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As an artist, I can tell you that your statement is both true, and false. Yes, some people have a greater combination of natural ability and practice than others, and given the same paintbrush they will always create a more pleasing picture. But, not all paintbrushes are the same, and low quality paintbrushes, or even high quality brushes with the wrong construction make it harder or even impossible to take the image from the mind and put it on canvas. Same thing applies to bikes, especially when loosing even one second is the difference between winning a race and missing...

you do realize, at this level, the bike probably has the least amount of correlation to success. Team dynamics, luck, and skill are much more important than the physical bike. All of these bikes/components are comparable.

This one's a bit ropey but it's fun to speculate when you've been isolating alone for 8 days.

Quick bit of Photoshop. It matches

Haha, Wow!! Haven't seen that for awhile! Some of my best work!! Yep, printed on home inkjet printer and CD's so old that our new computers can't read them.

DNF for Hart and Deprela. Hope they are both uninjured and protected for tomorrow's race.

I dropped back down to 27.5 after being on a 29 (SB5.5) for 3 years. The primary reason was to maximize the fun factor during every ride. I’m 59, so outright speed isn’t as important to me any more.