Should a New World Cup DH Track Be Bedded In or Left Raw for First Practice?

MORE RAW! Natural. This is freaking sweet. Need more tracks like this style. 

I voted "Leave it natural."

I have to wonder how much rider involvement there was in the design and construction of the course. Having loose rocks on the Korea course is apparently natural and I have no problem with riders needing to use their experience and skills to deal with that. On one of the videos someone said something along the lines of  "If you dig down past the rocks you find: More rocks!" 

What I question is when there's a drop or jump that's man-made why wouldn't they get substantial rider input regarding whether it creates a hazard as either designed or built, and do so well before the race week? (Compare Lake Placid, I suppose.) 

What's the point of a new track if the goal is to burn it in like a well known track already...

Now, gap jumps up top with nearly 90 degree corners before them and exposed to whatever wind or thick air is siting up top... That's another poll but you probly don't even need to make it.

Raw makes for a much more even playing field.

Only thought would be to have more Pro non-competitors test ride the track a few weeks in advance of race weekend to confirm safety.

just rewatched some of the La Thuile track walk from last year and the comments from the racers are the same. It’s raw and will change a lot once it gets ridden

I like the raw tracks and it will bed in I’m sure but some of those loose square rocks should be raked out for rider/spectator safety. The  big dirt step down/ jump seems like it needs to be reworked almost every person was casing it.

Leave it raw.  Whoever is building the course, no matter how good a rider they are, are not going to be as fast as ~100 odd pro racers, and the lines they pick.  Plus the taping isn't done until right before the race.

If you watch Jenna Hastings Vlog you can see how much the track changes, and how much speed she gains, in just her three posted runs. 

Miriam said she liked the raw old style track where you have to think. Enjoy watching the puzzling and not just who can tuck and ride the mainline. There is variety and insides all over. Can see a clip of asa taking an inside through the rubble. The off camber sections and forcing riders to find grip is great. 
Tracks and jumps are always subjective to the rider and weather. There  was Camille crashing in Andorra and didn’t vali crash off that sketchy one and break both ankles? 

La Thuile was so sick last year.

We're goin' Raaw

I was to believe a venue had to have races happen beforehand in order to even get a WC event. This does not seem to have happened on this track. Maybe the venue. But not the track.  

Raw is good, and it has really shaped into a race track. Downside is our bike has absolutely copped it from massive loose rocks flying up and belting every part of it.

This is the first time in a long time I have been interested in watching DH World Cup. The raw nature of the track, that riders are struggling to figure it out and that it is evolving throughout the weekend. Going to require more of the riders to gain an advantage. Obviously it isn't a perfect track but this is way cooler than huge bike park sections. 

More raw tracks with some jumps built in the middle sections and offer lots of line choices to develop

doesn't this track feel 1000 percent way more interesting?

I would actually offer, it reminds me of racing at home, in Port Angeles, where the tracks were cut, opened and bedded in over a couple of races until we really knew them, then whammy! the crew would give us a fresh cut the next year. absolutely made for stronger race craft, more compelling races, and way more interesting spectating too. 

I think that having wide tracks opened and burned by the racers, with generous taping really leads to better racing. 

sure a bike park speed fest with massive hacks at speed onto wall rides is beautiful and engaging at first, but just watching the squirrels turn wheels in the racers heads as they dodge trees and get their asses kicked by unseen boulders actually feels like mountain bike racing. 

well done S. Korea!

As a fan, after watching the RAW edit, I'm feeling like this is the most exciting a track has been in a long time. You can see the racers puzzling, different lines tried (rather than blue groove) and really good riding.

That said, I'm not a fan if the racers are injured because of the raw track. 

Again, Mario Kart is the pinnacle of racing and should be emulated at every chance. I want raw bumpy awkward, I want tarmac, I want everything in between. Definitely have a box fresh flat corner grass ski hill turn track, absolutely have a smooth precision bike park blue groover, a mudder, sand section, any and all of it. Just no pedaley ones because I want to leave it open that a crazy dude can risk death and do a super joker 80 footer to cut out a whole s-turn to make up five seconds. 

 

that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. La Thuile and Lake Placid last year were both unraced tracks. It wasn't an issue at LT but Lake Placid turned into a case like this but 12" of brown pow instead of loose rocks.

The Lake Placid situation was mostly a result of them having freakishly dry weather for a prolonged period of time leading up to the race.  Normally the east coast gets regular thunderstorms throughout the summer, like the Rockies.

fair enough but it was still a track that hadn't been raced before and needed the riders to break in during race week. the standard used to be that a venue had to host a national level race (don't quote me on that though) ahead of a world cup.

What are your thoughts on 101 line spotters per rider?
 

What if they weren't allowed on track anymore?

After the UCI.. or whoever it was put a  video out  of riders talking about phones in their pockets- it seemed some mentioned the use for constant communication with line spotters. 

How would line choice change and how tracks burned in change if all that wasn't a thing anymore?

Riders and only riders could be on track and learning it themselves.

I’ve wanted to ditch linespotters for a while. Not exactly blind racing but for all the talk of “racecraft” I think putting line choice in the athletes’ hands would be sick. Like no radios in a road race. I don’t know how it’d happen but it would be sick. 

And I think it’s mostly one-line because these riders are the best ever and they know what they’re doing!

I agree about banning pro linespotters. We all know that race radio will never go away in road racing because the athletes and team directors will always claim rider safety, and to a certain degree they're right. But linespotters in DH have nothing to do with rider safety. That would be a tough argument to make. I think the presence of professional salaried linespotters is another huge competitive disadvantage for smaller teams and privateers.

"Your team doesn't have a pro line spotter? Ours is a former senior men's world champion."

As far as having to burn in a raw track during practice, I have two thoughts. First, adapting to an evolving track is absolutely a race skill, and it applies to all tracks everywhere. Even Leogang looks completely different at the end of a race weekend compared to track walk. It's really hard to tell how and where a track is going to burn in, and the Loic Brunis and Rachel Athertons of the world got to where they are in part because they're able to look at a track on trackwalk day and accurately predict where the line is going to be on the first day of practice vs. race day, how the lines will change based on sun or rain, and even things like soil composition and angle of the sun, tree cover, etc. It's all race craft.

But I think it's crummy that B practice has historically taken the brunt of the chore of burning in fresh lines, especially given that B practice tends to happen early in the morning before the morning dew evaporates. That policy has produced a whole lot of throwaway B practice sessions, with people slipping and sliding all over the place until ruts and braking points burn in. I'd probably be fine with that if B practice only consisted of slower pros who haven't earned their spot in A practice, but it looks really bad for our sport that four-time senior women's world champion Vali Holl has to slip and slide on garbage in order to burn it in for the senior men who get to cruise in late to class like Jeff Spicoli.

Road racing in olympics has no radios, spicing things up like at the 2020 women´s road race. An Austrian cyclist attacked early on the race with a couple more, later on they were chased back, only to know that one girl in the chase group had attacked and gone solo! The peloton sprinted for gold, P2 Van Vleuten celebrated as Olympic champion until was told by team soigneurs that she actually was second.

No line spotters can have lines like Gwin´s MSA '17 inside at the fast open section become "normal".

That's great, I didn't know the Olympics road race was sans radio. Great story about Anna Kiesenhofer's win.