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
It seemed like when talk of a riders union a few big names who could have really helped make a difference were not very interested. Interestingly those were the same riders who are well taken care of. DH needs the riders of that skill but need more riders who actually want to grow the sport and know not all of the best showed up with a silver spoon.
The desire to cut it to a smaller elite only field tell you the people behind the camera don't comprehend the fickly nature of this sport and how tight the racing really is.
Would Luca and Finn have run off track if the course was marked with tape?
The continuous markings would’ve provided better visual guidance while at race pace. I wear a little mystified Finn didn’t stop and get back on track - did he just not notice he’d blown off course? I reckon Luca would’ve slid off course anyway, but suspect Finn would’ve stayed on.
Anyway, well done Dak! He did something special through the middle of the track. That was a helluva run to watch.
Someone in the booth commented that if he'd tried to stop and pushed back up to where he left the track the points outcome would have been the same (zero points).
In Finn's situation, he had to say screw it and hope marshalls or cameras couldn't tell.
But I'm like you, with full size, angled poles you have a much better reference.
Talked to Neko about the new markers last week and he said they all like the new poles b/c they're way less dangerous, so they're here to stay I think.
But man, even as a spectator, they don't give you a good idea of where the course is. And I'd rather see them have ones that are 2 feet taller in the inside of turns and triangular like an emergency roadside marker.
He has quite a bit of financial incentive to shrink the field. It’s hard to stay at the top of the sport for long as it is, so he probably sees shrinking the field as a way to extend that time. Bummer for the sport as a whole, but it makes sense that he’d see it that way given the effort and risk he’s put into getting where he is now.
Organizing any union is a tough thing to do. A union will almost always benefit all participants in the long run, but the short term incentives are not always there. Like you all said, the big money riders stand to benefit from a reduced field in the short term. However, every rider would benefit in the long-term from increased rider input in schedule changes, format changes, track selection and design, track safety, emergency/evacuation planning, rider pay, and everything else that riders complain about year after year. But it's tough getting people to trust each other and volunteer to give up a little now for the promise of a lot later, and for a union to work everyone has to participate. In a dangerous and unpredictable sport like downhill it's probably tempting to just look after number one. Lord knows the rider's corporate sponsors and team managers don't want to see a strike or walk off, either. Solidarity.
Well Dak was second on that as well 😀 . Jackson had his undone before Loic hit the stage
In Cathro's vid above, he says if Finn pushed back up to finish last he would have got 30pts, but a DQ is 0pts....
I don't think tape would have mattered, they both were offline and bike was dictating where they went they wouldn't have recovered no matter the type of course marking. I think the only way it would have mattered if they said you didn't go back where you exited you were one pole short as it way harder to tell with these.
They do seem safer as they seem to bend over completely and didn't someone get hurt on the old poles in last couple years.
The "poles" have a base like those plastic sand spikes for tents that's maybe 6" long. Just pops right out of the ground pole, base and all with no breakaway built in as soon as you whack it. Neat...but might pose issues in a live World Cup, specifically the very last one on course after the last right hander.
There's one on the flat all by itself in the grass that if someone whacked it, it's gone and the next guy down...if no marshall replaces it within the split, they've got a straight shot to the drop.
He could do with the 76mm rise bars I’m running. They’re sweet but still not enough.
There were 32 riders in the final. It's hard to say how long it would've taken him to stop and go back to where he exited the track, then get back up to race speed, but anything over a minute and he would've got 31st and no points.
https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/news/results-loudenvielle-dh-world-cup-fi…
Yeah...probably 30-45 seconds to push back up from the berm I'd guess. Would have put him ahead of Dunne.
Luca hiked back up and finished 32 seconds ahead of Dunne, so the points were there.
I'm still scratching my head at how you can jump from 5th to 1st this late in the season though. That's a huge jump when you look at Shaw sitting in 10th with half as many points.
I know nothing of the way the points are structured, but something doesn't seem to line up about that.
Max Points:
Qualifying50 pts
SemiFinal 100 pts
Finals 250 pts
Man...this points structure sucks the more I look at results.
Especially the SemiFinals and Finals points for everyone.
Heck...even qualifying points are shit!
Dak got ZERO points to qualify for this race.
He got the same # of points to qualify for field of 60 as Goldstone...ZERO.
Qualify for semi-finals without protected status, you should DEFINITELY ADVANCE in the points PAST someone who gets an auto-bid. Even if it's 1 point.
You beat made it to the next round out of 120+ guys & the other dude is blessed to advance automatically.
You deserve points for each round. Hell, your life is on the line.
started les gets thread here - https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/free-live-racing-race-talk-les-gets…
so dak and breeden aren't on the PDF start list put out by UCI. i thought if the PDF comes out, registration is closed. please tell me that's not true (answer in that thread instead of here please, no need to derail this one)
Post a reply to: 🔴 FREE, LIVE RACING & RACE TALK 🔴 Loudenvielle - Peyragudes DH and EDR World Cup Double Header