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My Italian is a little rusty, but it seems this was made using a servo from the RC world, connected to some kind of stroke measuring device on the brake lever blade. The idea being to change the compression settings of the shock under different types of braking events.

I got the new XT cable derailleur and the spring is fine, I think its better than the clutch in old XT.

I am pretty shit on jumps and as far as I can tell in bikeparks I am far from alone. I wonder how well the system can recognise the shit "in air technique" of your average rider and distinguish it from a WC DH pro about to lose control...

Man, has it ever looked this good at VDS? Seems like its been tons of wet the last few years or full on dust bowl. The dirt looks superb right now. How many men and women get into finals for this, its quite a bit more, right?

Here's one, Medcalf's best world cup result this year (13th) is better than Gwin's (17th). I don't really care who rides for the USA, but if USAC have rules to dictate selection without ambiguity (or salty debate), isn't that good? I'd guess if Gwin really wanted to race & win world champs, he would have bothered qualifying at more than 2 world cups.

Bummed to see this

And I bet that downhill bike will be the Norco team! Should good timing to release that with the World Cup just happening and hardline right around the corner and having riders and both! This is just speculation but I can’t imagine they’re being a more perfect release time for any Bike right now

As much as I like the idea, the Pleney gondola does not give much vertical for a world cup track. It's a very fast lift, but only gives around 500m vert (less than Fort William), if you hard a world cup level track, descending on the steep gradients (rather than meandering like mainline), it'd be one short race time. I don't know what the terrain from the chairs above the Gondola is like.

Gwin did not “qualify” via the criteria. 1.Dak and Dylan qualified with last year’s worlds results. 2. Luca qualified with his wc win 3. Pinky qualified with his wc podium Evan, Richie, and Aaron all “qualified” Via a top 20 wc result this season. However USA can only send 6 racers. Richie and Evan got lower results in Korea and Aaron never bested those results in the wcs he entered. It’s just the rulebook. Nobody made a judgement call. As much as I’d like to see Aaron in world champs he didn’t earn it over the people who did. I...

indeed, the most DH DH track. nothin better than a heaping serving of both roots and rocks. and some line choice. is it gonna piss it down for finals or no?

Reporting from World Champs:

martin on the scooter. instagram only right now. raw incoming.

This is a pretty bad example of using poles instead of tape, UCI have done a poor job compared to WBD. Looks confusing especially with the added weird tight bits.

I also would love to see race tape back. Or at least in some sections. Blind crests on the track, sections with trail braiding, hard direction changes all seem like good candidates. You wouldn't even need it on both sides some times, just on the outside or inside of the turn could make the difference. I know Dak said it would be really helpful in places and I doubt hes the only one. Also, whoever marked the course is a coward. Sam's corner at the bottom should have NO marking on the inside. Leave it as open as possible and...

E-xc just wrapped up. Wyn was 11th, good for him.

A Frameworks with paint on it! It really must be World Champs.

Here we go, the 32-inch wheel has officially arrived at the highest level of DH racing (shoutout to Neko Mullaly who did run it at the Sea Otter DH earlier this year). Martin Maes has a prototype with the big front hoop on it, reportedly 200mm of fork travel and a bunch of adjustments built into the frame. Apparently the rear is a 27.5, just to really accentuate the mullet theme. Here are some shots from Lawlor:

Stole this pic from the other site, but Cube’s got an interesting spoke flange system that allows tuning more compliance by moving the flange inboard or stiffer by moving the flange out. Haven’t seen this approach before!

I've seen in interviews before WC DH pros talking about how on some (steeper) tracks they are dragging the rear brake a TON, which makes the bigger rear rotor make sense just from a thermals perspective; it's the thing that's probably doing 90% of the cooling.