Hardline in the US?

Well Aaron has never competed a hardline.  So I kind of doubt he’d want to dedicate a track on a relatively small but very popular mountain to one.  But you never know.  I think it would be more likely to be organized by someone else at a larger resort.  Many have lifts/service roads to peaks/hillsides that are completely unused during the summer.  And they have accommodations and ticket sales to spectators to make back those building costs over time.  
 

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It'll certainly be interesting to see where they go if they keep expanding the series. Rachel mentioned an Irish event during Hardline coverage last week, so I'm guessing that'll be the next stop to be added.

does the East Coast have the terrain/vert for it? Utah already has the OG Rampage, so I'd love to see a Hardline in Jackson Hole or the Pacific Northwest.

i don't think any resort in the US would be willing to take on the insurance liability of an event like hardline. 

Does anyone know why Tasmania in particular was selected for the first of the additional Hardline events?  It's a pretty remote place, even for the residents of this pretty remote country.

Maydena had just what was needed?

Most ski areas/resorts in the western US are operated on US Forest land by permit, so I would say extremely unlikely. Maybe western Canada? To be honest I don’t see the motivation for any landowner to pay to build a track and host that vs a regional race with lots of amateurs. 

My guess is they have a tourism board that has a yearly budget allotment for events to draw in tourists for the local businesses. They lost the EWS/EDR World Cup round there, so this was the next highest profile event they could swing. 

Gwin never really demonstrated an interest for the the more free racer aspects of the sport.. 
More likely to happen in Mexico or in South America than in the US. The Rampage and the Crankworks are the exceptions but there are many roadblocks in the US to organizing anything gnarly. It would probably need to be somewhere with some kind of connection with Red Bull or the Athertons.

A world cup in Windrock is more likely to happen, words in the streets are that we should have many more WC next year.. so hopefully a few in the US..

Half right.

The Tasmanian Government funded $1.4 million to secure 3 years (2024, 25 & 26) of Hardline in Maydena.

Maydena (also Derby in) Tasmania traditionally hosts an EWS/EDR round every second year, so they didn't "loose" a race in 2024 after hosting the EDR in 2023, they simply had their traditional year off.

Strong rumor is that they and other Antipodean venues will host world cup events in 2025.

I’d also add that Gwin has brought in Jeremy Witek to lead the trail crew at Windrock.  He’s built a lot of big name stuff including the Oakley Icon Sender drop at Rampage, downhill taxco etc etc.  The tools are in the shed…

As much as id love to see a world cup at Windrock it will never happen, logistically it would be nightmare. Nowhere to stay within probably an hour until you get to Knoxville, and the closest airport is pretty damn small. Snowshoe is much more remote but has its own infrastructure as its basically a little town with tons of lodging. 

Because its a mad destination to ride your bike. Actually fairly easy to get to. Just over 1 hr drive from the Airport. Plus it has 800m of descent 

Listening to an 2023 podcast yesterday and Sean Leader was saying that he talked with the UCI a number of times and didn't remember exactly, but it would have cost something on the order $300,000 to $400,000 dollars for Windrock to host a World Cup.  Obviously the Rock doesn't have a bevy of hotels and other amenities on which to make some of that back.  So you'd be left trying to get the local/regional community to pony up the cash.  He also said he doubted that it would have translated into meaningfully higher uplift passes in future years.  He obviously knows way more than us and I hate to paraphrase him on a forum, but I thought it was super interesting and it all made sense to me.  Trail AEffect podcast if you want to hear it straight from him.  Entire podcast was great.

Knoxville is more like 45 minutes.  And there are a fair number of places to stay closer.  They host a number of very large off-road events at the moto side of wind rock every year.  I’d say the real hurdle is just the costs of the event and paying for accommodations for uci/eso staff. 

Anything is possible with Monster Energy sponsoring races in the US now. Monster and Redbull have kept Motocross racing viable for the last 10 years. If they feel like MTB is their next best revenue stream, then that's good news for MTB racing in North America.