2025 Race Talk

I haven't listened to this particular podcast yet, but Andrew neethling is a fooking idiot.

He's never not putting his foot in his mouth. Like constantly stomping his own footb down his throat.

I only listen to his drivel for milway and Sven. It's remarkable how out to lunch he is given his relatively illustrious DH career?

By that logic u23 needs to go too. XC has two groups that cover the same ages of all the DH elite. 

Also Needles kind of comes off a bitter old man who lost money/spot to up and coming junior when complaining about they take resources from people trying to make a living.  

What bugs me most is how much he talks over his guests.  Let your guest get out an entire sentence before jumping in and completely derailing the conversation, it's annoying af.

I wrote (then deleted) a (poorly written) post last night, but I’m in the minority here; I agree with Needles to a large extent. I'm not bitter, and I'd be totally fine if they kept the junior category, but from a precedent standpoint, it's rare to have juniors compete alongside elites in any sport. To be fair, it's also rare to have men and women race the same course on the same day, and that won't (and shouldn’t) change.

The real issue WBD is trying to solve is how to make this “property” valuable. I don’t think juniors are the problem, but it looks like they’re trying to tighten the focus. And honestly, I get it even if I feel storngly they are aiming at the wrong thing (and their approach overall is going to fail). They're using outdated thinking in a new media era.

Good news? It doesn't really matter. If juniors have to wait until they’re 18 to race World Cups, so be it. That used to be the norm, and things were fine. Like Needles said, basically no other sport mixes juniors with the elite level. Little League, high school ball, NCAA, and the minors don’t play at Yankee Stadium. Sure, there are exceptions, but they’re just that, exceptions. 

To add, lot of the junior racers probably should be focused on school, college, and life, not going full throttle into pro bike overseas racing where the payoff is usually measured in some free product and a few hospital bills. Kids need a little balance IMO. If you're Asa, sure, that's a different story. But Asa is the exception, not the rule.

I know, I know, bitter old man take. But junior racing isn’t going anywhere. Its thriving. Even if its not on the WC level. Heck, I could see teams signing guys early just like other sports!

If we want to get mad about holding juniors back, maybe start with NICA banning wheelies.

Totally agree. I listen to pretty much every MTB podcast, but I can't handle Needles and his constant interruptions of his guests. He seems like a cool guy, and he's well respected in the community,  but the podcast style just bothers me.

I thought about this too and like the idea. The only thing I could think of is its some relic of yesteryear driven by the UCI (minimum age for elite competition = XX) but I don't know that I'm right about that. 

Someone who knows the rules better than me can enlighten us all, but my knee jerk is getting points and getting a spot to even qualify would be tough for a 16 year old, even if they are Asa fast. 

But why would they get rid of juniors? 

They've only this year put into place a slightly more complicated, but functional meritocratic qualifying system with the continental series. Now you don't have to depend only on the national selection committee, if  you're good enough and have the results, you get to ride.

They've also changed from U21 to U19 junior in world cup enduro recently. 

It doesn't really follow the current development in any tangible way (before the cynics jump in to say that nothing Chris Ball does makes any sense, yeah. I know what you're thinking)

Juniors are a stepping stone for riders to get experience on wc tracks against people at a similar stage of development. Very few would be able to just go straight up against the elites without getting tossed aside. Asa has the speed but he’s still learning the race craft. Neko and him have said has much recently after his early round crashes. Ronan for example didn’t get a full 2 seasons of jrs so it took him a while in elite to figure he doesn’t have to go full send all the time and it eventually clicked for him.

It would be ironic for wbd to drop juniors after being the ones to add the broadcast in the first place. People have been paying more attention to juniors now that they can watch the races. That’s a good thing as it gives a familiarity to the names once they enter elites.

Of course its a stepping stone, but there are other ways to gain race experience, continue to get better, continue to refine your craft without being on a WC track. To your point, the learning curve will be steeper when you crack into the elites, but oh well. Is this a big deal? Again, we did this before with no big over arching issue to be had. The harsh reality is no top tier pro only found his or her way because there is a junior category. The greats are the greats, period. Vali, Loic, Asa etc will find a way no matter if there is a junior category or not. The only thing it changes is how fast those top tier riders are able to make a dent in the elite category when they turn 18 and I'm not convinced this really matters in a "health of the sport" kind of way. 

I get that we love following the juniors. But all the VitalMTB sites of the world don't make the WBD property profitable. Again, if they had the right framing they could use the junior racing to help fuel the overall arc of the weekend but they can't even broadcast the elites in a way that makes me excited to watch. Its a snoozefest. They need to figure it out, and I understand someone over there going "lets focus on what counts, jettison everything that isn't a tailwind". Juniors unfortunately aren't the make or break from a property value perspective. They are noise in the eyes of WBD. As I put in my first post, I feel WBD is framing everything wrong, but nobody should expect them to be some hyper progressive media company. They are driving the car through the lens of the rearview mirror. Applying yeteryear's stratgies to an entirely new media landscape. That won't change. 

Again, everything is going to be just fine. An apples to apples example is professional big mountain skiing. Juniors don't compete with the elites, they have their own series. It works great and when its time to go to the big stage (which means bigger venues) the top kids transition just fine. Yeah, it usually takes a year or two, but not always. The sport is fine, the sport is healthy and the juniors clamoring to go have fun in the mountains. No reason to think this would be any different. 

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Im pretty sure the introduction of the junior category was pulled over from amateur racing (there was a junior uci world championship before it was a world cup category). In the days of 80 people qualifying for finals, this probably worked well enough bringing young talent up to speed so they weren't in over their head when they first showed up to an elite race.

I think WBD / Discovery realize they need a feeder series to develop talent, but if you look at the current state of the world cups (30 men in finals) the Junior category isn't doing a good job of it. It's pretty rare to see 18 & 19 year olds in finals these days that weren't already putting in times that would hold up in the elite categories when they were juniors. At Val Di Sole, there were 78 juniors on track, and I'd guess that only 7 or 8 will end up qualifying for an elite final in their first few years out of juniors (and that's with a stacked junior field this year).

The horse has been beaten dead in these forums saying that riders need more time to develop as racers, though those conversations are about the 30 man final and limiting entries + massive team entry fees introduced the past couple years.

So my guess is that the WBD folks think that the vast majority of Junior entries aren't panning out as development (which I think the data would support) and want to nix the category. If they are are interested in having a developmental category at the world cups, I'd expect a junior category with a significantly higher age limits and entry requirements or some sort of promotion / relegation setup for riders or teams. If they're not interested in that I'd guess they just allow any age to enter elite world cups, and expand the number of teams / riders that can enter so you're letting the Wyn Masters, Adam Braytons & Aaron Gwins of the world enter the races instead of juniors who don't qualify and don't bring value to the races.

I think everyone likes the junior category because it's more racing, but from WBD's point of view it's probably not worth their time.

(If WBD folks are reading this my consulting rate is $200/hr which should be a bargain compared the McKinsey bozos who don't know what a DH bike is - and that seems like better ROI than whoever has been coming up with ideas lately)

The problem with other ways to get race experience for US juniors is there are no tracks as steep and technical as in Europe.  So for a US junior it would take a ton of money and time to get to Europe and learn the steepness and the technicality where the European Jrs live there and have easy access.  I know for myself, if my son had not been on a factory team as a junior, the transition to elite would have been very difficult without near the success.  I think at least for the US riders who now have a mechanism to race world cups be it on a UCI team or US national team etc it is valuable experience and competition against like competitors which helps prepare them for elites.

You say that as if there aren't high schools specifically catered to kids in high level sports like baseball, football, hockey, golf, tennis, skiing/snowboarding, swimming, etc.  The days of elite level kids "focusing on school, college and life" are done and there's no putting that genie back in the bottle. 

Eh, this risks getting way off topic, but yes you are right these types of things do exist. The giant difference between those academies and the sport in question includes... 

A ) They are all (I think?) in the Olympics (say what you will about that)
B ) Every one can take you through college. (NCAA sport)

DH MTB applies to neither of these outcomes. 

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm pretty critical of the whole academy thing too, with or without the "propsect" of scholarships/olympics. My big over arching point is the kids who are good in DH are good (and passionate). They will find a way with or without the junior classification at WCs. 

If NICA is any indicator, jr racing in the US is just fine. IMO, the real thing that needs some head scratching is how junior high/high school ages start to have a little more accessto DH racing the same way NICA  provides  awesome access to that side of the sport. If the goal is to widen the aperture so more 12-17 year olds get a fair shot, this seems a much better place to put some resources and critical thought. 

As the parent of a kid who is looking to head down that path from way outside of Europe , I don’t necessarily feel no juniors would be a bad thing. I would be pretty happy for him to have a few more years of life and education up his sleeve before needing to move to the other side of the world to chase that dream. It would take the pressure of kids, especially non euro kids to “ make it” on the world scene at 17 or have to give up and head home. 

If it does go the route of no specific juniors class at World Cups, it does not eliminate that juniors can race them. That is how it used to be. Look at moto. There are junior classes but if you make it to the national level pro races, you can be 16 or older and race elite. I do think moto is more advanced for developing younger racers with more clear standards, racing the same tracks and the overarching organizer (AMA) is in charge of alot of the development series. Having things like the 'Futures' races at SX helps develop racers to a national level, MTB doesnt have those yet. 

I personally like the juniors having their own class. I think it helps a greater number of them develop on the global stage rather than trying to just straight jump to elites. No matter how it goes, there is no perfect answer. 

The more I read this current topic the more it seems something like a u23 class with a mandatory move up to the elite ranks after having won 2 overall titles might be a better option than the current system, primarily to allow for more gradual rider development and actual life development. If they truly do want to axe the junior class maybe a developmental class like this could race the venues the weekend before the elites or the weekend after. A post race production could be released as a form of media, it could be great… But it could be terrible, who knows..

This seems to be going along the route professional skiing has already gone: Competing as national level is doable for a lot of people but as soon as you transition to international junior category it becomes crazy expensive. I know this from a first hand, a sister of a friend was a national skiing champ pretty much her whole juvenile life but as she would have to make a transition to juniors it would have to be paid by herself - helps if you are rich or have rich sponsors, but she didnt and that was the end of her competitive skiing.

Speaking of axing the official Jr Categories at World Cups;

I grew up racing in the junior category at World Cups in North America.   Under the NORBA and Gestev regimes North American world cups always had amateur racing.  If you were fast af and had a racing age of 17 or 18 you could enter the big dance, otherwise you were at the kids table.  

It was sweet.
 

I think Windham was the last NA round that had full amateur dh and xc races on the same weekend

Making the big events BIG is something i really miss about this “new, smaller, poorer, more focused on one discipline versus all disciplines” version of domestic MTB racing we are living in. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/DLXxl3csm-P/?igsh=MTM5Y2MxMzMweGZkaQ==

Whiteface has officially announced their course. 

I traced it in Caltopo, and the profile is shown here. Here is the full caltopo map for your viewing pleasure. The old planned route from the fall is also shown at that link. The start is slightly lower than the planned route from the fall and the top uses a different route to get to the rest of the course.

Some screenshots of the finish in La Thuile for next week. It looks amazingly jank haha

Is the expectation to hit that at speed, or is there a janky corner right before that will slow them down? 

Makes me think of that old video of people launching off the poorly marked wooden ladder feature into a field in some bike park in Europe. 

Brought to you by the same team that built the waterfall jump at Hardline.

If they use those small poles that apparently don’t mean anything for marking the course there, they can just huck all the way to the finish line.

I kinda hope they don't put poles and leave the inside sender line open. It looks like the drop would be steep and technical enough that you'd have to slow down to go off it, which might actually be slower than pumping the wooden corner and hitting the last straight with speed. 

There is sort of a lipply bit mid chicane though. And a bit of landing scratched out to the left of where the wood would drop you. What if off the end of the bridge is the B line and the pros will just gap out to the landing?

If you watch Vergier's YouTube vlog, when he see's this feature (without teh wood on top) his face tells all the story 😅. I don't mind some wood features when it's needed to clear wet ground or a stream, but this just seems unnecessary. 

What I would do to rip berms like this 🤤 Danny Hart and Dak Norton in tow in Schladming 🔥

That jump looks completely safe compared to this🤣