2018 World Cup

[El Kanone]

Love watching WC Downhill.
I get up early just to watch it live, it makes it more exciting.
The scrub move by Gwin was so sick and stylish and original.
Troy’s little fast plant move was cool too.
Great season of racing.


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[grinch]

My wifi connection sucks. After about 20 refreshes I got it all. I thought Maes looked great on track all practice but it looks like it was his fitness allowed him to recover after efforts and save his ass more than a few times. What a story! Maes is quite the character. No stress , just throw it down and see what happens. His style reminds of a loose Nico

[babybear]

that was exciting. I figured one of the other guys would step it up to beat Maes but I was also psyched to see Gee and McDonald on the podium
Poor Pierron with that slide out at the end!!

[toast2266]

I have to think the track got slower for the later riders. Credit where credit is due - all of the guys on the podium put together great runs. But the fact that Atherton, Thirion and Kerr all ended up on the podium when none of those guys have been true podium contenders at any of the other races this season kinda tells me that conditions were in their favor. And when Bruni looks to be on pace and isn't making any major mistakes, but is inexplicably losing significant time. I dunno. This reminds me a little bit of when Fayolle won Lourdes last year. Obviously not that bad, but weather was a factor.

[funkendrenchman]

I have to think the track got slower for the later riders. Credit where credit is due - all of the guys on the podium put together great runs. But the fact that Atherton, Thirion and Kerr all ended up on the podium when none of those guys have been true podium contenders at any of the other races this season kinda tells me that conditions were in their favor. And when Bruni looks to be on pace and isn't making any major mistakes, but is inexplicably losing significant time. I dunno. This reminds me a little bit of when Fayolle won Lourdes last year. Obviously not that bad, but weather was a factor.

Conditions were definitely a factor. Lots of guys with high finishes that haven’t had those types of races any time recently.

[jm2e]

https://m.pinkbike.com/news/Gwin-Rid...-Cup-2018.html


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[babybear]

Conditions were definitely a factor. Lots of guys with high finishes that haven’t had those types of races any time recently.

agree that it was clear conditions got slower but also McDonald came later
but also sentimentality -wise it's fun to see gee and brook get on the podium one last time perhaps.... their times are dwindling with their ages and all my favorite young frenchman dominating

https://m.pinkbike.com/news/Gwin-Rid...-Cup-2018.html

can't stop watching it either. had to get up again this morning and watch that clip

[grinch]

The top 3 did qualify well and looked fast all practice. Quali wasn’t much to judge it on this race though with no points rewarded. Sick story to
Lead us into Lenzerheide though. Will the young Belgian set the record straight?

[grinch]

Women’s xco today was an incredible race. So many lead changes and story lines. Brilliant tactical racing. Really nice to see the tech climbing and descending be a crucial part

[grskier]

Women’s xco today was an incredible race. So many lead changes and story lines. Brilliant tactical racing. Really nice to see the tech climbing and descending be a crucial part

The mens was fun to watch too.... actually, the whole weekend was great. short track, dh and xco.

[jm2e]

Listening to Vital MTB's post DH interviews was interesting. Definitely some mentions of the sticky track, but not much talk of anything unfair or of Martin not deserving it. Rather than making a comparison, Loic simply said he was exhausted after the middle section and had zero strength for the steep tech section. Conversely, Martin simply said he felt like he had a flawless run and that he still had a ton of juice left for the final section. I'm not saying it was a 100% pure win, but there does seem to be some consensus that across the board, super fit super strong riders underestimated the fitness factor on this short course.
If Amaury hadn't been so much closer than everyone else until his crash, it would be much easier to write off Martin's win to conditions alone. But fuck, Amaury was only like 0.33 sec back when he went down!! Waaaaay faster than every fast rider that came before him in the same conditions.

[toast2266]

Listening to Vital MTB's post DH interviews was interesting. Definitely some mentions of the sticky track, but not much talk of anything unfair or of Martin not deserving it. Rather than making a comparison, Loic simply said he was exhausted after the middle section and had zero strength for the steep tech section. Conversely, Martin simply said he felt like he had a flawless run and that he still had a ton of juice left for the final section. I'm not saying it was a 100% pure win, but there does seem to be some consensus that across the board, super fit super strong riders underestimated the fitness factor on this short course.
If Amaury hadn't been so much closer than everyone else until his crash, it would be much easier to write off Martin's win to conditions alone. But fuck, Amaury was only like 0.33 sec back when he went down!! Waaaaay faster than every fast rider that came before him in the same conditions.

All good points, and I'm a bit less surprised by maes' time. He's fast and fit. I'm more surprised that the top guys couldn't beat atherton, thirion, or kerr. Those guys were still a few seconds behind maes, and on such a short course, it's weird that no one was able to put in some tight times in that gap.

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[babybear]

lmk when you guys have watched finals so we can talk about it

[Dantheman]

Does Bruni just own the world Champs or what? Hart went deeeep on that last jump.

[grinch]

lmk when you guys have watched finals so we can talk about it

#willymaeshays

[babybear]

I was psyched to see how it ended up. my fav Bruni held up the respect for the DH'ers but Maes also proved it wasn't a fluke. #doyouevenenduro
but overall wasn't the most exciting race- or maybe I guess I've enjoyed the camera angles/ splits at other races

yea DTM re: Hart's jump- and I hope you were saying "deeeep" like Danny would in his high british accent lol

also Rachel killed it. it continues to amaze me the margins that she wins by

[radam]

I'd agree that it wasn't the most exciting race, but I've found that races often feel like that when a low-qualifying / early-starting rider posts up a great time. Sometimes it's so easy for slow runs to look fast or vice-versa that the only way the drama really builds is when you have riders posting green splits. With that said, things really ramped up once it was down to ~10 riders to go.. but I feel like that has been the case many times this year. You could argue that everyone in the top 20 is probably a contender to take home a win if they have a good day, but the top 10 is just so solid that it makes for some really good racing, even when an outlier like Maes decides to make an appearance.

On the topic of the women, is it just me or did Tahnee's suspension not look like it was setup correctly for her? or at least, it was setup for a more aggressive run than what she put up? It looked like the front end was skipping or deflecting off a lot of stuff it shouldn't been soaking up. I can't imagine it explained even half the gap between her and Rach but who knows, when you're fighting the bike like that, it can really slow you down, or at least make you dial it back a notch when you're not finding the traction when/where you need it most.

[grskier]

Tahnee looked great 1/2 of her run and like she was fighting her bike the other 1/2, not much in between to me. Rachel is on another level sometimes, and yesterday was it.... She looked like she was racing against the juniors.

Maes is fast on a bike. It was amazing to see a lot of the guys lose 1.x seconds just in that third (I think) split), but be relatively on pace the whole rest of the way, makes me want to pay attention to a few of the lines chosen.

[Schemeboat]

Belgium vs France was good, but not as good as I had hoped. It was definitely the game of the tournament.

[funkendrenchman]

It was fun to watch, but the course itself wasn’t that exciting. I felt like there were 3 super short tech sections. Can’t wait until Whistler finishes building their WC course.

[Dantheman]

Hardline was some great racing this year. Great to see Gee finally get a win, and with authority too. Minaar is way too quiet and monotone to be a commentator.

[grinch]

Thought he had thrown it away above the road gap . George is carrying some late season speed
They should do a 3 or 4 season hardline series. Win that and u da boss. The red bull Hard AF crown

[jm2e]

Shit is going down in the EWS today.

This is the moment of truth as the sport moves forward. Ultimately, the fans will decide what they’re willing to tolerate.


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[grskier]

Shit is going down in the EWS today.

This is the moment of truth as the sport moves forward. Ultimately, the fans will decide what they’re willing to tolerate.


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It looks to be such petty list of positives.. but taking down two of the top names...