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Kathy is one of the nicest humans I was fortunate to meet on the World Cup circuit. Always smiling, always took the time to listen, regardless who you are. Genuinely nice. I strongly believe that people with a demeanour like hers are an important part of what makes our sport different, special and approachable, close to the fans. Just had to say that. Mx

damn, bruh. what about us 57 year old men that try to ride like we're still 18?? Anyhow, Greg seems to put a lot of importance on people he trusts to help keep a stable environment. I see him thriving on a team with he and an upcoming junior rider and his sponsors, kinda like Gwin.

Looks like Brook is also without a team for next year.

She's 65, pretty sure she is enjoying retirement in SoCal with the other sun baked grandmas dressing like they think they are still 18.

You make a great point here. Some core assumptions below but here's where it stacks from an ROI perspective for a brand I reckon: - Rider salary: 100k - Logistics, travel, accomodation: 30k - WC mechanic: 40k TOTAL: 170k cost Then let's assume 10% net margin at the bike brand in a "normal" year (gross margin less staff costs, taxes, VAT, shipping costs to dealer/distributors, warranty percentage "hold back" etc). To break even on their contract and so prove they're good value, the rider needs to demonstrate 1.7M of attributable (or at least anecdotally convincing) sales uplift vs standard. Just...

Between the lines of your post is an unfortunate reality about Danny — the most memorable thing he will ever do in his career was over a decade ago, and is in fact largely about Rob Warner’s announcing, not Danny himself. As an aging racer with diminishing results, anything he can do (aside from coming back with another 2011-World-Champs-style performance or multiple World Cup wins) is going to be overshadowed by *that run.* Sponsors don’t really get to cash in on that retroactively, either. It was done on a Giant, and always will have been done on a Giant. With...

My thought is that those who had their contracts expire this year are having a tough time reconciling their worth against others who signed at peak market insanity. In all likelihood, Bex and Danny fall into this camp. They won’t be able to secure a ride if they are expecting the same salary as someone, on par with their results and marketability, who signed in 2022, say. They will need to make concessions which may hurt the ego but will be the way, going forward.

That's all good and well but lets face some facts here - Cube bikes are junk (I worked closely with the brand at a distribution level), the kinematics were average at best and the frame failure rate we saw was out of control, more than 50% of carbon bikes sold came back with cracked frames and they were horrendously slow with turnaround time on replacement frames, always looking for excuses. Saracen is a walmart/whatever brand so no matter the caliber of the rider you'll never get results riding a piece of crap down the hill. Personality or not, Danny Hart...

I am convinced that real racers - and not influencers like Wibmer for example - do not need to be loud and colorfull on the web. If brands need this they should just ask the marketing and production team to make it work. Influencing is a full time job. It‘s a lot different from building strenght for a race season. but I see that it can be advantage. For the brand in form of exposer and for the rider as additional income. but these two are not necessarely linked and a fast racer can be a hero even if he...

Too bad WB/D is too out of touch to know what a threat this could be to their product. Not this year, but if this gains momentum we could see the relevance of the World Cup fade.

Seriously incredible news, and to hear this is title sponsored by a massive, somewhat outside the industry company is even better news! I’m stoked to see where they take it. I hope it turns into a multi event weekend style thing, with XC, DH and maybe some slalom/pump track so we can have a now a days NORBA!

Throw in a NW Cup, DH Rockies, and BMDH round and we'll have ourselves the world's most diverse DH series (terrain wise). SoCal dust, East Coast grease, the high alpine Rockies, and PNW loam in a single series?!

The USA has a National Downhill Series - Monster Energy Pro Downhill https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/press-release/monster-energy-pro-downhill…

here are results from that insta poll we did. metaZuckerberg said 7k participated, so pretty good data. the saddest part is that 20% of vital mtb insta followers don't watch live world cup dh racing. tragic. hopefully WBD lawyers don't come after the poachers LOL.

re: canyon (and possibly other big brands)? it's an XC olympic year. could the big dumps and a brand like canyon be for XC talent at the olympic level? i have no insight or idea, but have to imagine olympics are at the forefront of budget talks for brands w/ an xc bike. re: danny - as mentioned above, he has a very solid social and youtube presence. to say he's "kinda invisible" speaks to the way the system works IMO. he's not an over-the-top personality on camera or vlogger with click-baity/controversial subject matter, so he's not recommended by the...

Multiple World Champion and WC winner Danny Hart with no ride is just bonkers.

I think she use to be in a band 😂

John is a smart man... sees the writing on the wall... Gwin likely racing only 1-2 more seasons. He's in a 'real' job role at Intense (product development). He lives in California, 3,000 miles away from his racer. I'd not be surprised at all if he took a full-time gig at Intense and stopped doing world cups with Gwin. That said, if Gwin is doing his own team with Intense frames, I could see John keeping his full time position at Intense and ALSO go on the road to the 7 world cups and world champs to wrench for Aaron...

Wouldn’t be surprised to see Gwin and John Hall going their separate ways. Gwin on a new bike and based in Windrock full time. John staying on in a formal role at Intense in California. Edit: but I’d personally love to see Gwin hang around and get a win on that intense.

Probably just got a good deal on a bike. A lot of "sponsored" riders don't actually get paid at all.