Hello Vital MTB Visitor,
We’re conducting a survey and would appreciate your input. Your answers will help Vital and the MTB industry better understand what riders like you want. Survey results will be used to recognize top brands. Make your voice heard!
Five lucky people will be selected at random to win a Vital MTB t-shirt.
Thanks in advance,
The Vital MTB Crew
The fact Kaos Seagrave can race and Adam Brayton can't is an absolute piss take. I know there are rules around it but, letting one guy who quit racing take the start, while the other guy puts in the work and can't start is actual bullshit.
Both Dean and Wyn said they also would not have enough points to race next year if they are not on a UCI team.
Seems like the privateer days are just about over.
Honestly, Theres not alot of "f1 sports" that allow privateers to turn up an race with the best of the best.
Grassroots and points/qualifying in regions exist for a reason
I dont actually see why there is privateers anyway.
How soon till we start hearing about removing juniors and women too?
are you trying to be funny? because i think if you shake your head you'll hear the rocks.
No need to be insulting my guy. It’s just biking.
Was simply following your “F1” logic. Pretty sure they don’t have those classes in F1. Is that the direction this should really go?
How about a more relevant example. In the latest B Practice podcast Dak said the juniors race last weekend was cancelled because the junior women couldn’t make it down the track. But the organizers couldn’t just cancel their race, so they cancelled both.
If the goal is to cut the field to 30 of the absolute best, why would they still want juniors on the same track?
Let’s stop comparing DH to F1 it’s nothing like it
Junior and women field will be cut the same time as the men gets cut to only 30 for finals and semi final is removed.
semi final was put in to whittle down the field and riders score less points so they can’t race.
this is all done in the name of TV.
with less riders there is less pressure on TV schedule and the show will run easier as there’s less people to film.
If you are a privateer then your only way will be to make a elite team (of which this status will change next year along with cost)
Look at what's just happened with Dylan Maples. Stories like this will become a thing of the past. That is not good for the sport.
If ESO want to cut the finals to 30 riders, shouldn't they also be promoting ways for riders to break into that top 30? At the moment from what I can tell there are no proposals for a feeder series, I haven't seen a single thing about who would run it or how it would work.
F1 does have feeder categories. And although it's not the model I would want to follow, it does have some merit. There is a women's series (formerly Formula W, now F1 Academy). And Formula 2, the feeder and mostly junior series runs the same tracks the same weekend as Formula 1. So fairly similar to juniors in WCDH now. But I don't think the fixed athlete rosters of F1 works well for DH. I think the qualifying is good for the sport, and allows an unknown rider to come in and qualify at any point in the season.
I'm not completely against the 30 rider final (ski racing already does this and has done it forever), but then semis needs to be worthwhile for the racers, as in awarding points. Maybe they just award the 31-60 place points for semis, and nobody in the top 30 gets points until the final. Or maybe only the 31-60 qualifiers race in semis, with points awarded, and the top 30 from qualifying go straight to the final, so that everyone has only 2 runs, and there is something like a 'B' race that acts like a feeder, and still awards points to help riders stay in the game or attract a team. The bonus would be that it costs the rider nothing extra, and all of the media is already there at the venue. The organizers get their 30 rider final, the top 60 qualifiers all get to race, nobody has to do 2 race runs in a row, and riders can get valuable points without needing to get a top 30 or travelling to another series.
Part of the bigger picture regarding privateers is the lack of support that national federations give, there are races that don’t have points so riders are reliant on federation jerseys.
most of the issues are a home grown bottom up issue.
national federations need to sort their shit out.
In both enduro and DH
What is assanine is that DH is not F1. There are no mega-corporate billionaires wanting to slap money on DH. But every 75 car garage guy in the world will throw sponsorship at F1.
F1 has roll cages.
DH is more technically difficult that SuperCross/Motocross & injuries occur far more frequently to the top racers.
DH has a tremendously RANDOM terrain factor.
All the other "elite" motorsports are locked into specific (usually boring as FOKK to me) courses every week & you see the same track in a different color or moisture level in other wheeled racing.
If you cut the field down and make it so elite as all these other sports, you quite literally won't have an elite field.
They'll get broke off, walk away or get canned by a company.
Sure you can argue that a team that loses all it's elite guys/girls will pull people up from feeder teams, but if they haven't been at the World Cups competing the entire time, the factory team and their donor rider will be dead last.
Maples can jump on Commencal team and show results because he's actually been on track with the best of the best for almost 2 full seasons. Cut the field down more than 60, we'll finish a season boring as shit with one or two super fast guys and 28 fill ins with little WC experience and a 4 second gap from the time the clock starts.
Dh may be the f1 of mountain biking. But it’s the professional disc golf of racing sports.
Unless you mountain bike almost nobody cares and the percentage of mtbers that watch World Cup dh is slim. Now that doesn’t take away how amazing it is and how hard these athletes and teams work to take part. But to think the sport is suddenly going to become popular by cutting the field and participants is just frankly stupid thinking.
F1, football and other mainstream sports are spectator type... MTB is not, is relatable to people who practice it in some way. Spectators are typically "active" in the sport. That will not change dramatically. Ever.
Privateer's put in more effort to racing than Dean. Dean hasn't raced a race outside the World Cup (where he has only quallied for the semi's twice) all season, thus no UCI points.
Other racers not on teams have raced ISX, Crankworx and national rounds in Europe to get the points required to race.
Many are taking the fact they are on a team for granted and will be in for a rude shock if they are dropped or cant pick up a ride in 2024 and wont be able to race a world cup. With more than one likely to have sook.
Just to stir the pot, 15 out of the top 30-qualified elite men in Les Gets have a race number higher than 30.
I was curious about that as well, very stange due to the age gap.
Dean Lucas has announced his retirement from racing
First of many?
He's trying to mentor a teenage girl and get her public exposure, not date her.
If BK's got a thing for anyone, it's always been the young lady in the start hut.
https://youtu.be/pNddIH73kBo?si=N3VFuu8hoeNMVa2L&t=603
In fairness to everyone, the lady is probably happily married.
Going off her instagram it definitely looks like their dating.
Who cares ? Really, some much other stuffs to speak about than who is dating who …
Dean Lucas announces retirement, he must have been following this thread:
https://m.pinkbike.com/news/dean-lucas-announces-retirement-from-downhi…
hm, I would like to thank the UCI and GMBN/whoever is doing the broadcasts this year from transforming me from a die hard DH fan who watched everything, to someone who can't even be bothered to watch the highlights videos anymore. So a person who happily spent multiple hours both waiting for and watching both the male and female coverage, being engaged in who rode for what team and on what bikes / equipment (I even blogged for the biggest national site / magazine on the topic) to now going meh, just checking the results.
if nothing else I have more time to ride my bikes now so yay
How old are you that you stalk a 19 yr old girl?
Danny hart racing in shorts \m/
That was my thought and that she was staying with him Europe since she would need to be there all season but more more I keep seeing them dating so I figured lets see what other say.
They’ve been posting pictures on instagram story where they’re holding hands and constant use of heart emojis, looks like they are dating for sure.
BK took her in as an employee when she was 17 years old and he was 30, thats kinda child grooming territory.
The grooming part is what I was worried about too and kind of hopped was not true. I have come to like BK as a rider and what we see but that would make it hard to look at him the same way. That is just creepy.
Topic Direction Change NOW:
So...Austrian winners in Austria.
3 French Winners in 3 French Rounds
So USA round, every American rider better be on point!!! You got this lads!!!
Post a reply to: 2023 Racing Talk