All

How do we like this?

The WBD commentary is now recorded for all the races in a UK studio due to “budget cuts”… So, don’t expect it to get any better, or to hear any riders in the booth until 2030?

The commentators should know if a feature like a big jump is closed of for safety reasons. As the jump was closed of a day earlier. There is a lack of present representation in the commentators boot.

I knew it! What a shitty decision. Gotta believe this, as a brand new venue in Asia would’ve been one of the ones to DEFINITELY have boots on the ground. I’m doubly disappointed. Not only on the noticeable drop in quality it brought, but that they were shady with it. Spin it as some sort of pro move, that you’re holding it down in Digital Mountain Bike Studio Four or whatever. Or just say it. I could hear MBeaumont struggling with the location charade but RicMc was saying “here in Korea” …and they only had what?—three people there as mans...

This detail is especially bizarre when the announcers are wearing ear pieces with a whole team of people feeding them information on the other side. Now that I think about it, I wonder if they were pretending it was open because ‘the athletes deciding to skip the jump because it’s faster’ is a better narrative than ‘the course builders messed up and the jump took out multiple racers’

The racing deserved so much better.

possibly the worst commentating performance in live tv lol. Dead fish have more personality.

Since Ronan is currently injured why not invite him to commentate using his ratboy impression. Hell invite ratboy too. Nobody would understand much but it would still be an improvement.

I made my last post when I was generally frustrated with life. Sorry about that. Most of you are probably still not going to agree with me, but I'll try again and then shut up. I think it's really, really important our community talks about whatever these two-wheeled machines with 800% assist and enormous torque/power actually are, and I don't want to stifle that occurring in this thread. I hope this thread gets a lot of traction and I learn something about why others feel so differently than me. Finally, apologies for waxing a bit philosophical. Honor, or whatever you...

Cheers for making this thread. I think it’s going to get quite old man shouts at clouds, but there we go. I come at this from a slightly different angle, I’m an elected local councillor. As a result I’ve managed to have meetings with a few of the land owners and managers at my local. It’s a complicated picture, 3 public owners, a few private and 2 main land managers who have different goals and incentives. It’s an intensively used bit of land, 2 million people live within 30km of it in a very nature deprived part of a very...

Just purchased my first e-bike after all my ridding buddies made the switch to eebs over the past 2 years. By being the last holdout, I was able to ride the gamut of motor options (Shimano, Bosch, TQ) and I settled on a TQ bike (Yeti MTE). For me, full fat eebs felt awkward, clumsy and over powered on our tight singletrack. In the right situations, the power was addicting (fire road climbs) but for 90% of our rides it was total overkill. For me, the choice was easy once I realized that I preferred more of an “assisted” ride...

I want more of a mtb feel. Not interested in pedal throttle. At all. Did that last week in SantaCruz and felt like a douche (not that DJI people are, just how I felt)on a bike I was trying. I was going to buy a new Crestline but decided no, rather ride my Relay as long as it is working! Or until some real mtb company builds something similar but better.

I'm really, really concerned about the level of power and assist and what it's ultimately going to mean for the trail system I founded (and still chair) specifically and trail access in general. I think the TQ50 is where ebikes should have started and stopped, but what Avinox is putting out is far beyond anything and totally irresponsible and unprincipled. F*ck them. I know some bike manufacturers may feel like they have to adopt Avinox or go out of business. That's a tough decision, but if you decide Avinox, then please please us any further pandering of any rider-owned, we-care-about-the-sport...

First generation Avinox bikes were already a foot-throttle compared to everything else on the market. 1000w+ of output with less than 150w of input is no longer a mountain bike in any meaningful way. Doing a sustained 32km/hr up the Blackcomb access road shouldn't be possible without pro-Tour legs and lungs on you. These bikes are going to be an absolute menace on shared climb trails.

Whoever suggested "ask the riders what to expect from them this season" needs to be canned. Quite possibly the worst and most pointless question one can conceive to ask an athlete. Literally only one answer. Provides NOTHING to anyone, the athlete, the production, the audience. In between that and the commentating (not being there?) I can't believe it's somehow gotten worse. I'll take Carlsons ghoulies at this point...

Healing vibes to Lou Ferguson who took a nasty fall during the first training session at the South Korea World Cup. She's in hospital with broken ribs and "stable vertebrae fractures". It's extra unfortunate that the jump in question was actually closed for racing later. Message from the team below: ------------------------ "During the opening practice session, Lou suffered a heavy crash on the big jump at the top of the track. After being one of the first riders to attempt the feature, Lou realised she lacked the necessary speed on the approach. She cased the landing and was bucked, resulting...

I still have this site bookmarked “Littermag.”

100%. If I see AI used to replace a creative thing, I'm out.

As much as I like Charlie's output, the use of AI images in thumbnails makes me scroll on past.