The first track of the 2015 World Cup downhill season was the farthest thing from a warm-up venue you could expect; fast, steep, and riddled with people-eating boulder gardens, the French put together a course that would have any normal humans fainting on the drop-in. Toss the factor in the dryer with the Santa Cruz team's nagging injuries, and the fact that Ratboy and Greg Minaar raced to 7th and 22nd, respectively, is even more impressive.
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Defending World Cup champ Josh "Ratboy" Bryceland was still getting used to having a metal ankle after breaking it center-punching the final jump of the Hafjell World Cup to flat (fast forward to 3:30 in this video), and Minaar had to actually strap his left hand to the handlebar after undergoing surgery to repair a torn tendon in his thumb he suffered at Crankworx Rotorua. And Steve Peat's still sidelined with an ACL injury. Despite the body beatings, you gotta respect that these guys are still going for it.