just curious, in the hardline vids it appears bulldog's major sponsor after red bull is DJI and he's riding a v10 with ext suspension. Im too lazy to do any actual digging, anybody know what's going on with his program this year?
just curious, in the hardline vids it appears bulldog's major sponsor after red bull is DJI and he's riding a v10 with ext suspension. Im too...
just curious, in the hardline vids it appears bulldog's major sponsor after red bull is DJI and he's riding a v10 with ext suspension. Im too lazy to do any actual digging, anybody know what's going on with his program this year?
I was very surprised to see the DJI sponsorship, he had a long time relationship with GoPro.
They are still Dharco pants (see pocket zipper). But it seems to be a POC labeled jersey. And obviously helmet and goggles.
I was wondering too when I saw clips of Gracey earlier this week. Is that her old POC helmet from the previous version of Norco Factory Racing? When they were all on POC?
Whole things seems strange. Adidas are now title sponsor of the team. They are one of the BIGGEST clothing and apparel brands in the world with a dedicated outdoor branch (Terrex) and their star DH rider is in a mix-match of non-Adidas kit. Strange.
We can only assume that they'll have something dialled in for the WC race season?
They are still Dharco pants (see pocket zipper). But it seems to be a POC labeled jersey. And obviously helmet and goggles. I was wondering too when...
They are still Dharco pants (see pocket zipper). But it seems to be a POC labeled jersey. And obviously helmet and goggles.
I was wondering too when I saw clips of Gracey earlier this week. Is that her old POC helmet from the previous version of Norco Factory Racing? When they were all on POC?
Whole things seems strange. Adidas are now title sponsor of the team. They are one of the BIGGEST clothing and apparel brands in the world with a dedicated outdoor branch (Terrex) and their star DH rider is in a mix-match of non-Adidas kit. Strange.
We can only assume that they'll have something dialled in for the WC race season?
In some of the training videos she has a big adidas logo on the front of her jersey, not sure if dedicated adidas kit or not.
Yeah, I saw that too, there was also a small POC logo on the riders left side on that jersey too. And a POc logo on...
Yeah, I saw that too, there was also a small POC logo on the riders left side on that jersey too. And a POc logo on the pants too.
Missing the white adidas stripes…but would be awesome if they make the effort to produce clothing for biking. They had some collaboration with TLD and Brendog couple of years ago…
Missing the white adidas stripes…but would be awesome if they make the effort to produce clothing for biking. They had some collaboration with TLD and Brendog...
Missing the white adidas stripes…but would be awesome if they make the effort to produce clothing for biking. They had some collaboration with TLD and Brendog couple of years ago…
Adidas owns 5.10 which has a range of riding apparel. Adidas could use that as a foundation to create an adidas range.
I'll bite I suppose since you're willing to answer. Let's hear some background on the team, the auto connection, your goals, why get into DH MTB...
I'll bite I suppose since you're willing to answer. Let's hear some background on the team, the auto connection, your goals, why get into DH MTB and not some other sport? How do you think navigating the new team process will be?
Also how long did you research Daprela before deciding he was your guy?
DragonSpeed is doing sportscar/endurance racing since about 15 years. 24 Hours of Mans (1 class win), 24 Hours of Daytona (3 class wins) and other major...
DragonSpeed is doing sportscar/endurance racing since about 15 years. 24 Hours of Mans (1 class win), 24 Hours of Daytona (3 class wins) and other major races (+ 3 participations at Indy 500). European Champion in Prototype, doint World Endurance Championship, last year runner-up in GT Pro (USA) with a Ferrari, this year with a new Corvette Z06 GT3.R.
Why MTB DH. The team principal (former pro driver) and myself, we are passionnate about MTB DH first (I did at low level when I was younger). Then, of course, all the technical aspects - suspension, brakes, tires... - and all the development ongoing. This is something we like, very interesting at the moment with some crossover, common partners (Michelin for us). Then, in motorsport, you have two problems : something they call "balance of performance" (basically if you are too good, they remove some horsepower, add some weight etc.) and cray budget. We feel that if you do the job in MTB DH, you can get the result you deserve. And even if budgets are increasing, you can still help some young talent(s). In motorsport, it's less and less the case.
We were talking since several of months with Thibaut. We met a few times during the past season. We had a look at riders earlier than that, make research, analysis etc. like we do in motorsport. We had various options, but Thibaut and Antoine were in our first list. There were some American too but we were not able to make it because of timing mainly.
Huge thanks for bringing this level of commitment to DH racing!!!
4 French DH riders (even not initially planned this way) and a French team manager with background in US motor racing, but living in the Alps...
4 French DH riders (even not initially planned this way) and a French team manager with background in US motor racing, but living in the Alps. Tell us a bit more about building this team please.
(Be carefull, some Vital members may think this team looks too French 🤣)
@AnthoMisterK Regarding this team being "too French:"What's the team's preference in the hard cheese vs soft cheese debate?Is the butter and cheese budget higher than the...
:-) Well, has a French, I can only say that the best cheese is French and near my hometown.Budget wise, full focus on material, components. I mean...
:-) Well, has a French, I can only say that the best cheese is French and near my hometown. Budget wise, full focus on material, components. I mean, we will not have a mega hospitality in Season 1 or the most beautiful set up of the paddock. We want to do things in the good way but it's performance/sporting first. Again like we do in motorsport : we are not the biggest team, but last year we fought with Corvette factory team, beat Porsche, BMW factory teams etc. Dont get me wrong, I am not saying we will bit the factory MTB DH teams. But we always built project with win in our mind.
I was at the rolex 24 in 2019 when you guys got your first win. That was such an incredible year for the race, some of the heaviest hitting lineups at the rolex in the last 10 years were at their best that year. If I recall correctly, you guys were only a few places off of the overall podium in your lmp2 car.
I digress, pretty cool to see you guys engaging in other forms of racing. It would be really interesting to get some feedback from you all about what things crossover from one to the other. Some obvious things such as operations, logistics management but also to know more about some minutia of detail such as data acquisition. As someone who has spent a lot of time with data aq with motorsports, I find the way dh teams are using (or not using it) and their perspective of it very interesting.
Maybe this has been mentioned before, but I saw Finn and Loic in Queenstown this week in head-to-toe Alpinestars (both in the same kit). Would assume that means the team isn't wearing Specialized gear this season.
Maybe this has been mentioned before, but I saw Finn and Loic in Queenstown this week in head-to-toe Alpinestars (both in the same kit). Would assume...
Maybe this has been mentioned before, but I saw Finn and Loic in Queenstown this week in head-to-toe Alpinestars (both in the same kit). Would assume that means the team isn't wearing Specialized gear this season.
I think it was said elsewhere on here before, but Specialized is winding down their apparel production and will no longer be producing anything besides gloves, helmets and shoes. Even those will have heavily reduced SKUs.
This is why we did not want too many French riders at the beginning. The team is American : the team principal, Elton Julian, is American/Ecuadorian...
This is why we did not want too many French riders at the beginning. The team is American : the team principal, Elton Julian, is American/Ecuadorian. We have a workshop in Concord (North Carolina), with the GT racing cars, two trucks etc. Team also has one workshop in Barcelona, which is our base when we race in Europe, also with some race cars, truck, tools.
DS always had this international culture : in the crew we have some Portuguese OR Brazilian engineers, Portuguese, Spanish or English mechanics etc. Yes I am French and living in the Alps between races, but they often say that I am the less French of all the French lol. For MTB crew, we will have one engineer already with WC experience, same for the mechanics. Coach is a former MTB DH rider. Will have a physio too.
With the motorsport experience, Do you guys think you can bring something specific from that background to DH that is not already being done at World Cup level in DH?
I was at the rolex 24 in 2019 when you guys got your first win. That was such an incredible year for the race, some of...
I was at the rolex 24 in 2019 when you guys got your first win. That was such an incredible year for the race, some of the heaviest hitting lineups at the rolex in the last 10 years were at their best that year. If I recall correctly, you guys were only a few places off of the overall podium in your lmp2 car.
I digress, pretty cool to see you guys engaging in other forms of racing. It would be really interesting to get some feedback from you all about what things crossover from one to the other. Some obvious things such as operations, logistics management but also to know more about some minutia of detail such as data acquisition. As someone who has spent a lot of time with data aq with motorsports, I find the way dh teams are using (or not using it) and their perspective of it very interesting.
Nice memory. 2019 was quite a high-level edition. Win in class with making the decisive pass in the last hour I think. Top 10 overall was good. We can discuss about crossover by message, no problem. Good thing is MTB riders/engineers are already giving some ideas for sportscar too :-)
With the motorsport experience, Do you guys think you can bring something specific from that background to DH that is not already being done at World...
With the motorsport experience, Do you guys think you can bring something specific from that background to DH that is not already being done at World Cup level in DH?
We hope so :-) There is a lot of smart people in DH so maybe they already tried what we have in mind. Will see but it's an interesting and quite exciting for us.
Why look for a new helmet sponsor, when you're retired from racing? Wouldn't you use something you already have, regardless of the make?
If someone is willing to pay him $15k/yr to wear a helmet, he's going to wear it. Regardless of whether he's 'retired' or not. He's still making content and, like every human, wants/needs money.
Since you guys are talking about Sam Hill, this is pretty timely - a brand new mini documentary on the man himself!
More news about people called Sam today - Sam Reynolds is back on Polygon: https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/press-release/sams-back-reynolds-reunion.
just curious, in the hardline vids it appears bulldog's major sponsor after red bull is DJI and he's riding a v10 with ext suspension. Im too lazy to do any actual digging, anybody know what's going on with his program this year?
I was very surprised to see the DJI sponsorship, he had a long time relationship with GoPro.
He’s had dji on his jerseys for a year.
Ari Factory Racing adds Tegan Cruz to the team and Fasthouse as apparel partner. PDF with details below
norco although on POC instead of Dharco?
They are still Dharco pants (see pocket zipper). But it seems to be a POC labeled jersey. And obviously helmet and goggles.
I was wondering too when I saw clips of Gracey earlier this week. Is that her old POC helmet from the previous version of Norco Factory Racing? When they were all on POC?
Whole things seems strange. Adidas are now title sponsor of the team. They are one of the BIGGEST clothing and apparel brands in the world with a dedicated outdoor branch (Terrex) and their star DH rider is in a mix-match of non-Adidas kit. Strange.
We can only assume that they'll have something dialled in for the WC race season?
whats up with moimoi on frameworks? see instgram story of neko
In some of the training videos she has a big adidas logo on the front of her jersey, not sure if dedicated adidas kit or not.
Can you post a screenshot here? Not everyone uses instagram.
He’s giving it a review. Him and Neko are talking about it on moimoitv.
Yeah, I saw that too, there was also a small POC logo on the riders left side on that jersey too. And a POc logo on the pants too.
Missing the white adidas stripes…but would be awesome if they make the effort to produce clothing for biking. They had some collaboration with TLD and Brendog couple of years ago…
Friends talking about one guys cool bike project, and Moi Moi probably itching to try one out. That's almost certainly the extent of it.
This. He talks about it at the very end of his Hardline day one vid @37:10 ish:
Shark attack jack. Back to WCDH for frameworks next season. Wins worlds. BOOM SHACKA LACKA
Adidas owns 5.10 which has a range of riding apparel. Adidas could use that as a foundation to create an adidas range.
Huge thanks for bringing this level of commitment to DH racing!!!
I was at the rolex 24 in 2019 when you guys got your first win. That was such an incredible year for the race, some of the heaviest hitting lineups at the rolex in the last 10 years were at their best that year. If I recall correctly, you guys were only a few places off of the overall podium in your lmp2 car.
I digress, pretty cool to see you guys engaging in other forms of racing. It would be really interesting to get some feedback from you all about what things crossover from one to the other. Some obvious things such as operations, logistics management but also to know more about some minutia of detail such as data acquisition. As someone who has spent a lot of time with data aq with motorsports, I find the way dh teams are using (or not using it) and their perspective of it very interesting.
Maybe this has been mentioned before, but I saw Finn and Loic in Queenstown this week in head-to-toe Alpinestars (both in the same kit). Would assume that means the team isn't wearing Specialized gear this season.
I think it was said elsewhere on here before, but Specialized is winding down their apparel production and will no longer be producing anything besides gloves, helmets and shoes. Even those will have heavily reduced SKUs.
With the motorsport experience, Do you guys think you can bring something specific from that background to DH that is not already being done at World Cup level in DH?
Nice memory. 2019 was quite a high-level edition. Win in class with making the decisive pass in the last hour I think. Top 10 overall was good.
We can discuss about crossover by message, no problem. Good thing is MTB riders/engineers are already giving some ideas for sportscar too :-)
We hope so :-) There is a lot of smart people in DH so maybe they already tried what we have in mind.
Will see but it's an interesting and quite exciting for us.
Looks like he choose to ride a Fox helmet now that he has no helmet sponsor, good to know!
moimoi was/is on fox helmets. no need to throw them away
Why look for a new helmet sponsor, when you're retired from racing? Wouldn't you use something you already have, regardless of the make?
If someone is willing to pay him $15k/yr to wear a helmet, he's going to wear it. Regardless of whether he's 'retired' or not. He's still making content and, like every human, wants/needs money.
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