VITAL RAW - Lousa, Portugal World Cup DH Craziness!! 13

Vital RAW
The first practice session of a long week of racing is in the books and the brand new Lousa, Portugal, World Cup DH track is all-time. Is it the best track ever? Steep, loamy, tech and plenty of big air has mountain bike racers going fast and taking chances!! The first race of the weekend is on Friday while race two is on Sunday on a slightly modified version of this track. Stay tuned for more #VitalRAW all week! #MTB #downhill
Credit: John Lawlor
Related:
UCI Mountain Bike World Cup
Downhill
Insta Hub
Lousa, Portugal
13 comments

View replies to: VITAL RAW - Lousa, Portugal World Cup DH Craziness!!

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cloudy
3 years ago
Atwill yank to slap was so sick.

Whole thing was awesome, thank you!
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Ahab
3 years ago
I like this track.

~7 min +, were Gwin and Wynn (no relation) trying to go super wide in that corner or was that just practice run fuckery?
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Big Bird
3 years ago
It's a thing they do where they use momentum that they would otherwise waste with braking to get up and outside of a sharp turn to get more speed out. It's the DH version on an enduro turn. Good for speed, bad for trails.
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TEAMROBOT
3 years ago
I agree, this sort of trail-finding is a bad look on public mutli-use trails, but I think it's great on bike-specific trails. Finding the fast line is part of riding, and this isn't the same thing as a "Strava line" that just straightens out a section or skips the technical bit. I'd say what Gwin and Wyn were trying to do looked pretty technical to me. Most riding areas in the PNW have little mini-wallrides at the entrance to all the deep ruts, so you can see where fast riders are trying to open up turns and stay out of the holes in the main line. I love it.
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TEAMROBOT
3 years ago
I should also point out that whatever Gwin and Wyn were trying, it obviously wasn't working. Looks like the main line is the line through that turn.
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Aksel_Lfft
3 years ago
Yep miles ahead! Smile Bruni looks so smooth. On that drop to corner thing, everyone is hitting hard the back wheel and he just went "swoosh"!