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Wasn’t a fan of this feature before and definitely even less of a fan after seeing BK and Jim do it BK almost landed to far to the left and ran off the landing in that direction which looks like it would be disastrous. And the compression from the transition was enough to spit Jimbo off his bike. It’s just not a good feature, imo. Reminds me of Sam Reynolds (I believe it was) refusing to do a rampage run because they wouldn’t put up safety netting. They need netting on this.

the road gap is definitely a heavy one! i think the road gap has a lot more "gentle" entry into it though. it's a relatively slow roll onto the bridge and then pretty calculated pace off of it, there are no compressions or things that can buck a rider or compromise a bike once committed to take-off on the ladder. the road gap landing into that turn seems sketch though! they're going so fast LOL. i personally don't care about the aesthetic of the scaffolding and whether it's "mountain biking" or not. i'm terrified by the idea of a rider...

so there's a video that's not mine to post, but it has been guinea-pigged. not sure when that stuff will hit the airwaves (has it already? i haven't looked at insta in a while). the rider OJ'd a tiny bit and rode out easily, but the jump seems to work fine. as most here have said however, it's probably not about the jump not working...it's the what-ifs of something going wrong on the way to the jump. a bernard headtube dismemberment on the g-out at the bottom of the ramp? tire going flat? pedal slip? random shit happens and nothing...

teamrobot set a record for forum thumbs up, so here's a preview of what's to come (unlisted, only for the special people in this forum topic) regarding taking out pawls and testing ochain.

Looking at the new jump built for Hardline, is it time someone has an intervention with Gee?

B Practice from Poland is live! We start with Dak breaking down the highs and lows of his weekend and what happened in that darn left turn. As always, he's got some rad insight into his headspace when things don't go exactly to plan.

...which looks like its going to be insane 😳

going to sound like an old guy with no vision, but i just think that downhill mountain biking (or any competitive mountain biking) will always have a limited audience because of what it is. i prob feel that way b/c i've seen the audience size stay relatively similar over the last 25 years (i have no hard data on this, just personal observations from then till now). DH is inherently niche because it's difficult to access (as a participant or a live spectator), expensive and risky. add in today's challenge of social media networks/phones dominating eyeballs and time compared to...

It may not be the most exciting video, but it gives an idea of the terrain for this weekend's race.

I was born in Poland, but I grew up in California....spent 40 years there. Now I'm back in Poland...as luck would have it....in Bielsko-Biała. For the past 3 years I've been riding most of the trails that'll be used at the event. Prior to that, my resume includes mostly Skegg's Point and Braille in the Santa Cruz Mountains, a run down Mt. Lemmon outside of Tuscon, and some Tapia Canyon (Castaic, California). I'm old and mostly ride motorcycles with MTB stuff peppered in here and there. Nevertheless, I think I have some unique credibility here. So if you will endulge...

Might want to check your numbers there- surely you mean 10th and 1min39 back?

On the EWS "complaint", a top 20 EWS female rider would stomp a fitness mud hole in most people. If an elite athlete has no time for water between climbs, that's not trivial. That is not weakness. And the "season" isn't sneaking up on anybody. Promoter crammed too much of one thing in and not enough of another.

Updated Geometron

Maybe… just maybe,,, now stay with me here… she (and the other pros saying the same thing) has a valid point that the liaison times were unrealistically short and us armchair racers should refrain from speculating on her (and other pro athletes who do this for a living) fitness levels and take them at their word that they know what they’re talking about and the liaison times were, indeed, unrealistically short.

I think we can all agree that the phrase "violating human rights" is extreme hyperbole, and harms her argument here. However I've spoken to a few athletes and it seems the entire liaison timing and feed timing was just a shit show. Terrible organisation. It was incredibly punishing to anyone who had a mechanical, as you were pretty much done, as it takes 3-10 minutes to fix, then the liaisons were so tight you had to hammer back up the hill. The crazy part is, Finale is the most common site for an elite level enduro race, it was obvious...

I think there can be a line between hard and overdone to a point where riders can’t get down safe because they have no time to recover. seems like half of the riders i follow on IG have something negative to say about the liaison times, so it’s not like this is a single opinion. At the end of the day the best riders won, doesn’t mean you should disregard all of the rest.

The beginning of Jack's video where they're in the fan shuttling reminds me of one of the things that makes enduro great... all the riders able to "party" and have a good time as groups. The atmosphere and mood during enduro (both fun/happy and miserable/suffering) are what set it apart from DH. It's about the racing, but it's also about the experience and the story just as much. I'm unsure if there's even a way to capture it in a live format.. and really it's more about the experience for the racers than the fans I suppose, which is why...

slowmo vid from fort william and lawlor. tons of cool stuff to check out and see suspension moving (we're calling it bike magic this year instead of bike abuse b/c the algorithm does not like violence LOL) daprela's bike

At what point does the cover on Loics bike violate the rule about fairings on bicycles? it’s quite a thought out aero design, I’m surprised nobody has challenged this