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Who would you replace with Gwin?

Yeah rule number one of illegal trail building is don't use any wood or screws. Besides the fact that it looks more illegal and permanent than piles of dirt, my understanding is that wooden structures of any sort leave the land manager more legally exposed. Crashing and getting hurt on a dirt trail is different in the eyes of the law than crashing and getting hurt on a structure made of imported construction materials that should have been permitted and engineered for safety.

Illegal trails are the life blood of mountain biking. Unfortunately, there is less land in the Northeast than other places so the viable spots are a) more tightly patrolled and b) not on logging land c) home to legal networks often controlled by older riders less down with cool features. There is also an outbreak of Sierra Club Stickuptheasseosis in the region who don't like trails that aren't for walking.

How? The laid out the criteria for selection and other riders had better results to get selected. Should they get bumped just because it’s AG? If anything it’s one drawback for Gwin racing part time on the WC circuit

There is no cruising anymore. You can easily go 1-1 and not qualify next race, it’s all out gonzo nonstop!

Here's another Sleeper song choice to complain about :-)

Yeah, well, my kids were in the front line opposite side of the main stampede, just told them, let the crazy guys run first and the you walk down, you can be buried in the grass in a second.. so, I think the crowd rushing to the finish area, in a way is done OK-ish respecting the race and if you want to gamble it rushing down, you know what you are gettin in ...its common sense.. and this does not need to be policed too much... lots of people doing stupid things and getting carried out by paramedics while...

Loved the scenes at Les Gets, we need more big crowds, it adds so much, but when Max was bent over screaming for joy he was nearly trampled and being pushed against the railing pretty hard. I wonder if a simple re-design of the finish corral could better protect riders while still letting crowds do their thing. Like a second, smaller area at the end of the corral where the final rider's team can wait to go crazy and where the rider can cruise into, and then a gate could be quickly closed to keep the crowds back literally just...

re: rushing the finish, in a chat of videographers at the race, filmer, TJ Smith is going to get x-rays on his leg as he was smushed in the melee near max at the end and it was reported that a girl in the crowd was removed w/ a bone sticking out of her arm (compound fracture). perfect storm of racing, fans, alcohol and narrow spaces. lawlor said he was near a barrier before the end of the race and realized it was a bad idea and got away from it. it was leaning in at 45 degrees once everyone...

Getting a screenshot on insta reels is super hard! but I spotted this bracket with 2 positions. I got some rough measurements from the those other pictures to estimate the change in Linkage (I don't think the model in there wasn't super accurate either) and yup, it probably increases the AR to 100-120%

Very curious to see what impact, if any, this has on gearbox/belt uptake in WC and beyond...

Given the talent, the talent in opposition to Hattie, and the hard yards she's done, it's pretty bloody well earned!

I'm not actually 100% sure of what I witnessed today. This was by far the most unhinged thing I've ever seen involving bikes. Conditions, weather, riding, fans, etc... all completely unhinged.

On the 1st gondola on the way down after Q1...I wish I could describe how bad the trail is to get from lift #2 to the start...

I would be curious to know how many run coils still in forks on the WCs... Id bet there's a few still

I think so yeah. I always kind of laughed at the overheating comments because I feel like riders will worry about that so heavily to write it off, then they go ride their Specialized Enduro with 18 of the 20 bearings notching and a lightly blown coil but still enjoy their ride to some degree. (Nothing against people that ride an Enduro, just jabbing at the insane number of bearings to worry about)

Wasn’t there a huge discussion here last year about that and the conclusion basically came down to airflow being negligible in cooling an mtb shock?