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“With Rude’s planned absence from select Enduro races, the 2024 Enduro UCI World Cup Overall runner-up Łukasik will lead the Yeti / FOX Factory Enduro Team.“ Sounds like dh is the priority for RR.

Cube is the only team that applied for a combined category team XC/DH. As they ranked 15 in XC, I assume they found their in for DH.

Is it me or did Yeti marketing really miss the mark? Getting Cami is a big deal plus having a full factory DH team again and them having put nothing out!

I was kinda shocked how many I saw in the Sea to Sky area last summer. It seemed like it was either Transitions or Forbiddens. I know they had some oddness with their supply chain last summer that kinda kneecapped their Dreadnought release, but I don't think they are nearly as dire of position as some other companies. Their race team funding always felt a bit ambitious though, so I am not surprised that might have taken a hit over the year. Maybe it's just their race division.

Adam Brayton will be riding Saracen bikes for 2025

That's too bad. DH was one of the few places not totally falling to the Sram homogeneity machine.

Mondraker team posted on instagram yesterday that they’ve moved on from Shimano, looks like they’re on SRAM now. https://www.instagram.com/mondraker.factory.racing.dh/p/DFlry_EoNUN/?im…

From all the vlogs I've seen from other riders, Jackson, Bernard, etc all thought he was crazy doing 95% laps all day, whereas they were all doing 80% for fewer laps. Apparently he was riding faster than anyone ever has in January before. Ronan was basically saying that that's where he thinks the sport will be in a few years, and he wants to be ahead of the curve. Essentially that hitting the gym and trail bikes over the winter then hopping on the big rig for DH laps a few weeks before the season is not going to cut...

To be fair, I happened to watch his vlog from the other day, dude is slumming it in NZ. He is driving some beat up pickup that barely starts, not sure he has a mechanic with him... It might just be what parts were available to him out there. Also interesting to note there was some discussion around Ronan going absolutely mental with training in NZ, apparently hitting the bike park for dozens of laps a day every day. Dude is either going to end up injured, dominate or burnt out by the start of the season. (I hope it's...

for anyone that didn't get to read it in time, it basically says this Candian bike shop, Dunbar, is providing financial support to get the Forbidden team to the World Cups, after the Forbidden CEO reached out to them and said they were struggling. So the team is basically the same as Forbidden Synthesis, same sponsors and everything, but Dunbar is helping them to afford their spot at the World Cups, like travel and race entries; funding their season.

Ancillotti did bushings as well, even on the main pivot. I believe they still do. A buddy of mine had one. He needed to break the bushings in, so I believe they come quite tight from the factory and then kind of grind themselves to the right tolerances. He was (is) rather sloppy with bike care, but the bike never creaked or so. Anecdotal, I know, but could hint that with the right execution bushings could work... Edit: just got called out: a) by first friend not approving being called sloppy, b) by second friend wondering how I could have...

The common thread in all of this is the name you keep dropping, and the one that has disappeared from our lexicon: WBD and UCI. WBD is a for profit organization, they're going to try to make profit from things they spend money on. The problem is that the UCI sold DHMTB broadcast rights during a bubble as a money maker to WBD, but in reality, it was already a stone with not a lot of blood (profit) left to be squeezed from it, and certainly not the legs to become some F1 scale thing (and if you've watched much...

Long post that was intended to be a short post but then I got to picking it apart and teasing it out further. Sorry! I'm not conviced "should" is a word in the UCI/WBD vocabulary. A quick reframing of the whole idea (that I don't necessarily agree with but I could see as being completely within the scope of how the UCI could be looking at it): Is Gwin any less retired than Minnaar? Who raced more last year and who seems to be more publicly active in DH right now? How about Richie Rude? RR used to ride downhill...

Who else thinks Greg won't make it all season without hoping on a bike for a race, even if just for giggles?

I know he's an icon of the sport, but he has only been in one WC final since 2023, and that was at the first race in 2023. He's barely made it into the top 50 in semis most races. He's an icon, but sports progress.

It means he has no UCI points.

bike industry media folks: "how can we alter this image just enough to mess with the vital forums"

A little bit of contrast and image levelling and it’s super clear. Yeti nailed down.