All

Transmission, it's weaknesses, and "solutions" for those weaknesses all seem kind of insane to me. Hey we have this little uvula looking thing on the back of frames which the derailleur attaches to. Usually, derailleurs aren't that expensive these days but just in case, it's meant to bend instead of allowing the derailleur to break. Because our frame is made of steel, we can usually just bend it back for free! How nice! Since we moved on to alloy/carbon, we had to make the hanger its own item. We went with aluminum alloy so it's stiff and light, but if...

Another great race well deserved wins all round. WBD decision to show Tahnee's reactions during Finn's run showed a real lack of class. Whether they are dating or not has no relevance, it's not a soap opera. They weren't interested in Gaetan's reaction when Myriam was on a winning run. Scraping the barrel, gossip magazine shit.

How tall are you?

If product life cycle length influenced pricing Shimano Saint would be free by now. 😆

Yeah right! That said Hope actually did this. They calculated an amortized cost for the carbon bike including development time etc but then after a while they realized they had learnt so much from the project that could be applied to other carbon products and help to spread the sunk costs. So they dropped the price by £1000 (iirc) and gave a rebate to all the original customers! This is very Hope-like. In the Uk there was/is a salary sacrifice scheme you can use for buying a bike and save 25-30%. Hope signed up but it was a lot of...

When you say: "Why is this a thing we must do?" do you mean: A. "Why do our very expensive brakes suck and require creative hacks to work?". or B. "Why does strapping the lever down help our brakes work better?" If you meant A, I can't tell you for sure, other than to say, either bike brake engineers lack the skill to make bike brakes perform consistently in real world conditions with real world maintenance programs, or they have the skill, but don't feel the consumer pressure to design the brakes with a priority on consistency, and instead are...

The "ass saver" style one puts the battery right in the water spray. What could go wrong? Might as well just hard wire the derailleur in to some solar cells, by which time you might as well just connect the shifter with a cable, which can work in the dark and doesn't need ridiculous charging gimmicks

The Kern had the same general layout around 2010.

That honestly looks like an updated version of the last Radical before original Sunn went bust...

How many people are actually comparing every single rider on the two sections, especially if you already know one is 5 seconds (for example) behind the pace? I love this sport and watch every race, but I find myself zoning out after watching a few riders hit the same sections. For making comparisons I look at split times and overall times, especially when there aren't any real line choice decisions. I get what you're saying about other riders already starting their runs, but when the technology is there to show replays interspersed with live footage at the end of runs...

They want it to be as big as it needs to be to satisfy their profits. They really don’t care if it’s “big” for the benefit of the sport, only if it’s a benefit to them. The two don’t align and never will which is the crux of the problem.

The whole 'growing' the sport thing pisses me off. I'm not sure how restricting access to the top level of competition whilst refusing to help establish a pathway to get there 'grows' the sport. I'm not sure how basically destroying top flight enduro 'grows' the sport. The want to 'grow' subscribers to their broadcast to increase it's 'value' so they can charge sponsors,teams and venues more. Who does that help exactly?

Define elite. If a privateer qualifies to race in the elite category doesn't that make them an elite rider? If they get down the track faster than someone with a factory ride haven't they earned the right to race? There are numerous team riders that rarely qualify for finals.

He lost view of what is good for the sport versus what is good for the WB stakeholders. I'm also always baffled when anybody claims DH is too long and complicated when few of the most popular sports are baseball and football, even the most popular cycling event is the fucking endless hours long Tour de France...It's also pretty insulting for the viewers who would be too dumb to understand an offroad time trial. Everybody wants to compare DH with Formula 1 but have you ever watched a Grand Prix without falling asleep on the couch? I see zero evidence...

metaphorically speaking

I want to gouge the guy’s eyes out with my thumbs

Sounds increasingly like after 30 years, WC DH as we loved it will be over... I for one don't care to watch a curated liste of "elite" teams race each other and pretend their are the best in the world haha. I never pay for sports, but I surely won't even try to watch now.

Another quote about feeder series " I firmly believe we have to do that (catches himself again)........err I mean when I say we I mean we as a community ........not we as Warner Brothers" He talks about the lower football leagues as an example......The premiership give between £500,000 and £5million to every club in the lower divisions. WB want other people to do all the legwork and then they get to keep all the money.

To be honest he's closer to Saruman. Good interview. The closest Ball has got to any form of honesty. Bullet points. 1. Confirms that they want Wc to be Elite only. 2. Says it's not their job to support a pathway to actually becoming elite. 3. Their goal is 'growth' to 'increase value'.......but only in casual viewership and value to themselves 4. The path to this is 'simplifying' the sport ie making courses shorter, shorter broadcasts. 5. That everyone needs to stop complaining. Wb are not in this for shit and giggles. They are here to make money. It's value...

haven't watched, is his transformation into Gollum complete?