Posts
4882
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6/26/2009
Location
Boise, ID
US
Fantasy
66th
Edited Date/Time
6/1/2018 4:56pm
Eliot launched his world cup stats site in its initial stage. check it here and geek out. there's a lot of "coming soon" but some data to sort through.
http://worldcup.eliotjackson.com/riders (go to the home page if you want the gist of what's going on)
Eliot was subject of our very first Inside Line a year and a half ago and he mentioned his love for stats, so it's cool to see this kicking off.
http://worldcup.eliotjackson.com/riders (go to the home page if you want the gist of what's going on)
Eliot was subject of our very first Inside Line a year and a half ago and he mentioned his love for stats, so it's cool to see this kicking off.
End of the day, Eliot rides in slippers harder than us and happens to be a nerd too (sorry Eliot but you didn't give me the jersey I won in your giveaway). I'd rather see kids looking up to top talent and seeing this rather than alternative less productive options. I work as data scientist and I can tell you as a kid growing up spending nearly all my time riding, it took me a long time to embrace that I could be a nerd and a mountain biker without giving one or the other up.
You didn't give ANY answers...because it's not your site. It's Eliots...who I've met briefly and guess what...I like the guy.
I didn't say "why should we give it attention?"
I asked one simple question:
What makes Eliot Jackson's site different than Roots & Rain. I'm sure he didn't copy another site so OBVIOUSLY IT IS DIFFERENT IN SOME WAY.
Was giving him an opportunity to reply. Please stop. You sound bitter about something.
"Myspace already lets me build a page and stalk chicks from my college, what makes your site SO different?!"
Not to sound like a dick, but go to Elliot's site, poke around, check it out. Not so sure how much I'll use it but it does have stats roots and rain doesn't, it also has an entirely different feel; both things you don't need to spend hours figuring out...
I do agree that I'd love to hear more from Elliot, why he did this, what he plans for it yadda yadda yadda.
Gwin's new bike is said to be less progressive than the old one. Makes a lot of sense, since the old one was REALLY progressive. It is hard to take progression out of a bike, but relatively easier to add it with volume reducers in the shocks. Is that why he looked so smooth, compared to maybe the Mondraker guys? I haven't ridden the new Mondraker DH bike, but the old ones felt pretty progressive to me, and with how stiff they make them for bigger holes in faster tracks, it makes sense Brook got bounced all over in qualis, and they looked a bit ragged.
Amaury would have been on a good time too, unfortunately he flatted. It looked like there wasn't much pumping to be done at this track, lots of ground tracking though, as opposed to Leogang, where pumping is super important. So it makes a lot of sense to me that the less progressive Commencal bikes kicked butt. Myriam won, and really beat the shit out of the other girls while she was at it. Had it been St. Anne long, maybe it would be equivalent to 7 or 8 seconds? Holy cow. It is cool to see the evolution of all these bikes, they are really fitting of where they come from.
I know with those Commencals the freeriders didn't like the new bike, it wasn't nimble enough, so it wouldn't move as easily as the older stuff.
When I rode Andorra, I wanted my feet as low as possible, and I ran like 40% sag. I didn't pump anything to get more speed, just held on. That Commencal looks great for that.
The YT came out of freeriding at first, and mirrors all their other bikes which are really easy to move around. I think it takes the best and fittest of riders (Like Gwin, Neko) to really make that work at a World Cup level, and it makes sense those guys are toning it down some so it is more manageable, or at least more forgiving, which coincidentally is the same direction that new tire from Minnaar is going, more communication, less on/off.
I bet a more progressive bike wins in Ft. William, it'll skip over the holes better, maybe something like the Canyon, Santa Cruz, not the Commencal or YT's.
Just some random thoughts...
Roots and Rain isn't Myspace and Eliot's site isn't Facebook. Slightly ironic that Facebook wasn't Zuck's idea, but anyway...
I really like what Eliot has done. I think the stats are really well presented with a really great overview in the side bar. I think it's more useful that the info is right there. Sure, R and R has the numbers, but it still has that spreadsheet feel to it. Eliot has gone a step further in my opinion. I'll bet Warner has Eliot's site open in the commentary booth.
Roots and Rain isn't going anywhere and you are right, its an excellent site. Also, they seem different just in the fact that Elliot's site seems exclusively WC focused.
My point was to show Bizutch that his comment did come across a little flippant even if he didn't intend it so as I didn't need to spend any more than 10 minutes to see a big difference between the two site.
A better example would have been the myriad of baseball sites. So many stats in that sport on so many levels!
Obviously, it's in a very very very early state, but I felt like even where it's at, there are some cool insights to be had.
As for the comparison to Roots and Rain. To me, they serve two entirely different purposes.
Whether I am a World Cup racer or a weekend warrior, Roots and Rain lets me pull up my page and see all of my results in one spot. I can see all my Fontana races, my IXS cups, my World Cups, etc. It lets me see, visually, where I finish compared to the rest of the field and I can even compare that to another rider. I can see photos from that race, etc etc. A high-level overview of who a rider is.
I go into more detail on the home page ( World Cup Stats Home Page ) but I built my site, at the core, to answer questions and solve two main problems.
The first is that navigating PDF files is the worst. I want to have results up on the site within 30 minutes of the race ending. This way, instead of scrolling around to see where your favorite rider is you can just type his name in. You can answer stuff like: How did the Giant team do? How did the Americans do? What was the most important sector in the race? Obviously, all of this stuff is possible with a PDF, but it would be nice if you just had to click the mouse once or twice to make it happen
The second is that it sucks to calculate sector times by hand. I think you would all laugh if you saw us after any of the days, but timed training especially. We are literally going through the results sheet, adding and subtracting splits in our head, doing the same for the top 5, and then comparing them. It's crazy. "I think I was around 6th from split 1 to split 2." "I had like a 1:30 something from split 4 to the finish so that puts me right up there."
bizutch mentioned the video on my instagram ( https://www.instagram.com/p/BjYo4wGldBw/?taken-by=eliotjackson ) That kinda gives an overview, at a basic level, of how it needs to be. I should be able to say "Actually, take all of my best sectors from each of my timed training runs, combine them into an optimal run and then let me compare that to anyone that I want, including multiple people at a time, so I can see what sectors I need the most work on."
I think it's best to think about what I built as a tool to answer the questions you have, especially right now before I put in the visualization and predictive stuff. I think it's kind of cool that I can say "Who has the most timed training, qualifying and finals wins put together?" "What does someone's average race weekend look like?" "Who has the most time on track?" "What is someone's average finish on this bike compared to that one?" "What venue do they do the best at?" etc etc.
Anyway. Hope that helps and, again, thanks for taking the time to check this out.
http://worldcup.eliotjackson.com/races/2018/Fort-William - filter event to "timed training" for the goods
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