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Don't see your team rumor in that rant. But anyways slight counterpoint.
some of Jackson's MSA run is here in the highlights. https://youtu.be/7fIPsHa7fig?t=654
The first section drone follow cam was really good I thought, especially considering we saw next to nothing of this section in the RB Tv days. (we missed 2 mins of Finn's iconic 2022 win on RB TV). The shots of Jackson under Stevie's drop are good. There was no camera it seemed for the rear view entry to the rocks, so they cut to a high drone. then the KEY part of the rock garden is perfectly filmed and then they cut to a 1.5 sec or less shot of a phone screen before Jackson comes back into focus.
Be as critical as you want, but watching the footage in that link above, I thought it was pretty dang good.
Anyway back to the rumors.
Pivot to sign a top ten male and female to finally have a competitive team to go with the decent budget?
Yeti sign a fast kiwi - ('cos they always do haha)?
Dak to Frameworks?
Do Yeti replace Cam Balanche with another female?
Will Bruni win the overall in 2026?
Will Vali be unstoppable on a Commencal?
if dak's not staying with mondraker i would love to see him on a yeti
I would love to see Dak with FW. I think there is a decent chance he heads to Intense. Honestly would love to see him leave Mondraker (no reason).
I hope Specialize puts some female riders on the team.
Pivot needs a serious refresh. I hope BK has a great season but even if he did they need more.
Norco also needs a team refresh too. Would love to see them pick up a 10 top male.
Also - I was at Placid, it was great. Watched the reply and I thought it was the worst filming of the year.
Also I would personally love to see NO LIVE production of the races, do a better job and put out a 2-4 hour delayed product. They can film all the riders and then cut the ones that do not do well or do not have an impact on the race. Maybe a quick recap of who placed 20-40 and then showcase the top 20.
While getting rid of Juniors has a lot of upside for WB it will damage the sport without the chance to learn the lessons at a WC. Its very doubtful that any feeder series will prepare young riders.
Dak riding rebranded m1s for scunci.
Fastest ponytail in the west.
No team rumor disclaimer.
Baseball is a viable TV package. Hell, there was a World Series game the other night that went 18 innings and orders of magnitude more people watched the whole thing than watch DH. The length of the broadcast isn't what's keeping us from going mainstream, it's the bikes. The crucial number that I hope WBD are operating with is: "how many non-bikers watch The Tour". We'll likely never be over that number.
Dak put out a video riding in Morzine with Pinky - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peO1_UwzxS0 Does that mean he is still with Mondraker?
Specialized Gravity have Rosa Marie Jensen on the team, she'll be a second year junior in 2026. It looked to me like the Specialized plan was to develop their elite women's talent with Yankova, instead of buying an already fast female. Sadly Yankova got injured and decided to retire, so now they want to bring Rosa to the top I assume. Maybe they will buy in an already estabhlised female, but I don't think there is many out there on the market? Or am I wrong?
Man, I can’t see Dak going to Intense for a couple of reasons.
1) they’re broke (or seem to be)
2) when he last rode the bike, it could barely last a full run. Loic commented on this on a French pod, but those Intenses were trash.
What was the reliability issue with them? I thought the new version looked pretty dialed. They were running e13 wheels right? That's not what Loic meant was it?
I believe some of the prototype frames had cracking issues.
Dak said in a podcast from last year that the issue with the Intense were all the different prototypes that he never got to the point of feeling comfortable on the bike, or at least that's what I 'remember' him saying.
Team Rumor: I think Dak's video of him riding a Mondraker with Pinky is exactly the same thing as the Jake Jewett on a Pivot video posted last year around this time. I think (in both cases even though I have no proof of it) there was an obligation to the sponsor that needed to be filled - a certain amount of videos released or something - and this video from Dak is him finishing off an obligation to (or activating a bonus from) Mondraker.
Regarding the quote:
This "who is actually watching it and who outside of that group could possibly want to" thing is exactly my whole angle on all the changes WB/UCI is making.
TL;DR: It's the literal "a bird in hand is worth more than two in the bush" in real life. At the brewery I brewed for, we chose to serve our customers rather than serve potential customers who hadn't heard of us and were also unlikely to be interested in us long term.
I worked as a brewer at a craft brewery a few years back. Cool job. Cool people. As we were designing recipes and creating a plan for the year something I had to remind people was "how many people are actually going to want [this]?" No matter how good our [oddball, wild shit] beer might turn out to be, we didn't have the market to make it profitable - people in our area weren't willing to buy the most interesting beers at a price we'd need to charge to make it profitable.
We made great beers but didn't do all the wildest shit we wanted to because doing wild shit at a break even/loss took tank space away from the beers we could be making that would actually sell to our actual customers sitting at our actual bar at that exact second who actually drank every single drop we made. We could TRY to attract that different crowd in a much larger beer-buying market where those sorts of oddball beers at those sorts of prices sold, but what would we have to do to make that market aware of us and when they became aware of us would that market even accept a new option?
Going after that different crowd was going to punish our existing customers and leave their "needs" unmet. We chose to serve those customers rather than risk the whole business on an off-chance to gain significant traction enough that we could grow in a market who at that point didn't know we existed.
words that Yeti might be setting in to an ice age, freezing race team
bummer but wouldn't surprise me. Cami retires, Richie goes back to Enduro. That just leaves the two young bucks.
It's a bit dated, but some Yeti staff told me the companies fore back into DH was based around Richie and his goals.
That said: imagine how wild the testing laps would be with Ronan Dunne, Jonty Williamson, and Tyler Waite all pushing each other if Mondraker picked the remaining Yeti DH team up.
If I was a betting man, I think my money would be on Intense. Would it be a one man show or an entire team? Hard to see them putting together a whole team but maybe they become the bike sponsor of an already existing team like Goodman Santa Cruz or Rogue Racing and Dak is added to the mix. He seems to be particular about the products he likes so its easy to envision him running his own program and hand choosing sponsors. With that being said, it's a lot less work and stress to sign for an existing team like Scott and just show up and ride.
I liked the idea of Dak to Intense, but Will intense even have a team next year? If Joe Breeden is actually the guy rumoured to be testing a nukeproof then doesn’t that mean there wont be an intense on the World Cup circuit? Ms are now on zerode after all.
I wonder what Yeti would see more value in as a sponsor for Richie , a season where say for argument sake he matched martin Maes from the 25 season or a season focused on enduro and being on the podium most races and riding in the rainbow jersey ?
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQYpq8CEZDO/?igsh=bXg3NDA3NDg4dGtv
Bulldog on a Bronson based on the comments.
If I understood correctly on the podcast "Dak needs a sealant sponsor" he commented about talking to someone on an Intense and how fast that bike was. I think that was because he helped do the development on it. I think he even commented that he REALLY liked that bike. I do remember previous comments about difficulties getting the bike setup for racing when he only had it 6 weeks before the first race.
Thats innerleithen i think. Must be some months ago
I'm a big MLB fan (weird been australian) and their youtube channel is the gold standard of sport content IMO
full highlights of every game in the most perfect way, insider interviews etc.
If I could fault it, there is possibly TOO MUCH content that it's impossible to watch it all. If WB took some tips from MLB youtube it would be much better
The world series highlight package is exceptional. That 18 inning game was for the ages!
That's Rotorua . I think he's got some sort of deal with the new Zealand Santa Cruz importer as he rides a v10 as well .
He was selling an Ari trail bike on marketplace recently for a bargain price .
As an American, i have absolutely zero idea how i would have watched the World Series of Baseball, nor do I have any idea who played in it.
My algorithmic news feeds showed zero baseball content.
How the heck does anyone in Australia follow that nonsense? Do you PAY to see that overripe late Victorian claptrap ? Cup match Cricket is easier to understand and way more athletic.
I couldn't remember who he was supposed to be riding for, thought it was a brand with no DH bike, but looking at the website it seems they do have the "superior peak".
Can you buy Ari outside of North America? Have they pulled some geofenced marketing ploy where he shows the austrilasian & euro markets him on a Santa cruz and on an Ari for the US and Canadians? Or more likely, has the Ari deal ended?
It ended and the way he handled it was a topic of discussion in this place for a while
I like bulldog, awesome rider and his comeback was inspiring. With that said, he has openly criticized multiple bike brands that he has ridden for. If I was a marketing manager for a bike company I would be reluctant to sign him with worries he would bash the bikes, calling them trash etc.
This place?
As I get older, I’ve come to really appreciate “culture” as a larger driving force than we tend to acknowledge.
You can grab attention fast with a stunt, but lasting viewership takes time, many decades, for the underlying culture to mature. It has little to do with broadcast length, equipment, or announcers. Those things help add iterative improvement to what exists, but for mountain biking to become truly mainstream, the only real solution is time.
Remember, people spend countless hours watching golf, baseball, the Tour de France, and plenty of other sports that can seem “boring” at first glance. The appeal isn’t just in the action, it’s tied to what you grew up around, what your dad or grandpa watched, and the traditions that shaped you.
As a side note, I always find it funny when anyone calls another sport “lame.” There tends to be an elitism to it. Like, I live and die by bikes, but I also understand why non bike rider friends roll their eyes at me when I bring it up. At the end of the day, we’re just riding bikes in circles. We’re not any better...it’s just the thing we happen to love.
Even as bike riders, we tend to have attitudes towards other forms of riding.. A lot of mountain bikers tend to scoff at the Tour, but as you start to understand the strategy aspect of it, especially towards the end of a stage, it becomes interesting. Of course, we've all had a roadie tell us how they don't want to fall off a cliff.. At the end of the day,all bikes are fun, but they are different types of fun..
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