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Yep, that’s the Ollie im referring to.
I wonder if Shandro is going to be there when the dust settles..
When you digging for cash, racing would be one of the first things to go. Trek's probably hurting the worst out of all the big names. They'll have sponsored athletes at races but I don't think it's gonna be anywhere near as big for a few years.
Is this Saint Charles, IA actually Iowa?!?! Does that mean the DH team, or some sponsor, base is in Iowa? How do you run a downHILL team in Iowa haha, I've been there and didn't see any hill. Just curious!
Boone Iowa has some fairly large hills, lol.
With the announced closure of teams and some more solidified rumors, does anyone have an updated list of which teams are able to be World Series teams?
Saint Charles, IA is where their sponsor is based out of.
Henri Keifer on the new canyon DH bike now. Could assume from this that him and Ostgasrd both on the factory team in 25?
Do you have any facts? Unless you want to spill details it’s pretty wack to disparage someone. Cause you keep talking shit without saying a thing.
Huge shout out to Lars and the rest of the crew for putting together something really cool with TFR. To see that much energy and resources put into junior women's WC racing is just unreal. That team had a LOT of success in its short run. And keep in mind that iteration of the TR11 was pretty new when they put it hot on the circuit. Valen has serious talent and focus, we hope she lands with a good squad next year.
Not related to the transition stuff above, but considering Martin Maes is following FMD on instagram and the only other teams he follows are his previous teams and brands, I think it's quite clear what is going to happen with Orbea and FMD after the Orbea shut down. Would be interesting to see how FMD does enduro stuff or combine into one team and do both enduro an DH, maybe a little like YT is doing already. Didn't think they'd go for a brand like Orbea though.
Anyone who will and can pay the bills is a good partner now.
How can frameworks afford to race? They don’t sell much so it must be sponsors?
Tough for a family team to survive in eso’s vision for dh. Tahnee is in a good place for next season but all it would take is a pretty minor injury and missing a few races to not be. And the female side of things is only getting more competitive at a pretty wild rate. She can’t do a safe run for 2nd and 3rd anymore. Also hard for a new team to get In the sport full time despite having a race winner and world champs medalist on their roster. Teaming up makes sense to play eso’s game.
Remember when racing was about showing up and going fast instead of money and politics?
And they don't have Lidl sponsorship like the Trek road teams.........
Just a bit interesting for me considering they seemed happy on canyon with good results and what not. Anyways for frameworks they do have a lot of sponsors which I'm sure the American companies that back them are happy to help an American team given the potential the team has with Asa. Sure they don't make a lot of frames, but they definitely make enough to have a bit of cash and especially with Neko being one of the founders of Ride Kanuga and all the backing they have, funding probably isn't an issue, especially when you're not a big bike company that races only to sell bikes and you're actually passionate about racing and riding
Interesting! Boone near Luther? Just checked the map and it looks more like ravines along a river. Not far from Cambridge that's where I was visiting.
Not sure it's been mentioned yet but Loris's mechanic PA is retiring:
Aren't quite a few of the main teams "family" teams or started there and grew? Commencal Muc-off, FMD racing, Atherton, Commencal Les Orres, maybe others? I think they'll all be fine.
I also think Myriam, tahnee and a few other riders like Amaury who had bad concussions or injuries recently have been vocal about how it's not about "just showing up" and going fast. They want care and support from teams as well as organizations like WBD and the UCi. Not just a track and a number board.
So hopefully the changes to world cup racing will allow some professionalization to happen in terms of medical etc...?
I thought the rumor was that canyon were dropping all gravity MTB teams other than the factory one? Shame for tahnee for sure, seemed to really gel with that new bike
FMD on Orbea seems like a weird fit but that’s probably what Orbea’s marketing team is looking for. Their image is basically ‘road brand that now makes decent mountain bikes’ so why not hire the edgiest young team on the circuit? I just hope they have some suitable bikes in the pipeline.
When I think edgy... I immediately think "Tony Seagrave"
3 trek vans at the top of telonics today in plain sight. lachie was present.
I have created a spreadsheet with rumors on it in an attempt to calculate the points that each team will have going into 2025 and which teams will be world series teams (since this year the rankings are based on rider points). I do not have better info than anyone else, I am simply reading the forums. Much of the info is out of date and incomplete so if anyone would like, feel free to edit to make this more complete and accurate. There are two tabs, where the second one shows the ranking. Read the red notes for info. There will be a ton of inaccuracies, but this is all for fun anyway. Plus it's a spreadsheet so you can still look busy at work 🤫. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oioH7_ADLzuHFDC-pRGTnRCh8JLIt5ubK4K1eGZc3u8/edit?usp=sharing
If you want to try out a ton of "what if" scenarios instead of real rumors, please make a copy of the file.
Related question: Is anyone else having the same problem where the UCI team list only shows 3 riders from the team in the team ranking website? Then the points tally only includes their points. https://www.uci.org/discipline/mountain-bike/4LArSj7CKcytMrGEDtKwkb?tab=rankings . I've been going to the rider ranking pages instead for all their points.
Also, the rules for 2025 state that only the top 4 scoring riders on each team score points for the team, correct? If so, I will need to change the formulas to reflect that.
This is awesome. Thank You
Calling commencal a family team is like calling Koch industries a family business. And that’s not a rip on max commencal. He is good for the sport. But you wouldn’t call specialized a family team if it was sinyard bikes. You wouldn’t call Santa Cruz a family team when roskopp was coming to the races.
Isn’t the rumor that atherton is leaving the wc scene?
To me that essentially leaves frameworks. Which is a bit hard to believe will continues after next season though I hope neko and Logan are able to make it happen. Seems pretty insane that a very popular team that’s been incredibly successful in a very short time on minimal budget seems unlikely to be sustainable.
I also do not understand how you believe giving more power to the eso and sponsors is supposed to improve rider safety? Seems like an incredibly backwards way to improve it. Hasn’t pretty much every commencal rider you mentioned injured themselves riding hurt for that team (specifically head injuries). Shouldn’t the eso be creating straightforward criteria that allows injured riders to return to the wc scene without the needs of an arbitrarily determined “wildcard spot” or a team of other talented riders. Shouldn’t there be protection to allow top riders to mitigate risk in a highly dangerous sport over the course of a race weekend? Especially considering their points at the end of the season is effectively their value to teams and eso now?
Commecnal Muc-off team is owned and run by the Ruffin brothers as far as I know and I'm pretty sure their parents still work for the team? Someone else might know more in here. But basically the story is Thibaut Ruffin got injured while racing years back, and as he was recovering he put effort into starting his own team (sponsors, van etc..) and went racing with the family the next year in a camper van. The team has grown from there to what it is now, still owned and operated by the same family.
In terms of safety, what I mean is its easier to mandate things like concussion protocols or medical care/allowance in riders contracts or have a race doctor on site at racers or medical care like imagining and diagnostics when you don't have 600+ riders site for an XCO/DH race or 400 for DH. Less numbers, less teams = more chance of professionalization and mandates of safety related things.
As for returning after injury, looks like the injury and pregnancy status rules still exist, but mainly from 2026 onwards top ranking teams will have 2-3 year contracts to race in world cup, so if a top rider misses a season, they'll just slot back in the year after. but whatever, as per if anyone says anything that looks positive towrds WBD they get attacked
UCI site must be correct at the moment, as the old rules for WC team ranking were only top two men and one women scored points. Changes from next year are better, especially for XC. Nice spreadsheet, thanks
When thinking about TFR we shouldn't forget about Chris Hauser. So the big question is, if he and Sacha Earnest were also there in plain sight. These two and Lachie would make an awesome team.
Doesn’t that look like Charlie Hatton?
so much for the rumor of trek cutting racing budgets, three vans in socal , with riders and staff! Already spending and it's not even 2025 😁
The spreadsheet is updated to calculate using the sum of only the top 4 scorers on a team, so hopefully closer to what next years' scoring will look like.
Also if you're editing it, please make sure if you're moving names around, that their current UCI DH points are correct. There have been a bunch already where people deleted one name and put another in without changing the points column.
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