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Sea Otter Celebrity Downhill: Reggie Miller vs. Ken Roczen
Reggie does XC racing though.
So does Sea Otter DH.
FYI, Cade Clason, another SX pro, raced & beat Josh buy several spots. But not like either was risking their paycheck for fastest lap.
Unless Ken has a pro ski/board background I doubt he could even get top 5 at a Downhill Southeast race. Where pure moto racers struggle is weight bias, technical terrain & selecting momentum based turns while maintaining certain aerodynamics. Foot off & throttle on is your turn speed in moto.
Back in ye olden day, the bikes were the hurdle for pro motocrossers. They just exploded DH bikes. Witnessed it multiple times.
But now that the bikes are dialed, that part of the curve is gone. But World Cup, yeah...Kenny isn't qualifying until maybe the last round of the season IF he raced every round. Learning completely different braking points, line choices, shift points, tuck position, etc....very tough.
If anyone in SX/MX could qualify for a World Cup, I'd put money on Eli, simply because he's always feet up and taking the widest line on a track. Every race, he's electing the tallest gear and widest arc & looking to keep both feet on the pegs. That's the technique that translates.
MXGP riders would be more likely to make a run. De Wulf maybe?
More to chew on...Greg Minnar was no slouch & raced moto before DH.
Taylor Vernon is still to my knowledge a moto pro & qualifies high.
Palmer...he understood momentum better than any racer I've ever seen. He made the bumps on a course disappear & rode every DH track like it was a BMX track. But the whole time he was using his snowboard arcing & pumping technique to gain time everywhere.
I watched every X-Games race run of every sport he entered. It's absurd how he could pull a gate start & generate speed on skis, bikes, boards, snowmobiles. Had a Dual race versus Lopes once that had dirt moguls & that was a battle. To challenge Lopes in his element...peak of his powers.
As for SX, if I recall correctly, he was trying to qualify for an outdoor national prior to his SX qualifier. Something happened and can't remember what...if it was wrecks, injury, illness or mechanical that derailed.
Want to say he went for outdoors twice & both had some bad voodoo day of or he'd have lived that dream on top of SX.
Fokk....he was the Mad Max version of Michael Phelps.
I've seen plenty taken away in an Ambulance. But that's more to do with bike weight / twitchiness and lack of throttle i think. Maybe once trained up they could do well maybe in these Continental races etc?
When he actually retires hopefully he wants to do some DH, if anyone at RedBull is listening this would be an opportunity for some awesome content.
Get Ken to come out to the Windrock national, pair him up with Aaron Gwin and have him show him how to do track walk. How the whole race day works, which lines to change and take during practice and sort of guide him through the day while filming it all and then have Ken do a zero pressure race run would be such awesome content.
You'd get some crossover from both fan bases, MTB guys would have a guy to cheer for watching supercross and the moto guys could maybe watch a world cup if they can find out how to and have 3 hours on a Sunday morning lol.
He’s at Leogang
Definitely good entertainment for him there now, erzbergrodeo and leogang. Sucks to not have him in outdoors. Not sure what his timeline is. (As well as what his contract looks like...)
Red Bull should definitely do a video series where he tries an enduro and tries a DH. Richie and Martin can show him the ropes lol
I thought it was pretty funny to hear him dial back his comments after spending the day spectating (and helping to ruin the commentary) at Leogang. I think seeing it in person has brought the realisation of just how fast you have to be to qualify for a WC, especially under the new format.
I don’t think people fully realize how deep we are into a new era of downhill racing. Today’s top athletes are growing up on DH bikes in bike parks (Jackson), just like elite moto kids grow up on 50s at tracks. The idea of crossing over from one sport to another is way more far-fetched now than it was in the Palmer era and that’s saying something.
Not saying it’s impossible, but the stories about easy crossover don’t really hold up anymore. The bar is higher, specialization is intense, and the depth of talent is way deeper. If Palmer could de-age himself 25 years and step into today’s field, I doubt he’d dominate any one discipline the way he did back then.
In the 90s and early 2000s, it made sense that fast moto kids could jump into DH and be quick. The fundamentals carried over, bikes still had a lot to learn from moto, and many of those kids came from BMX backgrounds too. Compare that to the random XC kid (me) who ended up in DH, and it’s obvious who was going to look like they belonged.
Now? DH is its own beast. If you grew up riding one full-time, you’ve got a serious edge just like moto kids do on dirt. Obviously cross training on either probably has huge benefits (more skewed to the DH guy X-Training on the moto).
If there’s one guy I think could cross over today, it’s Manny. The dude’s unreal on anything with two wheels and seems better suited for DH terrain than your track guys. I’ve heard from people I trust that he can hang with top DH riders on “fun” days...which are still insanely fast.
Bonus fact: the Denim Destroyer raced Erzberg. He didn’t finish, but the attempt deserves respect.
should be time stamped to the MTB convo at 2:29:30... i feel like you've all been had by the media. I'm not sure if there was like another post or something. as somebody who ACTUALLY watches moto and ACTUALLY watched the podcast and ACTUALLY paid attention and isn't reacting off of what the internet told me to feel
he NEVER says he could jump in and win a cup. he hedges his bets so much he honestly doesn't even say anything along the lines of qualifying. literally the most he says is 'a moto guy could "do it"... basically saying survive, get down the hill. all while saying he doesnt take anything away from MTBing or disrespect the riders (because, again, he is a rider)
also, he initially implies that he would do enduro... because he rides enduro, not DH. (which is what I think he should do, have Rude and Maes run him through an enduro event one weekend and a DH event the next weekend, as a Red Bull mini series)
I UNDERSTAND YOU ARE MAD ABOUT THE BROADCASTING CALL. that was A ) Neko Mullalys decision to even do it and B ) the broadcasts decision to keep him on longer than was intended by neko and ken. which is confirmed in the Downtime podcast that was done with Neko after the event.
You know I expected this kinda stuff from pinkbikers but its weird to see Vital jump on the bandwagon without any research or context. I think theres some cognitive dissonance in the fact that Ken didn't do anything weird or wrong. He was put in a position and accepted, and said very bland vague things to connect the dots cuz he's a fan, basically similar to what we would have to do being put in that position.
The cognitive dissonance being that if you didn't like what happened, you have mostly to blame Neko, for the decision. And WBD for letting him overstay his welcome during the event.
Sure it could be handled better... But I'll let Neko decide what's best for DH and its future. I don't reckon I could claim I know better.
(Once again, the media took things out of context and blew up a narrative that never existed... And the audience ate it up. If there is a different clip of him saying 'i could win for sure' somewhere lemme know... but I haven't seen it.)
In the YT short I watched when the subject was first broached he was asked "Do you think a top level moto dude could do a world cup?" he replied "Uh-hmm" and nodded.
My comment was about him seemingly retreating from that position once he'd seen the top riders in person. I get it, it's only when you go to watch a WC race in person that you realise just how fast they're going and how good their bike control is.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FynmLuBTgo8
DO... a world cup.
Are we leaping to the conclusion that DO a world cup means... qualify? or winning?
I mean I don't remember what the DNF time is but in between B lines and a healthy DNF time limit... Yes a moto guy could DO a world cup. In the same sense that I, a much worse rider than most people on this forum, could squid my way down a WC track and make it within the DNF limit.
if you're trying to say 'wouldnt qualify to be allowed under UCI rules', i get that part... and i'd love to know what rules or point status would keep a team from bringing in a rider like this who has not qualified. but if its a rule/technicality thing then... we'd have to discuss how plausible roczen training DH and going to random global events like BK did to grab points to allow him to be snuck in by a team. although i think the conversation was more about... just TRYING it and surviving. hard to parse where farming points in small races compares to ultimately finishing at a WC. i kinda feel most podium finishers at those events arent ending up at WCs anyway. dunno, not my narrative emphasis.
i mean bro literally admits hes never ridden a DH bike and follows by saying hes not taking anything away from the top level riders, and furthermore says hes NOT saying a moto guy would win... so where is... the issue?
also, in that sense, i didn't see him walk back any statements during the race broadcast? kinda hard to walk back the position of... "i could maybe survive one". im pretty sure his stance would still be the same
youll have to point to me what statement he had to walk back, and where he did so.
again, i'd rather him do enduro. i feel like Jase may have steered him more into the DH talk cuz thats Jase's background. but it really sounds like Ken would rather do and be better off doing an enduro (and then try some one off DH event for fun, like Fox Open!)
fwiw, the clip is the first post in this thread.
I dunno, to me doing a world cup means being there for race day, not failing to qualify by a country mile. An awful lot of riders are fast enough for that (if we aren't focussing too heavily on entry criteria), so for me the question becomes meaningless in that context.
Maybe I put 2 and 2 together and got 5, but it's how I read it. We'll probably never get a definitive answer, it's more than likely academic either way.
OOF
harsh... Reece Wilson needs to re-learn how to... DO a world cup lol
cant make it in to finals? may as well have not tried. "not doing it right"
i dunno. i know i came into this thread late but id honestly describe the MTB community reaction to roczen as 'cringe'. Goldstone visited SX broadcast and even moto fans didnt whine about it. i know roczen stayed on too long... but again. in this context sounds like people have a problem with jases vague question, WBDs decisions, and Nekos decision. I just don't see where Ken said anything out of line.
And if your problem is with Jase as a podcast host and WBD as a broadcaster, I 100% agree lol
but Neko made the right call. coulda been handled better... but it was still the right call.
You're using an ex World Champion and WC winner as an example when I'm talking about someone turning up to a WC having never raced one before. All good dude, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
aww had to add in the edit...
guess we cant just agree to disagree lol
still waiting for that link on what statement he had to walk back.
Yes I did put an edit in as I found your argument ridiculous. And now I can't find the yawn emoji.
i think its right next to the link you were gonna send me 🥱
Big fan of KR, hope he keeps racing something after SX
I was lucky enough to watch qualifying with Ken at Leogang. I know he’s been wanting to come out for a while and just decided last minute to book a flight to come watch, no sponsor commitments or anything else. Just a fan who wanted to see a race. There were a lot of people who were stoked he was there( myself included)
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