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Now that’s a real track! Well done AG and team. Looks sick, challenging, and really fun to ride super physical and mentally challenging.
Suspect those rock gardens are gonna give Snowshoe and the old Vallnord and VDS tracks a run for their money.
Wow, whiteface realy looks amazing!!!
I hope the times on the slow tech sections will not be to tight because i really think this lowest bottom part with the jumps will make quite a difference. (as always, the simple parts at the end make the biggest difference...)
Here's a photo of Whiteface one of the locals posted a couple of days ago. Autumn colors are peaking, apparently.
Weather update for the world cup weekend. Absolutely breathtakingly beautiful.
I expect a little grease on top most mornings because it's going to be cold, but that should clear up real quick and leave perfect conditions. There still will be some pockets of dry dirt uncovered, but the crew is watering the track so overall I expect Whiteface to make an exceptional showing.
I think they'll probably hit mid 40s, but that straight isn't steep enough to get much faster. I've straightlined that section of trail on skis and probably hit just under 40. The gradient of the hill probably won't be enough to overcome drag to go much faster than that.
She's also in college and racing for her collegiate team :-)
MX, BMX, pump track, and DH - girl has skillz
I've got to go straight down the same ski slope on skis and bike & the bike is terrifying compared to the skis. Got up to speed on the bike so much faster.
Would love to see what the speed variation is between the two sports on the same gradient.
Wouldn't skis have drag themselves with the snow? Ice & snow are still friction in a sense.
The drag on skis or a snowboard is way lower than on a bikes tires. Mechanically, you are melting a tiny bit of snow with the base of your skis/board and creating a slip plane that you then slide across. Whereas bike tires are attempting to dig into the ground lol.
Rolling resistance vs sliding. Completely different things.
anyone know if they will be putting out a highlight reel for the US Open?
New article out today about the failure to obtain proper permits for the track at Whiteface.
It also includes some direct comments from JW about walking away from the job.
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/whiteface-mountain-bike-track-f…
This is good to hear. I remember back in the late 80s, when lots of state offices just went ahead and shut mountain biking down in State Parks. Pennsylvania did this for sure, but I believe it was "a thing" in other states, as well, and in federal lands too. It was a combined effort of horse-back-riders, hikers, and birders, that basic closed access to many areas, and it took a decade before some of that started to roll-back.
This woman's "the sky is falling" argument is illogical (it was a ski area already, duh), and out-of-time. In the age of Trump, outdoors users need to be inclusive of all groups, even, gasp, e-bikers and double-gasp one-wheelers. The more boots and tires on dirt, the more that we have a diverse body of people care about the outdoors, the more we can resist the pay-to-play divvying-up of federal lands currently underway in Trump 2.0. If the outdoors is just a bunch of land that you can never use (and of course, there should also be a lot of wilderness areas preserved), you won't be invested in protecting it.
US OPEN RACE REPLAY!
wow Maylei basically lost all the time she could have used for a win from the belt snap...
I'm sure she rode like hell because of the snap but still... it's clear she could have gone second if not first with that kind of run but proper pedals out the gate and in the flat spot. :/
You have a lot of confidence about posting weather 6 days out!! I hope you knocked on wood before looking this up!
Anyone know what happened to Lachie? Looks like a DNS in Killington. Hope he's good for the last World Cups.
Maylei, Kailey, Anna: No quit in those women. So impressive.
You’ll come to a dead stop riding A-line on a snowboard.
I don’t know where you’re getting your data from, but the anecdotal evidence is stacked against you. I know from skiing the same trails that are fire roads in the summer that bicycles are significantly lower-drag than skis. Green ski trails, comfortably straight-line-able on snow, can be eye-wateringly fast on a bike. Maybe square-inch for square-inch skis and snowboards are lower drag than DH casing tires, but they have a much larger contact patch.
Word is he had a slam in practice. Not sure of his status for Whiteface.
As said above, rolling vs sliding. Different frictionz, different maffz
https://what-if.xkcd.com/154/ Relevant.
https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/community-news/land-use/controversies-plague-whiteface-bike-track-before-world-cup-race/
Some interesting dollar figures in this article to fuel our speculation about the cost of hosting a world cup event. This article says between $420-500k USD per year for this 3 year contract. It's not clear from the wording if this is just the cost of hosting the DH or the cost of hosting the DH and the XC. The article also says that fewer than 4000 tickets had been sold at the time of writing, between $10-25 per ticket. I'm not a mathologist, but....
The track looks sick and I want more North American races, so I hope this all works out. Having a builder quit halfway through the build, and the host venue totally blowing it on permitting is a pretty bad look.
Don’t forget all the diesel and hydraulic oil spill from machinery on hill.
Oh and the PFAS from ski wax
Way more money in lodging, food and parking. Don’t forget the booze.
Yes, all that is true. But you've gotta sell a lot of beers and burgers to make up that 450K differerence. Obviously, it's pretty apparent that the resorts that host these big events do it for marketing and not for profit, but the numbers are pretty eye watering. Also, Whiteface is kind of in the middle of nowhere. But the resort is essentially a gov't run agency, not a private for-profit business, so their motivations aren't purely profit driven. I'm all for it.
As a comparison the NZ government invested 8mil for 5 years of Crankworx
Is this the thread where we discuss costs for hosting a World cup?
Some speculations from Kolb on the matter regarding Schladming.
8 mil of which value losing dollar variant?
Doubt advance ticket sales for a return to World Cup DH/XC is a eflection of attendance. No stadium seating reservations involved.
Assume the crew will be a ratio of 2 out of 12. Two being wife making bro buy her & him tickets. Their crew of bros & lady dudes will be pre-partying. May grab tickets if they make it to the booth sober enough.
Better reflection of attendance is rental housing availability within 30 minutes.
Isn't leaf season in full swing & lodging almost impossible to come by like here in WNC in a few weeks?
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