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At first I thought the same it's too goofy to work thoughts, but watching it on the raw vid everyone riding one looked relaxed and composed but not slow compared to other riders.
In fairness he did pull off to the side, didn't look like Asa lost any time there at all.
“The Formula 1 of bicycles!!!”
If this crap is true about Hardtail Dude being involved in Wyn’s crash, then being off-pace during Asa’s run, how in TF is the UCI allowing this?
Could Asa, Amaury, or Loic put a hardtail inside the top 30? If the answer is no, then there should be a minimum equipment spec to be able to enter. Most every sport that involves wheels won’t let you enter elite level races on garbage. If you can come up with the money to go the path of entering a WC Downhill you can afford a DH bike.
WTF…
Wyn and Asa call out the bullshit:
Aren't the marshals along the course supposed to flag riders who are off-pace and being caught by riders who started after them? This guy would seem to be similar to a rider who gets a flat but continues to ride down the hill.
Or do they give a re-run if a rider is impeded by another?
They started the riders 30 seconds apart. There were 12 Elite male riders who posted times more than 30 seconds slower than the leader, and 7 of them were slower by 45 seconds or more. I have to think some of those guys were slower than guys behind them although, to be fair, the start order had the riders with higher WC standings (from last year, since this is the first race of the season) dropping early, so maybe there weren't as many riders impeding others as I first thought.
what happened to dak? wreck or mechanical?
Hardtail bro is in the PB comments saying it wasn't him, but another rider. He also explained he had two crashes in his qualifying run and was aware of Asa so he pulled off the line to make sure he wasn't in the way.
finals start lists for south korea below. get your vital fantasy locked and loaded. game closes at 5pm PST tonight! - https://www.vitalmtb.com/fantasy/2026/round-1-south-korea
Junior Women
Junior Men
Elite Women
Elite Men
And Bode Burke admits that there was a goof up and he's still racing for USA
bode so fast that thought he was "asa"? 🤣
Yeah. Theres clips of Asa’s pass of HT guy. He did nothing wrong and pulled out just fine to allow the pass.
It was cool to see Mio Suemasa on the Elite women's qualification list.
I’m all for the hardtail cat (whether real or just a bro title) at the local races. Maybe not World Cup Dh though? I’m all for accessibility and keeping the world cups somewhat participatory for young/obscure country racers. But not sure showing up with a hardtail is cool. If you gotta ride a 10 year old trailbike it will be way more competitive and probably cheaper than that thing.
huge props to that Indonesian champ in the wyn interview. That’s the type of character this sport should really make an effort not to push out.
Hardtail guy is Marcin Matuszny, he's a big organizer in the Polish DH and Freeride scene. Riding the HT is his thing, it's not about affording something else it's just what he chooses to ride. That's cool, but I'm not a fan of putting that on a track with elite riders racing for a living at double his pace.
The hard tail just magnifies the situation. Asa, Tyler and the Alran’s shouldn’t have been seeded that far back. When Jackson and Jordan came out of Juniors they were placed just behind the top elites, not sure what’s changed in the rule books.
Huck that thing somewhere like Rampage, but don’t piss in someone else’s Cheerios with the “Look at me”.
Did he earn the required UCI points on that bike?
Not saying I am on his side (although I dont think he has the entire falut in this) but if you go to his insta he actually rips on the ht bike. He's for example won Poland DH race series on it. If you watch his Yongpyong POVs (I think they're in stories) he doesn't seem THAT slow for a ht coinsidering its a bumpy wc track. I do agree maybe UCI shouldnt let ht bikes race but I'm reading pretty bad accusations and insults for the guy and I think he shouldnt be having that much hate for it...
Top three women on belt drives.
It is as simple as mandating that for World Cup DH, all bikes must have front and rear suspension. That's a regulation that won't be controversial.
Jackson's quali run
It’s surprising that there isn’t a regulation. There’s a big section in the rule book for clothing but for bikes it’s basically no drop bars in an MTB race
Charlie Coquillard's vid about track changing for qualis
Local raw from quali day
If you have instagram, watch the pov from asa’s run on GoPros page. It was way closer than it seemed on camera, and if he pulled off any later, asa was definitely gonna t-bone him.
I'm not going to cast too much shade on Hardtail Bro. I will, however, cast plenty on the mixed messaging and policies of WBD/UCI. Their implied goal has been to raise the professionalism and elite nature of the sport. Simultaneously, they've allowed a racer to use a hardtail to compete. This is inconsistent with the way they're supposedly pushing the sport.
I also will cast a little shade on our community. We've bemoaned the loss of grassroots accessibility to the World Cups while also bashing hardtail dude, who represents just such grassroots privateerism. Dude managed to navigate the red tape and heavy barrier to entry that WBD/UCI have created and fulfilled the dream of racing at the World Cup level. I can't really speak to whether he made poor decisions while on track as a participant during practice and racing (albeit, I realize that racing a hard tail might be a poor decision in itself), but he worked within the system that UCI set up and followed their rules to "earn" his spot on the world stage.
Edit: Although I've just watched the Tale of the Tape over on PB, and at 3:05, there is a clip of him, once again, getting in the way and almost causing a crash with a Nukeproof rider.
It was a publicity stunt because he knew he wouldn't qualify. May as well have worn a banana suit in his seeding run.
Grassroots pioneerism that leads to someone breaking into the sport and getting a good result is what I care about, and I would argue what most of the community cares about. He's not participating in the event to race and improve his riding in the hopes of getting to the level where he can compete at the top, to him it's a fun little exhibition.
Fully with you on both angles.
WBD: Is you is or is you ain’t?
You talking about Raygun or Wyn?
🤐
There's two things in my opinion:
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