All

It definitely doesn't have minimal effect. Because the rider position can only be so optimized the bike is even more important for aero. Go ride a normal road bike and ride an aero one, it takes a lot less watts to hold 40km/h on the aero one.

Man, that Van Rysel is a bit of a harbinger of the future of XC. Was it one or two races where Cannondale was experimenting with deep-section wheels and the field was running near semi-slicks for the short-track races. 32's and deep-profile wheels could mean courses with few to no tight, twisty tech sections or sudden transitions. More long, sweeping turns, XC motorways, and straight-line tech sections. That being said, Nove Mesto XCO will look wild with 32's on some of those existing sections, and MSA's XC tech sections will also be wicked to see.

It's for aero.

Van Rysel 32" XC bike - https://www.vanrysel.com/en-GB/c/lp/van-rysel-mountain-bike-rcr-xc FRÉJUS, FRANCE – October 8th – VAN RYSEL, the high-performance cycling brand born in Lille, today announces a major turning point in its history at Roc d'Azur. Renowned for its excellence on road, gravel and triathlon, VAN RYSEL takes a new step towards its goal of becoming the world's number one cycling brand by officially entering the mountain bike market, unveiling its race bike: the RCR-XC. Behind-the-scenes work and intensive in-house development This official launch is the culmination of a long process. For several months now, VAN RYSEL has been building an MTB...

Remember the show Iron Chef, where the chefs had 60 minutes to whip something up and whatever didn't come out just right had to be served anyway? The food was usually pretty good, but the presentation sometimes missed the mark. That's how some of my writing is (at best) going to go in the coming months (or even years). My life has changed immensely over the last 12 months, and the time I have for side quests is now significantly limited. When I say I have an hour to do something, that's probably all I have. Much of my Substack...

So let me get this straight... Jeff gives a good detailed analysis of a situation and some of you are grabbing torches and pitchforks because he's a finance major and not a graphic designer? 1 Ai generated picture and you want to chase him off... The pettiness runs deep... Seriously...

We shouldn't be looking for ways to still give some participation trophies to riders who disobey the rules and go off course. We should be looking to punish them just enough that they're going to make a huge effort to stay on course. Is that an immediate disqualification with zero points? I don't think so. I'd like to reward qualifying for the finals. That's 30th place points. At the end of the day, a person who goes VERY slow in a section in an effort to stay on course - even going so far as to come to a stop...

You are high if you think Lachie didn’t know he went outside the pole. How would you not? This wasn’t a blind race. He saw the poles all weekend. You also saw his reaction live when they told him. He didn’t protest. Was it international? No. But thems the breaks. Also not sure what poles vs tape has to do with it. Sure the poles could be ambiguous like we saw earlier in the year. But that wasn’t the case here.

I mean, Richie Rude got DSQ'ed in 2021 on a taped course, so to say it's never happened before is wrong. https://www.pinkbike.com/news/richie-rude-disqualified-from-ews-tweed-v… Edit: Yes I know this was a pole/tape issue and a really odd one. So it's not the greatest example. More over than that, I think we all underestimate just how well these riders know their lines. I got to do a "time training" day with a former DH racer as my coach and was blown away with how he could see a race line by hiking down a 45 second rut track marked with cones once and...

It would be a ten second penalty per course marking pole missed. Enough penalty to discourage course cutting, not not so severe to disqualify a rider for accidentally feeble grinding a pole.

I don't think there is an overlap between people doing the chasing and people wanting @jeff.brines to stay... But yeah, it won't be the same if you stop posting Jeff.

NO PLEASE STAY