All

Vezina goes for Coach role instead pilot.

This confirms a rumour I heard that due to budget cuts Joe and Lou will only be running intense front triangles. Lou will be carrying over half of her nukeproof contract and Joe is launching his new video series “The Swingarm Project”

Giant Factory Offroad Team announcement, no surprises here but good to see the continued commitment to building on the good results obtained already: https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/press-release/giant-factory-road-team-ann…

Bex Baraona confirms she is setting up her own program. She has been testing a bikes (Nukeproof and possibly Canyon). https://www.instagram.com/bex_baraona/reel/C147njLshXc/?hl=en-gb

Um, have you not been paying attention? Yeti built a new DH bike for Richie last year because he said he wanted to do some DH racing. Like a fully finished carbon DH bike ready for production.

Blenki off crestline

Gwin back to Yeti, I'm calling it. Him and Richie back together would be great to see again, bring on the Two Turquoise Terminators

He’s already stated he tested both, and is sticking with fox.

Gwin to Fezzari. The algorithm has spoken.

I can’t take it anymore… 2024 Edging Championships.

it’s official. AG off intense

That’s Gwin in a wig.

Lou (Louise) Ferguson is a woman

I would speculate that the European market generally responds better to marketing in the form of bike racing (whether it be world tour cycling, cyclocross, world cup XC, or world cup DH) compared to the North American market. As evidence of this, it seems like the overwhelming majority of non-endemic sponsors of various bike racing teams, or series, do not sell their product in North America or at least are based in Europe. Elite level bike racing is also increasingly easier to view in Europe compared to North America. If this speculation is correct, I think brands targeting the European...

Jeff, I think that I know a lot about MTB marketing, but I don't know what approach I would recommend to a bike company in 2023. There was a glorious time in the recent past when there were just a few channels of information that all bike customers used to learn about products, brands, and bike culture. Now it feels like "Everything Everywhere All At Once." There are youtube influencers, instagram and TikTok influencers (and that's different), review sites, long form web articles and photo essays, coaches, trail building orgs and advocacy, racers that influence, influencers that race, PB and...

DH has the pull that it does mainly because EWS, and EDR have failed to deliver an equally entertaining product. Even if the DH bike market is miniscule, I think that bike companies realize that DH is their best marketing opportunity for trail bikes and enduro bikes simply because there isn't a popular racing series for those kind of bikes. As long as a company's bike design language is consistent, I can definitely see DH race results subconsciously affecting consumers' purchase decisions. So basically manufacturers are all-in on downhill because other than XC racing, DH is the only MTB racing...

DH is great to watch. I'm saying that EWS is boring to watch, so companies focus on DH because they know that nobody cares about watching EWS.