All

SAPA was devastating for Turner and Knolly. I've heard the details from both Dave and Noel. Glad they were both able to recover.

This is derailing tech rumours a bit but the chattery feeling is almost certainly due to the effects on braking and not from the impact on the spring rate at the shock. Torsional revolute is the correct model but it's a fairly high rate. With a long lever arm (and a very small angular displacement) like a seat stay this results in low forces at the shock but it transfers big portions of the brake torque from the seatstay to the chainstay. Makes the braking much closer to a single pivot in feel. And before someone else says it this...

There wasn't room to include "..., planned obsolescence, and anti-consumer duopolistic practices that treat bike companies less like frame designers and more like component integrators."

Angel Fire would be sick to see again, and the old track in Nevegal, Italy, would be cool to see again. Bromont, Big Bear, Squaw, Deer Valley! And can we get some of the old Dual tracks back while we're at it? They're so good for spectators, so WBD should be able to see great growth from adding them!

MTB-adjacent news; the Warner Bros/Discovery Omincorp/financial dumpster fire that currently holds the rights to the UCI World Cup Broadcasts is being unpicked at great speed. Hopefully this makes watching World Cup broadcasts even more of a confusing and expensive endeavour, as seems to be the grand plan going forward.

The current crop of riders on a mid 2000's era Mount Snow NORBA track would be a sight to behold.

@storm.racing started a "top choice WC DH tracks" forum thread here - https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/top-choice-world-cup-tracks - some great suggestions already (like mt. snow : )

I have not been a fan of the commentating for some time but this weekend marked a new low. I don’t follow moto so Ken Roczen’s presence in the booth did absolutely nothing for me — it only detracted from the viewing experience as Josh just fanned out about moto stuff rather than talking about the actual race runs taking place. Josh’s poor and regionalized vocabulary is a bad trait for a commentator and he rarely has anything of value to add. Watch a basketball game if you want to see how much a caller can contribute. Ric and Josh...

The primary is a photo-cell. The wand is an indicator only. We don't do gate starts like BMX. There's also no starting procedure for DHI listed in the tech regs. XCO is quite descriptive, but DH is generally that riders can go in any of the last 5 second beeps.

As far as polegate goes. Course tape works well.

I would think it would be to get the tire tighter on the wheel.

This is a biking forum so I don't want to get derailed too much but NO!, of course I'm not in favor of extrajudicial unconstitutional attacks on minorities. I also hate the guy that's been doing that (also has a ton of SA allegations). At least in the US, not sure about elsewhere, but less than 4% of sexual assaults wind up in convictions. So while yeah, the government shouldn't jail somebody without conviction in a court of law, the participants in a sport that can be exceedingly bro-y should definitely call out and shun people who have a predatory...