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The rules for DH are almost as simple as saying that whoever rides a bike from the top to the bottom fastest while staying in the track limits wins, and I love it. Any type of hyper specific equipment rules like those in road racing or ski racing just limits the innovation that's required to be the fastest. If somebody wants to wear ankle weights or put oobleck in their tires because they think it's better, then they should let them. Let the fastest rider win.
Shake weight in the steerer tube? Sure. Hamster bottle for the rear brake? Have at it. Chakra enhancing anti-vibration mumbo-jumbo stickers? At least it's interesting as a sport. It's better than the controversy being that Bruni's aero sock is 3mm too long, or that BK's frame was 6g too light like would be the case if we had FIS or UCI road style rules.
SC could just make a super one off custom frame for him if they had you know like they shit Specialized Gravity have been racing for years and just make a ridiculous heavy BB area. I would rather see them adapting what is already existing instead of something one off that will never see the light of day.
Or the fact that he's less out of breath, despite riding one of the gnarliest dh tracks while talking the entire time, than most people are walking to the end of the driveway and back.
I never noticed this but you’re right. Gotta wonder if that’s the result of essentially doing HIIT several times a week since he was 5
I’d imagine young Jacko’s strength to weight ratio is up there the top dudes, especially when it comes to the bike-specific movements. Strongest humans pound for pound are 140lb gymnasts, he’s our lil speed monkey.
the only guy that can beat him, barely, is Loic Freakin Bruni, the greatest game time downhill mountain bike hero of all times! Even on these long high speed momentum tracks Bruni’s hyped to beat him by a nose.
im just excited for a healthy(ish) Amaury back on track.
i dont even know what to make of his racing so soon after surgery. shouldnt be possible. bro did a Q1+Q2 weekend with a top 10 finish... i feel bad for everyone behind him at that point.
Worlds preview
If it rains before or during the DH World Champs this year, it's inevitable that Danny Hart's epic 2011 Championship will come to mind for many. He was just a couple of weeks shy of his 20th birthday when he won by almost 12 seconds. What makes his performance all the more memorable was the unbridled announcing by Nigel Page and Rob Warner as they nearly lost their minds calling his run.
And so, here you go:
DH build at Whiteface (lake placid) is not going well and the builder (JW) has been replaced.
Dang any details? The quick walkthrough AG posted last week seemed pretty positive. Maybe he was there for damage control?
Isn’t Gwin building the course? Or is he just helping?
The Instagram posts from the previous builder posted earlier in this thread have disappeared.
He is Directing
Does New York state have some form of odd union work rules for being on heavy equipment up there?
Just pointing out how we're headed back in the same direction as before when Peaty himself ran around the pits getting signatures to stop skinsuits & aero helmets to keep our sport's marketing identity separate from skiing on 2 wheels.
We're back to aero suits, tucked behind the bars, zero pedaling, lean in as hard as possible to banked turns (even on 180s). The only time every racer doesn't look the exact same in a pic is in practice or a crash. We're coming back full circle to being skiers on bikes again.
For taller, bigger riders, the weight added to bikes could only be offset by tracks w/ hard, rooty, unbanked, no catch berm 180 off camber turns & hard load 5-10 second sprints. Actual mountain biking skills. Even La Thuile had a catch berm at the bottom of the big off cambers. Zero traverses that required hard cranks on the pedals these days.
So yeah, strap as much weight on as you can manage. As a course designer, I'd be getting creative to remember how to keep courses balanced for the integrity of the power & dedication to craft it takes to pedal hard.
" The only time every racer doesn't look the exact same in a pic is in practice or a crash. We're coming back full circle to being skiers on bikes again"
Incorrect
I don't agree with your conclusions at all, but even if we entertain them.
1) Ski racing is some of the raddest gravity fed racing in the world if you have any understanding of it at all, so having some similarity to ski racing is not necessarily a bad thing.
2) If you think all skiers look the same or have identical style, you have not yet taken the time or energy to actually learn the sport. Thats fine, but people who follow it can immediately know who certain skiers are based simply by their style/technique. Skiers don't all look the same, so bikers never will.
3) DH mountain biking is probably most akin to GS ski racing which can be won by a relatively wide array of body types compared to pure DH skiing.
Limited pedaling is not going to immediately discount people who don't look like Jackson. Look at Alden Pate who has stepped into the limelight of USDH this year. He is like 6'6". If Jacko as the only prototype to win now were true, someone like Alden wouldn't be beating Gwin (Solitude).
Nope. No mountain bike skills to be found on the WC DH circuit... sheesh.
Jackson is a generational talent, an unbelievable bike rider. But he is being helped by his Fox Speedsuit. If you listen to the Downtime Podcast with the Fox clothing guy they talk about how the Speedsuit is noticeably faster for riders. To the point that it would necessitate change in braking points and how they hit jumps. They then decided to wear it in practice as well as finals because they needed to get used to the speed difference. Let's say the Speedsuit (skinsuit) could save a rider 2 seconds over the course of a 3:50min track. Realistically, it's probably more than that, but let's just say 2 seconds to understate the aero advantage. Look at how tight the results are. It's making a difference. Screwing up a corner or a line can lose more time than that. But if you compare two equal runs between a person in a skinsuit and a person in a normal tight-ish kit. The skinsuit is winning every time because of the 2-second (or realistically more) advantage over 3:30-4min. Again, all you need to see is that these riders are practicing in the Speedsuits, because there is a noticeable speed difference between the normal kit and the suit. Fox had planned ot have 'normal' matching tight (fox tailors everything to their riders) kits for them at all the races last year, but the riders didn't want to switch back and forth because of the speed difference.
I can't wait for the next race cuz this thread is going off the rails lol
If the speed suit is such a game changer, why was Jackson dunking on everyone pre-speedsuit in juniors? Why are Tahnee and Nina not dunking on their fields with such a large advantage? (Are they just THAT bad?)
Why was Gracey destroying them in Dharco gear? Why is Vali still leading the overall in that like in-house YT gear? Why isn't Specialized making one for Loic?
Does it help? Yes. Is it the reason Jackson is winning? ... No. If anything I'd like to see if anyone donning the speed suit has performed notably better so far? Ideally while eliminating the obvious generational talent that looks like he could win on a stock v10 in a t shirt...
As you donmt need skill anymore I am assuming you’ll be lining up at the start gate for the next round?
And the makers of the speed suits would say that their kit is better than everyone else’s. They’d look a bit dumb if they had announced on the podcast ‘actually, they’re a bit slower’
Hopefully I can articulate this well.
Jackson doing so well is because he is an undeniable generational talent. A small component of this is likely that he has the ability to know what works very well for HIM at a young age. This includes equipment, geometry, and riding style.
Everyone else looking at Jackson and thinking, what works for HIM will work for ME, is probably moving further from what they should actually be doing.
I’m going to hypothesize that any rider who tries to make changes to look more like Jacko are actually going to take a step backward (and inadvertently make Jackson look even more impressive) until they realize they need to pursue what works for THEM and not HIM.
Edit: There will eventually be some rider(s) (Asa, Alrans, a hyper-refocused Bruni) who will rise to challenge Jackson on a regular basis and who also look/ride nothing like him. Jackson is amazing, but I don’t think he is necessarily the only way to be top dog moving forward.
Did you also complain when Sam Hill was taking every inside line imaginable that he wasn't riding the course as intended?
Such a killjoy.
Your making out like watching Skiers tackle The Streif isn't one of the coolest things ever, which it most certainly is.
Bizutch you are fried!
Skiing sucks but DH ski racing has never been anything but insane. They both have that special thing where a racer can decide to risk their life to win. Stay off the brakes and close your eyes, so sick!
Franz Klammer in the fog is Danny Hart in the mud dude, how are you this far off on downhill skiing???
https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/2024-racing-talk?page=39#comment-477661 (oh i wish link 'titles' worked differently, anyway, gonna have to dust this one off once again)
Bizutch just likes his downhill rracing men tall, muscular, and masculine.
Anyone think 1199 doesn't feel as crazy progressive a race track as it was when it first raced than today, mostly because of tracks like La Thuile have really elevated the world cup circuit.
That's not the best wording, but I think 1199 felt like a Hardline style race track, but other than the massive drop it has features we've seen on other tracks this year already.
This isn't a negative, but more the fact that the tracks this year have really delivered.
hmmm progressive? I think its absolutely there. It's kinda hardline light. HardLite. i dont think it quite dethrones VDS in tech/challenge, but isnt it a touch longer than VDS and with the bigger almost hardline like features?
plus if you have features that are so big you let riders know it will be closed in the rain and B lines will be mandatory, that's def a solid feature lol. can't just cancel juniors category i suppose...
There is an interesting interplay going on here between the human brains capacity to normalize things that have been seen/done before, expanded boundaries of athletic performance and a few new tracks evolving up to a comparative level. I think if we could see 1199 with “new” eyes, watching riders learn the track for the first time, it would likely be seen in a similar light as La Thuile BUT because we now know what to expect and are watching riders who have largely expanded their comfort zones for large features ride a track that they are familiar with our subconscious tricks us into thinking it is somewhat lesser than.
I think they didn’t let the jrs race it this year. They also brought back the OG Canadian open because this trail is gnarly.
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