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This press release would suggest Continental-Atherton are going to continue for the forseable future. https://bikebiz.com/continental-atherton-race-team-partners-with-deuter/
Sorry champ, but our Apollo program used the metric system, and the Soviet Union landed plenty of things on the moon other than humans.
More importantly, does the UCI hate miles or privateers more? 😁
When Tahnee became an Elite in '15 , Rach was starting her dominant run and Tahnee had to wait for the next 2 1/2 years for her first win as Rach won 14 races in a row (and 2 World Champs)!! It wasn't until Rach was injured in '17 that Tahnee got to win a senior race.
Rach is the genuinely the nicest (bonkers.....but nice) person I have ever met but both her and Tahnee are fierce competitors ,as you need to be to compete at the highest level.
There is no love lost between the teams though.FMD's manager is also Tahnee's Dad. And he is........devisive 🙄.I think when they moved into the same valley where the Athertons lived and trained, and had built a lot of the tracks it caused some friction.
(Edit) That sounds positive!
It does in the first line of the article "...have announced a new multi-year partnership."
Will this be the funds needed to stay at the WC level? Or, do the Athertons go back to video making? Gee's edits seem to pick-up decent numbers...
And every single metric socket had a standard sized driver. Still does world wide today.
I was just a joke, I use metric all day at work.
Most of the time Americans measure distance in time anyways.
Question: How far is it?
Answer: About an hour.
Jokes indeed, just funny the pride so many Americans take in using British imperial measurements (or local tweaks on them) of mainly Roman origin 😁
I think the time as a distance mentality is what scares Americans from EVs.. They don't realize they are driving 30 miles sitting in traffic for 60 minutes...
Ok.. back on topic.. If Lachie ends up at Trek, who takes the number 1 position there?
The specific wording both the statement from Atherton and the statement from Deuter uses makes me think they're going to be partnered in WC downhill for a bit.
"...with Deuter’s support of the Continental Atherton race team."
..."partner with the Continental Atherton race team..."
Knowing how picky and weird brands can be about contracts, names, public statements, etc. makes me think that it's a partnership with that specific race team and not Atherton as an entity. Of course the race team, the bike brand, and the family are pretty tightly tied; but it sounds like the "Continental Atherton" race team is the partner and not "things with the Atherton brand associated with it." All of this gets thrown out the window if the Continental Atherton "race team" is the title for an all-encompassing Continental Atherton 360-style partnership (but it would have probably been capitalized in the statements if it were part of the entity name) for the race team and Dyfi and the bike company and potentially Gee's videos and Rach's vlogs.
But maybe I'm reading into it too much after having had to read into these things so much and having to be super careful and deliberate with statements in my previous life in marketing.
Press releases and contracts are different beasts.. But, I'm sure exposure in vlogs and such are written into the contracts as those were probably used in the sales pitch by the Athertons to Deuter.
Sure. Those two things ARE different. But those sorts of official statements and the specific phrases used are often seen as possible leverage if one party is "misrepresenting" the other or their involvement. Brands don't tend to want to invite those sorts of points for scrutiny or potential legal "openings."
In my experience on the marketing side of brands in a completely less multinational set of circumstances, they were very picky about stuff like this. Talking to people I know working with much bigger brands than I was (similar to these but definitely not these ones), those people suggested that those brands were infinitely more picky on those sorts of details even if just in trade news press releases.
It's entirely possible that these groups are just chucking these releases out and not worrying about the words they use. My small brand experience and the experience of my colleagues with much larger brands outside the bike world would make me think otherwise. The bike world definitely operates differently than expected in a lot of ways, though!
The thing that tossed my mind the most however, as a happy, metric using Canadian, Carpentry non-withstanding, was getting to the UK and everything on the roads being in miles.
I don't remember the Woman's field being and huggy and friendly like they are now when Rach was racing.
The main race seems to be who can hug the winner first now
If Deuter is onboarding with a team that rumours say is teetering on folding, that can only mean that Continental is doubling down on their collaboration.
Yeah...Deegan seems to be the only racer on 2 wheels currently who won't rub his competitors back after a victory w/ a hint of butt diddle .
Hey, they're just trying to keep up with the ball sport love taps. Trying to grow the sport.
Kolb is going to YT, loris to commy, reece is going to a new program with a big budget outside of the MTB industry
Enduro budgets are gone and all but a very few teams will disappear to bolster the DH teams need to gather high UCI points riders of all categories to remain “elite” teams and get one of the few spots available
Oh and Ebikes are 100% gone from world cups
The owner of Deuter is Schwan-Stabilo Group. According to the latest financial results, the Schwan-Stabilo Group generated sales of €850.3 million in the 2022/23 financial year, marking a significant growth of around 14% compared to the previous year. The Schwan-Stabilo Group is a family-owned company that produces 1.5 billion products annually and sells them worldwide.
Kolb and Hatton both did sign a 3 year contract with Atherthon, which includes 2025 (source: https://www.athertonbikes.com/charlie-and-andi-continental-atherton).
So if it's true that Kolb's contract is running out by the end of 2024, there must be some changes on the way.
I can see Yeti moving into having a factory presence in Dh again. I don't know whether Ritchie is ready to walk away from Enduro for Dh. They've got a super fast junior in Tyler Waite already. Maybe tempt Luca away from Canyon.
i'm not entirely convinced Yeti is truly making the decision on their on in preparing to transition their race focus from enduro to DH, but likely more reading the tea leaves and hedging their bets by laying the groundwork for a factory DH team
Damn, now you got me thinking...
Enduro budgets and e-bikes gone . How much of this is a result of the running of the series by ESO/WB/EWS and how much is it just a result of the reality of the lack of money in the sport.
Chris Ball must of realized that for an increased DH season and effectively forcing DH teams to have more riders , that the money to support that would more than likely come at the expense of Enduro programs .
Bit of both to be honest. Pretty bad timing but Ball was savvy enough to see the writing on the wall and realise there is no way to monetize the coverage to the extent Wb demands so was resigned to see it burn.
I am admittedly a bit of a lefty socialist but that makes him sound like a right ruthless b******
His bosses are Wb.....They spent $100million on making a film, realized it might not make as much as they wanted so canned it (no one will ever see it) so they could take it as a tax write down.
Chris Balls job isn't to make dh/enduro better, it's to make it profitable. And he's smart enough to know that if doesn't do it (and quickly) then Wb will kick him to the curb and find someone else who says they can.
If some Mba at Wb says they'd like man on man racing with compulsory pit stops halfway down because that's what F1 has ,then it's his job to make it work.
I understand where you're coming from but he's a grown man with his own views I'm sure . If an MBA at your work tells you that you now have to do your job standing on your head you have 2 options , you either do it or you don't . Without wanting to get all godwins law about it , following orders isn't a justifiable defence anymore .
For what it's worth I think some of the criticism of WB over the past couple of years has been over the top . I don't have a problem with paying for coverage of the races , GCN was a fair price and I watch it now on stay live which is pretty cheap as well . The sport probably does need to grow to be sustainable and a part of that is probably less riders at world cup weekends . My fear is that you end up removing what made the sport great in the first place in an effort to appeal to an audience that doesn't exist . It's a niche sport within a niche sport and I just can't imagine anyone who doesn't ride mountain bikes ever sitting down to watch a 3 hour broadcast of a mountain bike race .
Anyway that's probably a bit off topic 🙂 so I'm going to go for Reece Wilson on a new foes team managed by Nigel page and Sam hill as chief line spotter .
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