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Establishing the "Line Score" prior to the riding is the best idea I've heard (Don't they do this with diving?) This does two things: 1) You could have a "Best Dig" award for the highest line score with prize money that goes to the Rider's dig crew, who clearly put in so much work to make Rampage happen. Additionally with the broadcast, you can highlight the dig team and that process more (plus this gives them content for down time during the live feed). 2) This brings the start to much needed detail to the scoring; 25 points for Line...

Having viewers at home judge would be a bad idea. Its impossible to get a real feel for the size and scale and difficulty of each feature/line without being there. the judges walk the mountain and inspect these lines first hand so they know exactly what the riders are doing out there. People at home are clueless.

I just can't agree. I watch the event every year live and while I certainly appreciate and have a decent idea how big this stuff is overall, I (like everyone else who isn't actually out there on the hill) have no clue of the nuances of each line. Everyone loved Fairclough's line at home but maybe it didn't score well because it really wasn't as cool as we thought. Canyon gaps and that big rock play well visually on social media, but were they really that difficult relative to what the other riders were doing? I wouldn't know, but the...

If there are three (or four) main elements to the competition, make them all co-equal, and have a "tech" winner, a "drops" winner, and a tricks winner, with Brendan, Lacondeguy, and Rheeder winning each of these in 2018, for instance, then have the overall winner, Rheeder, who combines all three. Maybe a fourth category for speed or smoothness. It wouldn't change the current format that much, but it would elevate the components that contribute to their own unique status and offer riders that really epitomize one component (again, Fairclough), some official "win". Kind of like the sprinters and hill-climbers each...

I love that we have options. I also love swanky rad stuff. Cool to see Shimano doing something new! That said, the (bigger) story to me right now is just how much performance you can garner for very little money. Its rad. 10 years ago there was such a big gap between the top end stuff and the bottom/mid end stuff. These days, I can buy a whole bike (that rips) for slightly more than the price of the XTR group and never once think about "poor shifting performance". Its the Pareto Principal, except it seems to be on steroids...

Everyone has their own opinion about what the best drivetrain is—that's essentially what Shimano determined, they asked a whole bunch of racers what they wanted and determined there was no ONE unanimous winner so they created a couple options to satisfy a broader range of riders. If you don't want a front derailleur, I know I don't, then you don't need to buy one.