gamux own frame they‘re developing ;-)
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Darth_Sloth
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Darth_Sloth 12/22/2019 5:23am
12/22/2019 5:23am
In Lewis’ recent insta story he showed off a bike that looks a lot like a Nukeproof with RockShox/SRAM parts... He rides with a bunch of dudes who ride Nukeproof, so it could be one of theirs, but here’s some wild speculation;

1. Why would he make a point of showing a mates bike on insta like that?
2. He said in his farewell to Ibis post “a new direction and a fresh start with almost everything” = Fox/Shimano to SRAM?
3. I believe he said in a post a few months ago that he would be riding a 29 next season for sure = Mega 29”? Or at least a brand with a 29er race bike.
4. He has raced for Chainreaction/Nukeproof before in DH and might still have a good relationship with Nigel Page who was team manager at that point and still is now.
5. A bunch of the current CRC Nukeproof team, inc. Nigel Page, were in Innerliethen earlier this month where they’d have time to meet up and reconnect...

No a rumour so much as a wild guess, but hey 🤷🏻‍♀️
samlr
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samlr 12/22/2019 5:29am
12/22/2019 5:29am Edited Date/Time 12/22/2019 5:30am
Kilian Brom off Intense Mavis Collective
Primoz
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Primoz 12/22/2019 5:39am
12/22/2019 5:39am
Yoann Barelli has a 100 % helmet in his S2E1 Into the Gnar video.
willsmooth18 12/22/2019 5:46am
12/22/2019 5:46am Edited Date/Time 12/23/2019 12:17am
samlr wrote:
Kilian Brom off Intense Mavis Collective
Last posts look more like Intense off Enduro Collective but the 3 (Carrez, Courdurier, Bron) remain together.

EDIT : Bron effectively parts away...
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Ric_Cederholm 12/22/2019 6:13am
12/22/2019 6:13am
samlr wrote:
Kilian Brom off Intense Mavis Collective
willsmooth18 wrote:
Last posts look more like Intense off Enduro Collective but the 3 (Carrez, Courdurier, Bron) remain together.

EDIT : Bron effectively parts away...
From Instagram posts, Bron is not part of the Collective. It remains to be seen if there is a change in frame for the Collective or for Bron. Would be awesome to see Intense remain with the Collective and them add another top rider (e.g. Rude)
Brian_Peterson
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Brian_Peterson 12/22/2019 7:41am
12/22/2019 7:41am
metadave wrote:
Hey Stik, can you comment if Jack is still on TLD gear? I didn't see any goodbyes as far as that goes 🤔
I'm guessing that Jack's TLD status will depend on where he ends up... If he ends up on a team that already has a gear deal, he would probably not be able to stay with TLD..
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der5te
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der5te 12/22/2019 10:07am
12/22/2019 10:07am
MasterofStone wrote:
> Nico Vink to race tour d' france from next year. > FMD racing will start giving spinning classes > Damien Oton to focus on eFatBiking...
> Nico Vink to race tour d' france from next year.
> FMD racing will start giving spinning classes
> Damien Oton to focus on eFatBiking
> Jack Moir will drop DH racing to become the new crocodile hunter
> SSpomer to wrench for Minnar but only changing tires (he proved on the tire testing video his skills with no tools)*
* I wonder if he could do it with one hand...???

You read it here first.
> Nico Vink to race tour d' france from next year.

but just on the backwheel!!!!
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trex84
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trex84 12/22/2019 10:19am
12/22/2019 10:19am
Cole Lucus to the ibis ews team
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dolface
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dolface 12/22/2019 12:08pm
12/22/2019 12:08pm
Stiksandstones wrote:
Human interaction-name of the game. My wife has a poor social media 'following' when it comes to numbers, but she is a MTB legend and currently...
Human interaction-name of the game.

My wife has a poor social media 'following' when it comes to numbers, but she is a MTB legend and currently has a career teaching people how to ride MTB's through one on ones and events. I've seen the human interactions work with her, people show up to the next event with some product she endorses, its unreal actually. So, yeah, props to Lars and Transition for seeing that important, I do as well in my job at TLD.

Anyway-Team Rumors!!
This week was heavy with brands parting ways with athletes and vice versa, cant wait for the 'new connections'.

I am most curious about Jack-worked with him for 4 years at TLD, he is a class act---cant wait to hear where he ends up Wink

Did I miss in this thread if Sam Hill is making moves? or Isabeau?

Think anyone is signing EWS Emtb only contracts?

Is GT DH program completely done?
- Sam has another year with CRC (he mentioned it in their last EWS video)

- Isabeau: no idea but she raced Trophy of Nations on the the Intense prototype so might want to get in a full season on it?

- No idea about GT, *but* Maes has said he really likes racing DH and that it helps his EWS performance, and where does Wynn go it it is? Pivot maybe?
FqqTBawL
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FqqTBawL 12/22/2019 12:22pm
12/22/2019 12:22pm
Lewis to intense, contract has California law reference....
rockchomper
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rockchomper 12/22/2019 7:53pm
12/22/2019 7:53pm
brash wrote:
The fact of the matter is no one buys dh bikes anymore. I doubt forming a WCDH team is a successful business in any sense of...
The fact of the matter is no one buys dh bikes anymore. I doubt forming a WCDH team is a successful business in any sense of the word. Why do people do it? For the love of the sport and the technical advancement of mtb as a whole.

As for YouTube, take Seth’s bike hacks for example. 1.64mill subscribers, with probably way more random views on top of that. Now let’s take Aaron Gwin who has 425k insta followers. You throw Seth a few bikes, some cash to make some entertaining videos and the reach is exponentially larger than the gwinster himself. Sure one may be the greatest rider to hop on a bicycle and the other a dude with a handycam but if we are talking exposure to the masses those YouTube dudes have some reach.

I hope Jack lands on his feet, he was on the cusp of a win a couple of years back and you won’t find a nicer dude.
I wouldn’t say nobody buys DH , Me , my wife and two good friends of mine just bought DH bikes. DH is alive and well. It just depends if you live in a place that is worth owning a DH rig. Go to any bike park and you’ll see a plethora of DH rigs. Also World Cup DH is the highest level of our sport and is an amazing feat of the limits of bike riding !
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rockchomper
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rockchomper 12/22/2019 8:03pm
12/22/2019 8:03pm
Primoz wrote:
DH bikes are useless. They only fit the bikeparks and racing while trail and enduro bikes are much more versatile. THey have a place, but not...
DH bikes are useless. They only fit the bikeparks and racing while trail and enduro bikes are much more versatile. THey have a place, but not for the average rider, which is shown by the sales numbers.

As for DH, you could say it's the F1 of the sport. But to be the proper F1 of the sport, race bikes need to get custom, unlike anything offered for sale on the market. Think RN01. And that's hard to achieve with brands trying to push their product through racing.

DH racing, currently, is more like touring car racing. But EWS is just as well, both being something akin to the GT4 category, where the race cars are hardly modified compared to the road going counterparts. Yeah, money is a big issue, i understand that, but think of the progress that would be made in MTB if the manufacturers could go wild and have a different concept of a bike for every race? We'd have race proven gearboxes, suspension designs, linkage forks and bike geometries. Not stuff driven by marketing departments.
Dude DH Bikes are most certainly not useless ! While long travel enduro’s are great they are still miles off a DH rig and I live in southern California and have so many shuttle trails and also gnarly DH trails that my DH bike sees a lot of use. Also we have plenty of local DH races so while I do ride bike park, when the park closes for the winter the DH is alive and well in SoCal. As for the argument you don’t need a DH Bike , well you don’t need a car to get to work but it helps. Everything I ride on my DH I can do on my enduro as well but it’s easier and faster and comfier on my DH also it can save you from a mistake that on an enduro you’d definitely be taking a dirt nap.
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nathan999x 12/22/2019 8:11pm
12/22/2019 8:11pm
I think world cup dh sells so many bikes even if it's not a dh bike. A lot of people will see there favourite rider on that brand and then buy that brand's trail bike. So dh racing definitely still sells a tone of bikes.
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brash
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brash 12/22/2019 9:35pm
12/22/2019 9:35pm
brash wrote:
The fact of the matter is no one buys dh bikes anymore. I doubt forming a WCDH team is a successful business in any sense of...
The fact of the matter is no one buys dh bikes anymore. I doubt forming a WCDH team is a successful business in any sense of the word. Why do people do it? For the love of the sport and the technical advancement of mtb as a whole.

As for YouTube, take Seth’s bike hacks for example. 1.64mill subscribers, with probably way more random views on top of that. Now let’s take Aaron Gwin who has 425k insta followers. You throw Seth a few bikes, some cash to make some entertaining videos and the reach is exponentially larger than the gwinster himself. Sure one may be the greatest rider to hop on a bicycle and the other a dude with a handycam but if we are talking exposure to the masses those YouTube dudes have some reach.

I hope Jack lands on his feet, he was on the cusp of a win a couple of years back and you won’t find a nicer dude.
rockchomper wrote:
I wouldn’t say nobody buys DH , Me , my wife and two good friends of mine just bought DH bikes. DH is alive and well...
I wouldn’t say nobody buys DH , Me , my wife and two good friends of mine just bought DH bikes. DH is alive and well. It just depends if you live in a place that is worth owning a DH rig. Go to any bike park and you’ll see a plethora of DH rigs. Also World Cup DH is the highest level of our sport and is an amazing feat of the limits of bike riding !
I hear you dude, however I just spent 2 weeks in Queenstown New Zealand riding probably the second best bikepark in the world behind whistler. Only people I saw on dh rigs were a couple of WC riders (Brannigan etc) training and Remy Morton doing jumps the size of small countries. 98% of people were on long travel enduros. But Queenstown has A LOT of riding outside the bikepark and this might be a big reason for the more versatile enduro machines.

I was a downhill bike buyer even last year, I had a s-works demo 8 that cost more than my car. I would only ride it a handful of times after getting my stumpy evo which is longer, lower, slacker with 29 inch wheels. The dh bike collected dust ever since that purchase
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Primoz
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Primoz 12/23/2019 2:28am
12/23/2019 2:28am
Primoz wrote:
DH bikes are useless. They only fit the bikeparks and racing while trail and enduro bikes are much more versatile. THey have a place, but not...
DH bikes are useless. They only fit the bikeparks and racing while trail and enduro bikes are much more versatile. THey have a place, but not for the average rider, which is shown by the sales numbers.

As for DH, you could say it's the F1 of the sport. But to be the proper F1 of the sport, race bikes need to get custom, unlike anything offered for sale on the market. Think RN01. And that's hard to achieve with brands trying to push their product through racing.

DH racing, currently, is more like touring car racing. But EWS is just as well, both being something akin to the GT4 category, where the race cars are hardly modified compared to the road going counterparts. Yeah, money is a big issue, i understand that, but think of the progress that would be made in MTB if the manufacturers could go wild and have a different concept of a bike for every race? We'd have race proven gearboxes, suspension designs, linkage forks and bike geometries. Not stuff driven by marketing departments.
rockchomper wrote:
Dude DH Bikes are most certainly not useless ! While long travel enduro’s are great they are still miles off a DH rig and I live...
Dude DH Bikes are most certainly not useless ! While long travel enduro’s are great they are still miles off a DH rig and I live in southern California and have so many shuttle trails and also gnarly DH trails that my DH bike sees a lot of use. Also we have plenty of local DH races so while I do ride bike park, when the park closes for the winter the DH is alive and well in SoCal. As for the argument you don’t need a DH Bike , well you don’t need a car to get to work but it helps. Everything I ride on my DH I can do on my enduro as well but it’s easier and faster and comfier on my DH also it can save you from a mistake that on an enduro you’d definitely be taking a dirt nap.
You can do uphills on your DH bike? Steep, technical stuff over roots and rocks?

I said DH bikes fit bikeparks and racing. And you confirmed that. But the sales numbers (Pinkbike was mentioning a ratio of 50:1 at a large brand a few years ago) tell the real story. WIth a DH bike you have to go to a bikepark, shuttle or push/carry it up. With an enduro bike you can do all of that AND pedal it up. I personally really like to get on my bike in front of my house, do a 1, 2 or 3 hour loop, get back home, stash it away and be done with it. No car needed.

Mitsubishi EVO and Impreza WRX STi were also the rally cars for the road, lauded for their performance. Yet Golf Rs, Audi RS3s, Focus RSes and the like killed them off. Performance wise measurably worse cars, that were simply easier to live with, were more practical and comfortable and gave enough performance to not bother with the upper echelon of performance to lose a lot more in other fields.

To put simply, enduro bikes are good enough for MOST people for what you do (bikeparks, shuttling, even racing) and they give added benefits in other categories, which means they sell much better than DH bikes.

Like i said, i don't see why companies don't start to experiment with WC bikes like crazy and just make a park bike that is reasonably good at racing as well. The dwindling racer numbers and park rats will be covered, you'll be able to market your engineering prowess and maybe move the industry forwards and you keep the image of being the racey brand that then sells tons of trail bikes.
Sonofbovril2 12/23/2019 2:45am
12/23/2019 2:45am
The UCI has a rule stating that whatever bike you race in DH has to be available for purchase within a given timespan, although it doesn’t say that you have to produce/sell a certain amount or that they need to be affordable so I guess there are ways around that...
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brash
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brash 12/23/2019 3:23am
12/23/2019 3:23am Edited Date/Time 12/23/2019 3:26am
I’m guessing that rule came in after Honda made the most unobtainable bike known to man.

2008 was a great year for frame designs and development. A lot of kooky stuff was about.
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brash
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brash 12/23/2019 3:25am
12/23/2019 3:25am Edited Date/Time 12/23/2019 3:26am
Double post sorry
Primoz
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Primoz 12/23/2019 3:25am
12/23/2019 3:25am Edited Date/Time 12/23/2019 5:27am
We've had debates regarding this and as far as i've come to understand is that this only applies to road cycling.

EDIT: FWIW, this rule would mean that things like Minnaar's longer dropouts and custom link, Saracen's brake link and Mondraker's FOX cartridge in a Marzocchi fork (there was a picture of that in a Vital slideshow a few years ago but was taken down after being already posted) would have to be put up for sale.

I do also know Sky had an issue running Berk seatposts or something like that in races because he didn't have a certificate allowing him to sell the components or something like that.

There's a lot more money in road cycling and that rule plus the lower weight limit and tube aspect ratio rules prevent horrendously expensive bikes gaining the last few % of performance. With MTB the changes can be more revolutionary and cheaper to apply at the same time.
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t-stoff
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t-stoff 12/23/2019 5:20am
12/23/2019 5:20am
Tahnée Seagrave out of Transition (official Facebook page)
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willsmooth18 12/23/2019 9:45am
12/23/2019 9:45am
t-stoff wrote:
Tahnée Seagrave out of Transition (official Facebook page)
Seriously ? I heard a rumour saying that Aaron Gwin could be riding for Intense 😁

In other (and recent) news : Camille Balanche on Dorval AM.
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The-Hoff
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The-Hoff 12/23/2019 12:07pm
12/23/2019 12:07pm
Ed Masters off Pivot.
sspomer
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sspomer 12/23/2019 12:47pm
12/23/2019 12:47pm
The-Hoff wrote:
Ed Masters off Pivot.
interestingly enough, eddie never actually says he's off pivot, he just says "thank you."


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Primoz
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Primoz 12/23/2019 12:48pm
12/23/2019 12:48pm
Yeah, announced on Instagram. WTF?
metadave
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metadave 12/23/2019 12:51pm
12/23/2019 12:51pm
The-Hoff wrote:
Ed Masters off Pivot.
Boo

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andrew.macnaughton 12/23/2019 12:54pm
12/23/2019 12:54pm
I hope he doesn't move on, but shit he's gotta be up there with the best results out of pretty much everyone all year. And if you count how much coverage he gets, I would say he has the greatest reach out of nearly any racer. Gotta make that money when you can.
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iceman2058 12/23/2019 1:07pm
12/23/2019 1:07pm
Press Release from Dorval AM, announcing the addition of Camille Balanche to the squad:
-------------------------------
The Dorval am team announces the arrival of a new female rider for the 2020 season. Camille Balanche from Switzerland will be joining World Cup podium contenders Monika Hrastnik and Mariana Salazar. We are proud to be the only team on the World Cup circuit supporting three women elite. On the men’s side, it remains the same with the two French TOP 20 riders Baptiste Pierron and Benoit Coulanges.

Camille Balanche, 2019 European champion, completed her first World Cup season as seventh overall. With two podiums, 3rd in Val di Sole and 5th in Lenzerheide, her dedication as a privateer paid off. We are happy to give her the opportunity to be fully supported.

The Dorval am team is pointing in 4th of the UCI elite team ranking. The roster is growing every year and we are excited to start the 2020 season with a new rider and some added sponsors.
--------------------------------
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kwapik
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kwapik 12/23/2019 1:08pm
12/23/2019 1:08pm
The-Hoff wrote:
Ed Masters off Pivot.
Yeah, really surprised by this especially considering his results and his great personality. But maybe a better deal came up.
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cebe
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cebe 12/23/2019 1:42pm
12/23/2019 1:42pm
I really hope Ed is just grateful for this 2y and only looking forward to another couple of them... With "same them"!
Met him couple of times, also talking with him about come to ride at my backyard trails, etc. He's such a nice dude, funny, unique,... Hope he stays with Pivot!
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