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Not a rumour per se but Dak out for awhile unfortunately.
For those w/out Insta, broken hip socket (acetabulum) from a freak moto crash (he didn't provide deets), surgery, no weight-bearing/walking for 3 months.
Well, shit. That's probably the 2025 season dusted if he can't even start walking until April.
Dammit.
2025 pro dh series calendar here - https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/2025-race-talk?page=13#comment-550701
(please discuss in that forum thread, not here...just wanting people to see it and team rumors is a big crowd)
I wonder if Mondraker will bring someone into replace him for the season like Ollie Davis and the Syndicate last year . I assume at this stage everything is paid for anyway so you might as well bring someone else along .
Former union riders are Lachie and Ollie
Syndicate groms Ellie and Felix Griffiths
World champ to norco is Erice
Also luke wayman has already been seen riding his Atherton
I posted this a few months ago also, let’s see how much of it turns out to be true #rumours
For points they will have too! Although a well funded and supported team like mondraker would likely get a wild card sport for 2026. Just not a 2-3 World Series Team thing.
Big surprise to see Erice leave Commencal Les Orres for her first elite season. That stability and familiarity for a first elite year, on a proven bike too, is often what riders want. Norco paying big or talking big game?
Would be crazy 🤩😮💨
I did wonder about that?
Norco's race budget must be getting pretty bloody big by now!
I also wonder with the speed of Norco's team creation under Minnaar, how much (if any) Minnaar had of an insight as to what was coming via WBD demands?
And how to position Norco to be one of the very few teams to survive into the new format.
He was very much more in the loop at UCI than the average rider.
Note this is pure speculation on my part, nothing more.
I don't remember seeing in the UCI documents anything saying a team member has to race in any of the races in order to contribute points.
So, Dak might be contributing to Mondraker's total even if he can't race until late in the season. If he's ON the team and he's inside of the constraint of "maximum of four riders per category" then I think he's contributing his points to the total used to decide an Elite team. He's just injured. Injuries happen in the sport. If Loic dislocates his ankle coming out of the gas station driving to the first race, he'd be just as "out" as Dak is for that first race. I doubt the Powers That Be would take a chance at a freak accident injury keeping a major team out of the 15 Elite Teams group.
Maybe the kid is simply good enough to get a spot on the team. He is national champ in his age group and I doubt SCS would have taken him on if they didn't think he has potential.
Paying for a ride is nothing new, maby for the syndicate it is, it was discussed some pages back.
We need Gwyn + Dak in the booth.
Nothing new at all. Anyone remember the Canadian oil magnates son on Norco Factory Racing for a while? Teams need the money to race and since outside sponsorship is deemed a dirty concept in our sport, then this is the only way the incestuous mtb racing Ouroboros will keep itself alive.
Team rumours for shitzngiggles:
Brook Macdonald self funding a world cup campaign while still riding forbidden.
Connor Fearon to race select worldcups but focus on fun stuff.
Pivot to drastically shrink as second hand porsche market dwindles.
Elise Empey signing with a bigger team.
Newkirk to frameworks is confirmed.
Oli Zwar to new team
Trek with Semenuk, Kade, Emil and Brage would be something else
I guess they got hacked???
does it come with points? Could be that ticket into the top 15!
If further confirmation is needed, I’ve seen with my own eyes Yolanda riding Pisgah on a bike with a single sided front suspension.
Amazing post.
Norco is here to race fuckin bikes! I love Danny Hart and Camille Blanche on the same team. That’d be sick! With Minnaar in charge? That dude loves winning. I was always struck by Fairclough’s stories about how GM wasn’t giving any sort of tips to him when he was starting out, even mind gaming him as a teammate…Minnaar is one of those ruthless winners, straight up here to win. I don’t have that in me so I’m always attracted to it. Hart and Balanche have it too.
I thought he’d suck as a boss, but if he’s responsible for these pickups I was way off.
That’s a pro team. Syndicate style family vibes are fun but this feels fast.
Haha big if true love it especially late in the summer etc
Word on the street is that GM was given (nearly) unlimited budget to sign whoever he wants, and was even going as far as trying to buy riders out of contracts or steal them from other teams. Seems like norco/GM will do anything it takes to win next season
So sick.
You mofos want pro sports? This is what it looks like!
As if the sport wasn’t gnarly enough hahahaha
They got us...
Hahaha no!!!
Duped!
this all sounds so weird to me since norco was to pause their WC team before signing greg and now they‘re throwing around money like it‘s growing on trees? did they get some funding from outside mountainbiking?
It does seem odd. Norco does own Live to Play Sports which is one of the major national distributors of bike equipment in Canada so perhaps profits from LTP are insulating Norco from current market pressures that have hammered brands like Rocky Mountain. Or maybe Norco just managed their inventory a lot better than RM and others the past few years, not sure, have seen some smoking deals on the older Sights, Ranges and ebikes.
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