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Yeah, wow, guilty as charged. Those posts look reeeeeally bad to my eyes now, but I definitely wrote that, so apparently it seemed like a great idea at the time. I cannot believe I posted those as an adult and as a sponsored athlete. If I could take back those words, I would. I apologize for my retrograde asshole opinions and for probably making other people feel uncomfortable or unwelcome in our sport. Having been on both sides of this issue, I feel pretty strongly that we should (politely) look out for retrograde asshole opinions that make people feel uncomfortable...

"The issue is first and foremost about an unwelcoming atmosphere. The not so subtle messaging to women and girls is that you don't belong on the bike, you're just here for adornment." Bingo. I'm not rushing off to poll the audience of women in my life about this specific ad, because I've already heard this concern described over and over again from women in the sport. I'm certain this ad isn't offensive for all women or all men, but that's not really the point. The ad doesn't exist in a vacuum, and the average person isn't going to go watch...

Good call in, Jeff. n=1, I talked to my wife about this yesterday before I wrote the original post. For context: she's a casual rider, married a bike mechanic 21 years ago, is a certified Sex, Love, and Relationship coach with a focus on somatic therapy, who works with women of many different experiences and backgrounds. Oh, and she has a degree in marketing/communications, and spent a couple of decades working in that field. She felt that this ad was, at best, marginally off-putting. The fact that bike media has for so long put women into the status of décor...

i pushed back against it. i didn't (don't) want it on the site and was over-ruled.

Hey Losifer, couldn't agree more. Was surprised to check Vital this morning and see a wall of female butts in panties facing me. Like you said, if this was an ad selling women's panties to a website with a predominantly female audience, then sure, fair play. But that's clearly not the case here. The last Vital audience survey in 2022 said this audience is 96% male! I don't know how many times I've heard industry people ask how we can get more women into mountain biking and I'm pretty sure the answer is "Not like this." Selling products to dudes...

Americans are funny, you can have the Nascar Freedom Jesus 500 sponsored by NRA , big pharma and like Busch light and people will say that this is acceptable and more than ok for kids/role models, while "porn" or weed (remember when JD Swanguen got a ban from racing due to having weed in his system?) are still seen as big bad evil and will corrupt the mind of your young teens.

What is so bad about adult entertainment that UCI cannot be assosiated with it (especially just by having a contestant having a website that has porn as a sponsor). Its not like porn is illegal or evil or is that how its seen in the US? Where I live it is very normal for adults to consume porn so i dont really get it. Its not like he is sponsored by a website promoting violence, drug abuse or terrorism etc. Seems very narrow minded and fundamentalistic to me.

If an Aussie or Kiwi won a round in Europe, the money wouldn't cover the flight home lol

Can you imagine telling your mother you just bagged €75 for finishing tenth in the world 🤔😂

Hey we heard you like draggy high pivots, so we added a drag box to your high pivot!

If im a dealer with the current bikes, pretty psyched on that pulp post lol.

Sram is awesome, but if they don't sell a decent rear derailleur without a battery, I'm out...

I get what you're saying, but even Ford and Chevy refer to "the new F150" or "the new Silverado" in their marketing materials, which proves that no one in the world actually treats these model names as if they're real names for people. They're object identifiers. I'm not the Charlie, and the Loic Bruni didn't win senior men's world champs last year, but Loic did win on a Demo 8 with the Ohlins DH38.

If we're poking fun at SRAM marketing, make sure to pay attention for dropped articles in their new AXS press release, too. SRAM hates articles like "the" or "a" in front of their products names. "Lyrik has the most efficient... blah blah blah" or "Zeb is the stiffest... blah blah blah." If you or I talked like that people would think we're crazy. "I drink Coffee ® out of Mug ® that I put on Table ® while I sit in Chair ®."

Maybe it's cable actuated!