All

All this talk of going off script reminds me of the greatest DH track of all time, Mt Snow 2000. In the woods 80% of the way. Cut the width of a road. 3-4 line options across the width of it. Driest summer on record for Mt. Snow. Loam, duff & moss powder floating everywhere. Palmer. Tomac. Fire pit jumps at Haystack. Monk Dawg. Naked Crit & that one piercing. I can smell it to this day. That track got shut down by F.S. 🙃

Good result for Danny, his birthday and his 120th World cup start. Hopefully they have got to the bottom of whatever bike setup issues he was having, and he has a good end to the season. The bike setup issues were mentioned by Greg in the QuarterHP podcast recently.

I just saw that yesterday was Danny Hart's birthday. Happy Birthday, no doubt: A top 10 finish, less than 2 seconds behind the winner! They sang Happy Birthday to him in the finish corral. Nice. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DO01yK6jFst/?hl=en

Not getting the real dirt from the Wynterviews at this round is a huge loss. The stories! The drama! Who’s gonna fly Wyn around next year?? Continental, make some room in the budget, for crying out loud!

No fancy marketing? Well, this whole FW Project – and especially the race team – heavily relies on marketing. Remember: marketing is not what you say, it's how you say it. 😉 Great, honest review and great comparison of stack height, reach, and bottom bracket. Shout-out to the Meatbodies shirt. 🙌

Asa's quali run complete with the backflip! Also, that bike is glittering in the sun, gorgeous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fztoByBibyM

Mondraker splitting up their team or not re-signing anyone would be a huge mistake. From outward appearances, they all get along well. All they need is an absence of bad luck, not even really good luck and they could have three top 5/10 riders next year. Ronan is already there currently. Dak has been there and all signs point to him climbing back once recovery is complete. Pinky has shown so many glimpses of brilliance and with just a tad more development should be there too. Keep them together and on a consistent program and they are 1 of only...

Until we get some good team rumors, Race Locations 2026 is what we get...

FWIW I'm quite excited at the thought of a race in South Korea and I may well attend. Putting that aside your sentiment is easy to understand (for me at least) when we live in a world where Saudi Arabia has just won the bid to host the 2029 Asian WINTER Games and F1 races are held under floodlights because it's too hot to race that location during the day. $$$$ is increasingly all that matters, everything else is secondary. Especially common sense (we need to change that expression, it becomes less common by the hour). I see WBD trying...

Thanks for the detailed reply! Very interesting! It seems it goes the other way round, than other places. From my understanding, the logic is: make a big World Cup level event and THEN grow the sport, with the exposure and leverage it generates. Plus the government is funding infrastructure, which is super cool. Am I understanding this right? I don't understand the crypticism regarding the ”future Korean multinational sponsor”. Why can't people say what they assume it is and what's the connection? Is it Daewoo? Is it Samsung? Is it Hyundai? These are honest questions, it's a goddamn rumor thread...

There is a growing scene here. While things were regressing about 12-15 years ago, the last 7+ have seen major growth. We went from zero bike parks to five (two government-funded), loads of trail centers, a few "official," but most not so official, and government-funded pump tracks. The number of riders has been increasing, yet the mountain bike race scene has been dying. But that's more of an issue with event organizers seeing gran fondos as exponentially more profitable. Riders would love to have a proper race series again, rather than just a few events a year, and this is...

Vali going to be needing that privateer bonus from Wyn

Teams own the points, not riders. This was one of the issues brought up (that I wholeheartedly agree with) when this system was introduced. What happens when a team folds? I hope there’s a mechanism in place for a logical solution to this but I doubt it. WBD doesn’t want deadbeat teams, they’ll be fine letting someone else figure it out for them. YT Mob would be on their 3rd strike now?—deadbeat status in my book. Riders blew it not fighting this one harder. Teams, too, honestly. It diminishes the true stars of the sport. Shameful, and shoots the whole...

This is like setting up your Christmas tree in October!

Here is what becoming junior DH World Champ looks like from behind the handlebars:

Rob Warner on the call for Jackson's run:

Does anyone else hate the drone follow shots? The quality is absolutely crap.

Yeah, the play-by-play guy might not be the most knowledgable when it comes to downhill mtb, but he's professional and is commenting on what's happening on track. So far I prefer him to Ric. As for the race itself, Kiefer seems to have really risked everything and have put in a blistering quick time. Impressive