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Regional DH racing in Colorado/New Mexico has been growing big time the last few years, lots of young racers coming up. The new "SoCal" DH series last year, Neko/Gwinn and company killing it on the East Coast, and the US Open rolling strong. I'd much rather see North American DH racing grow and spread than the UCI-Euro-Cup money grab that Chris Ball has fostered. Bring back the old days when all the fast Euros and Aussies came over to the US to race and make $!

Gonna be a rough announcement season.

new #USDH team! sure hope to see more! BGR Mondraker/Ohlins Team Announced Saint Charles, IA - BGR Mondraker/Ohlins is pleased to announce a two-rider team focusing on the Monster Energy Pro Downhill Series Championship. Downhill racers Kallie Stewart and Carson Morgan join team manager Clint Mongan for the team’s inaugural season in 2025. Kallie Stewart is fresh off a Monster Energy DH championship in the 15-16 Cat 1 girls class and will be making the jump to the Pro Class in 2025. “I’m really excited to have the best people and brands in my corner for this important part of...

Matt Walker (english) to Trek Factory Racing. Per OTB podcast. Could be a good fit

Looks like Anna Newkirk, or another medium height woman with brown hair. That would check out. Although it could have theoretically been Callie Horwath, Neko's gf. Anna would make more sense from a marketing and team hype perspective though.

Her parents probably don't want her to be BK's next girlfriend

ALL WBD/WC DISCUSSIONS please post to the 2025 RACE TALK thread here - https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/2025-race-talk?page=9 this is team rumors.

cast bar is a giveaway too seeing as they seem to be the only team using them

Hart to Norco seems somewhat likely given the TRP stuff and fresh gold fork

Norco's CEO, who brought the team back from the dead and got Minaar on board, got handed his ticket out of the organization yesterday. So who knows what is going to happen to that team now.

Let’s get back to rrrrroooomours A rocket from the north east to a north western base A long walk for a sword A Scandinavian adventure to the sun and dust ‘93 till infinity, the red hot chilli peppers and some garage welding. The dream is locked and loaded what about enduro? Anybody got intel on anything good? The king of Austria hopping on to a bike from over the boarder

This is a great opportunity for an out-of-industry team to come together. Imagine a Fordyota / WD-40 type team with Gwin, Neko's crew and another good, but not top-15, team. Multiple frame sponsors under one organization, great media reach for adverts, and if done right could go toe-to-toe with the big teams. There's got to be quite the war raging behind the scenes right now for those #10-15 team spots. Banking on a wildcard seems risky, to say the least.

Maybe it's been discussed already, but what are the requirements to be considered a team? Do all the rider need to be on the same frame sponsor? Do they need to share a minimum number of sponsors? (I.e. could Gwin and Neko be on the same "team" but ride different frames?

The difference between the 2 is that Red Bull's events are private events, organised, produced & broadcast by them. They can invite whoever they want, no one can argue otherwise. WBD are organising World Cups on behalf of the UCI, the world governing body for competitive cycling events. They should be completely neutral & the only way to be free from bias/influence is to go off points for all teams. Personal opinion... I don't agree with handing control of the highest level of a sport to a TV production company to shape it how they want. I think I might've...

Loris is not mucking around, he’s got himself onto an absolutly dominant team for next year. Hopefully there’s no clash of the titans with the big personalities. After his stripes this year, next year should be a supreme one. All rumours.

OTB podcast just dropped an interview with Lachie Stevens-Mcnabb. No juicy team rumours but that kid has a good head on his shoulders. So many references to we or the team or The Union - obviously aware of the support and role of the team to get him to where he is.

Interesting you frame it as total nepotism. When you could easily read the rule around how teams 15-20 might be selected as allowing the best races and teams that might provide the best support and care for riders access to the series. 15 teams selected on merit in a fairly objective way and 5 teams selected on a variety of criteria, that you'd hope is used to make sure teams that can provide healthy salaries for riders and staff and a safe environment for racers are selected. Hardline and all of the other events run by Red Bull have rider...

And in my opinion, this is the problem. It's going to come down to personal opinion & relationships & that's not a fair way to run a sport.

I fear it's going to be a shitstorm when it comes to WBD allocating those wildcard spots. To my mind it should be teams ranked 15-20 (surely that's the fairest way?), but I doubt it will be that simple. I can see WBD jumping through a lot of hoops to get their preferred teams/riders in.