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
I'm a big SX/motox/Ken fan but only one of my biking mates know who he is. So to be little everyone in the sport by having him there isnt a good move.
I always say it: If SX cant go mainstream, mtb never will be able to. So why ruin the disciplines and future for trying?
I have heard his name before but certainly don't know who he is. The coverage from this weekend, with his input, was very good. He shows what a true professional looks like. I can't recall him dropping the F-bomb the whole time he was aired, and his comments were well measured. I think having that type of influence on the World Cup can only be a good thing.
If you listen to the latest Downtime podcast, it was Neko who invited Ken and set up the whole thing. I can't help but feel that people are in the habit now of only seeing everything from a purely negative perspective - maybe we could all get a grip and stop whinging 100% of the time...
For people questing roczen it’s not a bad move to have him in there pumping up one of our stars. Him commentating positive comments on Jackson during jacksons’s winning run is exactly the type of spotlight that is worthwhile.
Having him sit in past Jackson’s run was the mistake. It became blatantly clear where he no longer knew how to contribute other than carefully answer the dumb questions he was asked.
As a non MX guy I couldn't relate to Ken at all and was honestly wondering why this guy is commentating on a downhill worldcup.
To approach a broader audience, if that was the intention, it would have been totally fine to have him in the pre and post coverage as a guest. But in the booth?
If Anyone needs to stop saying "If Anyone" its Josh Carlson. Having Ken it booth was awful. Being asked questions he had no clue how to answer.
Somewhat of a hot take here - with the exception of the commentary, I think WBD coverage of the WCDH has been pretty good. The camera angles are better, there's more of the track to be seen, almost full runs of the top riders, and generally good video quality .Remember in the RB days where you'd just see a couple secs of a rider charging down the start gate ramp and it cuts to the last sector with a couple shots and that's it? On the other hand the commentary is just bad. They're trying to get the "hype man + analytics guy" combo, but it's not working! Shouting out split times with a raised voice just makes you annoying when you cut across other commenters talking about insights. Also, to echo what was said on the b-practice podcast, they really need an Eliot, somehow who knows the riders, the course, and also does the prep work for broadcasting. Yes Rob is the hypeman and is who we hear a lot of the time, but I'd say having an Eliot is even more important - someone who controls the flow of the commentary with insights and facts that also are very relevant to the race happening.
What's with Josh's obsession with pockets? If it's not a "pocket" on the track it's a "pocket" that a rider has slipped into from a time point of view. If it's of any help to him I'm happy to send him my old pocket calculator that I no longer have need of, it became redundant once I'd worked out how many pockets I have, but maybe he can make use of it?
On a more serious note;
Not sure if this is the place, but I'm getting a little concerned over rider safety (also posted in the Leogang thread).
I'm a big fan of the LCQ, I think it's brought a lot of excitement to the weekend. BUT when it's brought in in conjuncture with a concerted effort to speed up tracks (correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems lots of corners are either being removed or sped up). I think the execs ( I believe this also was a thing in the RB days) think high speeds and big jumps are what the public want to see. I'm of the belief that most of us who know anything about the sport are more than happy to watch tech/gnar in combination with motorways and 30ft gaps.
Gracey put down a time around 20 seconds faster than Vali posted to win last year and Jackson put 8 seconds into Bruni's 2024 result. When some of the fastest riders on the planet are talking about being scared riding at the speeds they feel are necessary to qualify I think things need looking at.
I’m definitely with you there. In any case, I’d rather see more tech/gnar than huge gaps anyway, it’s a whole lot more dynamic and makes line choice more of a thing.
posted in the "companies going out of biz" forum, but news about warner bros splitting into 2 companies - one for streaming, one for tv.
https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/warner-bros-discovery-split-two-companies-streaming-tv-1236423250/
good for WC? bad?
Could care less about motorways and the large wide open jumps. If the sport was all out speed on a fire road bring back the mammoth Kamikaze
I love fast courses but the motorway is plain boring. I like when it is high speed tech. The Leogang woods section was good this year but when its wetter its just slightly too steep to be as fast as I would like.
I agree. They took a few turns out of the bottom woods and the speeds in there were much faster than last year. I'm glad no one had a big crash there, because your gonna tomahawk into a tree no matter what. Overall it seems like WB/UCI have done two things. Make tracks shorter and speed things up. Not sure what their goal is. Make a tighter, shorter race package? Maybe speed is more entertaining to watch? Dak put it best on the last B Practice meeting of the minds, "If you put a huge ass berm at the bottom of a chute, were gonna hit it no breaks." Essentially, if you straighten it out, people are going to push for the win, meaning speeds will come up and crashes will hurt more.
Another comment from this past weekend that stood out was two racers talking about crashing near the end of the motorway. The spot in question was after the last table that they lengthened. "Crashing there results in getting helicoptered out." A known spot to produce bad accidents got made even faster this year. They chopped the lips of the doubles down for files but still.
I get it. To a new viewer, watching riders crawl down steep tech isn't interesting. Speed sells. Crashes sell. But god damn to what cost.
@storm.racing started a "top choice WC DH tracks" forum thread here - https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/top-choice-world-cup-tracks - some great suggestions already (like mt. snow : )
on the topic of steep, tricky tech vs speedy motorway, it's almost that every is so good anymore that times are going to be tight no matter what the track. we've had enduros with 40-minute total times separated by a few seconds. the elite men top 5 from MSA last year were within 1.1 seconds of each other, the top 3, only .5 apart. i think it's just the sport now, and it'll be rare to see 8-second blow-outs anymore.
msa 2024
DHSE Race Replay from Beech Mountain
Raw for Pajarito coming, right?
Lots of USDH this past weekend. Stoked that vital is promoting it all!
Lawlor followed Finn, Lachie and Danny around Leogang for this episode of The Weekend.
Random observation: Niko is a bit of a low talker. I think his mic needs to be turned up on both the race streams and on the podcast. I often feel like I'm straining to hear what he's saying, especially compared to Shouty McLaughin on the race broadcasts. Strangely enough I watched a bit of the last podcast on YouTube and the levels seemed better there compared to when I download it on Itunes.
It also could be because I'm an old man and my ears are wrecked.
Nah Neko has a slow and low tone. And I can appreciate it. But it does mean the producer needs to key in to that and bump his gain/pick up a bit.
The main reason that the times were faster in 2025, looked like weather, As in it was dry all week in 2025 and the riders got up very comfortable going fast. Where as in 2024 it was wet and dry and the course got beat up. Comparing GoPros from both years shows a nearly identical track, but much worse conditions in 2024.
I think if you put Bruni on a Zerode, he’d win.
Those bikes look like they are working bettter than almost everything else on course.
Bring back 60 tooth chainrings 😂
first ever Night EDR in La Thuille. get those french lines dialed since it'll be dark!
La Thuile – Valle d’Aosta to Host First-Ever UCI World Cup Night Race
The Italian venue will put on a WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series debut to remember with the UCI Enduro World Cup concluding with a first-ever golden hour final stage.
https://ucimtbworldseries.com/news/la-thuile-valle-daosta-to-host-first-ever-uci-world-cup-night-race
I’m gonna be the first to say that Neko might not be the best choice for a regular commentary spot. Love hearing his insight but if we’re going to talk shit about the other two we should be real about the fact that he might not be an ideal candidate either. I also don’t think he particularly wants to be there.
Good to see them trying something that will really pop and get attention. I hope golden hour works out. I've done decades of night riding and golden-dusk is the hardest time to night ride. Once it gets proper dark, lights work better as you can see shadows with better contrast. It might be OK with the lights being external vs on-bike and I'm sure they'll push the lumens to 11 so the cameras can function. Either way, really cool idea and should be good for Enduro visibility.
This makes me earnestly think that WBD is equating DH to F1 and EDR to Rally. I'm in favour of night stages, but they have to be done right, just lighting up the course is the wrong way to do it imo, the lights should be on the bike and rider.
If they can put lights on every corner of the track why not cameras?
to be fair a light is gonna cost far less than a camera of quality you want, multiply that difference across the total number required. That's only one stage. Then you have the logistics of running cable (or wifi on the side of a mountain) if you want it live. Production costs.
Look I hear you, buts that no where close to the apples to apples analogy as you make it out to be.
Post a reply to: 2025 Race Talk