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I think it's pretty short sighted to judge a World Cup MTB event purely on whether it turns a profit over the race weekend. Very few major sporting events pay for themselves through ticket sales alone. The real value is the tourism, media exposure and long term positioning of the destination. In the case of the Whiteface event, the article notes that ORDA spent around US$860,000 while recovering less than US$300,000 directly through ticket sales and parking. It also notes that the event generated an estimated regional economic impact of around US$11 million in 2025. ORDA itself lost money, but...

How organizers still approach elite sports events as standalone products instead of marketing assets still blows my mind. In most cases, a World Cup weekend will never generate positive revenue if you only look at the direct cashflow during the event itself. The picture changes once you factor in media coverage, long term tourism, bike sales, brand image, destination marketing and overall communication value. A World Cup should be part of a bigger strategy and not treated as a one weekend business case. If a region has no long term MTB vision, no plans to grow the scene, infrastructure or...

So at Sea Otter I asked Continental if the compounds stay the same across the tread patterns and they said yes. So a Xynotal Soft is the same compound as a magnotal soft even though the xynotal is part of their "gravity" range and the magnotal is part of their trail/xc range. I forgot to ask if the casings are the same across tread patterns too... I'm guessing yes. Meaning does a 2.4 xynotal enduro have the same casing as a kryptotal-fr enduro? If the casing and the compound really are the same, then all you are choosing is the...

According to continental, endurance compound is between rapid and grip in terms of rolling resistance but worse than both in terms of grip/damping. I just happened to have the Xynotal in the pile, Dissector 2 seems like a much better option for a fast-ish front

Yeah i'm in a similar boat - I don't need the puncture protection from the enduro casing where I live so it's a bummer you can't get the trail casing and soft / supersoft compound. I ran the xyno/trail/endurance for a brief bit when they first came out and it was fine - got more traction than a MT rekon but didn't run it long enough to get a real opinion on it. As far as compound is concerned, i too would be curious if it's the same. At the same time the knob sizes are so different I'm not...

This is exactly what I was telling, then shouting, then screaming, then giving up talking about to pro-tariff folks: The quest to extract every cent of value from every nook and cranny it was hiding in ultimately lead to offshoring every single thing that could possibly be offshored...in the 90s and early 2000s. We've had 20+ years of NO real development in that area and any development that happened was then immediately offshored to do it at a lower cost. In doing that, we've been hiring and giving on-the-job experience to anyone in another country who was willing to eat...