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Especially at an outfit as pro as Trek Factory Racing…red tape navigation and staying current with all the boring shit has gotta be on day one of team camp, right? I love any Romanian actually named Vlad, and I enjoyed R.Warner saying it. He’d kind of run it together vlaDASKaloo. I seem to remember Dascalu reminding everyone that he pumped higher watts than MvDP after a race though—xc / road racers are among the most desperate/ insecure men on this planet, but it stood out to me like dude are we talkin bout practice??? whatever. Whereabouts Failures is a great...

Hit the nail on the head with the last paragraph. Viewers/riders/fans/whatever you call them were far more tolerant of mistakes errors and missteps from the RBTV coverage as it was free. By charging for it, WB by default has set the expectation that there is a certain level of quality that needs to be delivered if they expect people to pay money for it.

IMO the hate towards Warner Bros/ Discovery/ the UCI is completely warranted. They took a reasonable product from RedBull that was FREE, added a paywall, started dismantling and taking apart the sport we love and seem content to just throw out crappy coverage. They are not following through with promises to grow the sport and cutting the numbers of riders is only going to reduce the prospects for future talent - would Ronan be winning this w/e if racing as a privateer back then (2021) was as difficult as it is now...? I haven't watched since the first free semi...

I think one thing that has worked against them is that they have made a lot of noise and claims about how they are improving things and growing the sport. They have then fallen short on promises made on numerous occasions. From what I remember RB never got into the habit of blowing their own trumpet, instead they just got on with providing great coverage of WC events, alongside bringing ground breaking events such as Rampage and Hardline. Don't talk the talk if you can't (or won't) walk the walk.

The coverage is only part of the issues with UCI/WBD Enduro is being sidelined, geographic spread of events is shocking, rider numbers are being cut, privateers being priced out of racing, etc.. I'm in Scotland and ESO bought out our national series then canned it without explanation, and have ignored any questions about it. The Tweed Valley EWS round had a five year contract in place with landowners and they canned that after two years. They also screwed local riders by halting a major trail development to run the XC World Champs on the site, then bulldozed what they'd built...

Upside to "this economy" is there should be some deals to be had. Hopefully they bought the brand for pennies on the dollar and can make good on its future potential.

The other site is reporting that the original owners of Kona have bought the company back from Kent Outdoors. I'd love to know what they sold/bought back for. Nice to see a good news story in the current climate.

I don't think it's coincidence that Charles Murray is racing the SJ Evo instead of the Enduro. My son is about to make the same call to move from a Capra to a Jeffsy (which he will coil and overfork to beef it a bit). He was with GT previously, and he was going to move from a Force to a Sensor (coiled and overforked) this season before moving to YT. More and more racers seem to be moving away from the biggest and burliest bikes on all but the gnarliest tracks. Even then... there's so much more time to...

May the downhill gods bless Dak and his bars for the finals tomorrow Would love to see dude finally win a world cup

I tried 220 HS2s for a bit last year on my ebike and went back to 200s/203s. They definitely have a ton of power but I was having issues with keeping them straight (front and rear) and also warming them up enough (front) (I'm like 172-175 lbs with gear). I switched to Galfer Sharks at 203 F/R and their power is somewhere in between a 200 & 220 HS2, but seem to stay straighter better for me.

i was running 203 front and rear on my 26inch, when i moved to the 29er i felt i needed more power and got mt7s ( was on zee before ), but then i got a good 29er and immediately put a 220 front rotor, never had issues with it being warped or anything, saves on bleeds and brake pads and does the job, it's a magura MDR-P, while it's great it's also shit as it does not last, the rivets get loose and it starts to rattle and make noise, while the braking surface it's still at 2mm So...

All the newer TRP DHR EVOs come with longer push rods now and the longer push rods are available to purchase for older DHRs. They allow the lever to be adjusted all the way to the grip if desired. I believe it was a quiet running change and is part #6 below https://trpcycling.com/products/dh-r-evo-lever-small-parts

I got to race that track that weekend in the amateur race and there was definitely a steep bit full of tiny stumps that was a handful leading into what they were calling a 15 foot drop. After that drop was the jump that Peatty pedaled around. It was a sixty foot table top that none of the pros cleared as I recall. I went about 45 feet. My biggest jump ever.

I was born in Poland, but I grew up in California....spent 40 years there. Now I'm back in Poland...as luck would have it....in Bielsko-Biała. For the past 3 years I've been riding most of the trails that'll be used at the event. Prior to that, my resume includes mostly Skegg's Point and Braille in the Santa Cruz Mountains, a run down Mt. Lemmon outside of Tuscon, and some Tapia Canyon (Castaic, California). I'm old and mostly ride motorcycles with MTB stuff peppered in here and there. Nevertheless, I think I have some unique credibility here. So if you will endulge...

telluride was super short without any significant steep sections IIRC. photo of colin bailey at telluride below. i shot in 2002 and remember getting this slide back (film rules...look at the sky), and thinking maybe i could do more of this MTB photo stuff. later that day a rider crashed, her bike flew up and hit me and broke the flash off my camera LOL. i think telluride '02 was in clappin yo' dome w/ snoopdogg and pharell song to the section. had that log whoop section. most DH racers did 4x too. crazy that was 22 years ago. sorry...

I personally prefer mountain bike wavepools and skimboarding chairlifts, but still cool.