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Why is it that without following Joe Breedon on Insta, I'd not find that he'd won the DH Nationals this weekend. I following UK cycling on Insta and Twittter and if you go to their front page this morning...Not a peep. I'm not sure who that reflects more TBH
DH really is the ginger step kid as far as they're concerned isn't it?
I created a thread on Thurs, i got ignored.
He didn't win the nationals. It was Matt walker
Bad enough that you can't see the worlds without paying. Viewing figures for it must be horrendously low, so they think noobody is interested!
I follow Madison Saracen on instagram and somehow missed Matt Walker had won.
That's really odd. Absolutely zero results on the homepage, let alone a review of the weekend.
Yeah, looking back on Insta, he's not won, He's on the podium, my bad.
Still, point stands no?
Sorry @weeksy, missed that. Your lad in 50th? Nice one
It wasn't a criticism of anyone mate, just an observation. I assumed it would be of more interest to more, but i didn't have any internet for 99% of the weekend so couldn't have updated anything till we got back anyhow.
As it was i couldn't really do much reporting on the Elites even if i wanted to as when they were out my lad had just come back in and we were sorting his bike etc.
Mine was 50th yeah, report in the thread about him... Challenging weekend, 32nd in Qually/Seeding, but hit the floor twice on race run and lost 40s.
Hattie Harnden took the title also. So national DH title to go along with her previous National XC and CX titles (and EWS wins) 👏👏👏
Great result from Hattie 😀
It's normal for media coverage of the Nationals to pop up a couple of days after, as people get home and have time to write it up, sort through the pics and submit it to whichever website.
If BC have ignored it on their socials then that's bad, but not totally surprising.
Probably all too busy watching the TdF eh?
As always, British Cycling don't give a shit about downhill.
Yeah that's fair enough @chakaping, I wasn't really looking for in depth reportage, but I just started to notice that they only they put out the same "let's get ready" tweet all weekend, there were no updates and no results, whereas if you look at what they did put out, it was mostly all about Evie, which is cool, I don't mind that she gets coverage, but the lack of DH insta/tweets was noticeable by it's absence.
I was wondering if the worlds is sucking up interest and media space that'd usually go to the normal events? Same way that the world cup can sometimes bury it a bit if the dates are close
I'll admit to not being hugely interested, wouldn't even have known it was on if not for Weeksy. (His behind the scenes insight into the UK racing world I find intriguing).
Between world cups, and crackworx, and upcoming world champs; I honestly have my fill of professional bike racing, at least in the summer season.
And yes, I'm spoilt by being able to watch televised racing from around the world. But a race report, a few insta clips and a photo montage is honestly not really going to pique my interest.
As always, British Cycling don’t give a shit about downhill.
Most cyclists don’t give a sh*t about downhill.
Big DH fan here but God it's hard to care about British Nationals. British DH in general just looks like such a miserable slog. The tracks are crap, the uplifts are crap, the weather is crap.
If I was a sponsored rider with a travel budget I'd be in Whistler for Crankworx. Afterparty in Longhorns vs a can of Stella in a saturated Welsh field. It's an easy choice.
Big DH fan here but God it’s hard to care about British Nationals. British DH in general just looks like such a miserable slog. The tracks are crap, the uplifts are crap
Disagree with most of that
weather was awful though
I can see how Pros may see it differently though
Disagree with most of that
Thought you might to be fair! You're much more invested in it than I am. I got sick of carting a DH bike all over the UK to get bounced around in rotten Land Rovers and slithering down greasy poopshoots.
That's just my opinion. I love downhill but it's no mystery to me why it's a hard sell especially when the UK coverage looks so bleak and miserable.
That new 1199 track in Whistler on the other hand. Holy smokes, that looks unreal. I missed the race but I'm genuinely interested to check the replay when I get a chance tonight.
DH - niche, within a niche within a niche.
The truth is - most just don't GAF about it, even those that recreationally ride bikes off road. If it helps I've no clue about XC either. I'm glad there's an outlet for people who want to compete, but I'm not sure why it's a necessity beyond those who do and their families for it to be written about or recorded for posterity.
Too busy watching Crankworx, that's gonna be one hell of a world cup at Whistler, suprise winner in the men's and an obvious win in the women's apart from the time, wow.
Don't really follow British races, wasn't a round called off cos of weather along with Hardline, coverage is very poor, stuff never pops up in my YouTube recommend list apart from some of Adam Braytons vlogs.
Thought you might to be fair! You’re much more invested in it than I am. I got sick of carting a DH bike all over the UK to get bounced around in rotten Land Rovers
I'm lucky that I don't have to do Landy thing but he never moans. I was thinking more of the efficiency of it.
wasn’t a round called off cos of weather along with Hardline,
Not quite but it was a very very messy weekend with few runs for many. Weather wasn't quite the only factor according to some. Overly zealous officiating was more of an issue apparently
Bring back Dirt 🙂
🤌
Too busy watching Crankworx, that’s gonna be one hell of a world cup at Whistler, suprise winner in the men’s
Only because most of the elite weren’t actually racing.
full results are on Pinkbike
DH and XC are on the front page of BC and full DH results are on the results pages. I guess it takes a little time to get full confirmed results, photos, write a report etc.....
And looking at BC Twitter, the weekend / post weekend reporting is a good mix of XC, DH, BMX, road and track coverage (more knobbly tyre stuff than I was expecting).
Maybe the CX Nationals get a bit more in the way of live twitter updates, but there is also bugger all else going on to report on in January 🙂
Surely if you want any race coverage/results/news you just head straight to Pinkbike?
Anything on Singletrack, if it's ever covered at all, appears to be either an age after the event or just pretty poor in comparison.
Surely if you want any race coverage/results/news you just head straight to Pinkbike?
Mostly yeah 🙂 Although my report on the lads race was epic 🙂
well, not really... but it wasn't gravel bikes or crosswords either 😀
I’m on holiday so they’re a little short staffed at ST Towers, but I just checked my inbox and there’s no news report from BC there. We’d be copying and pasting the info off the BC site which we’d have to ask permission for since it’s not been sent to us as an actual press release, and by the time it had gone up there you were already wondering where the report was.
George used to cover this for us with making up the numbers, but then life got too busy - although his podcasts sometimes discuss the National races. Sometimes if there’s some big news from an event he’s at he’ll give me the lowdown so I can get a story up if I have time but he didn’t get to race this weekend because his son was ill. I had hoped to race some DH this year and that would have meant coverage because I’d have been there anyway, but life got too messy. Covering the National rounds of DH (or XC) isn’t really a financially viable option for us, so it relies on us being sent press releases - which often doesn’t happen. It’s on the list of ‘it would be nice to cover, but how to make it pay?’.
George used to cover this for us with making up the numbers, but then life got too busy –
I really enjoyed the old (written) making up the numbers- gave a nice view on DH largely from one perspective, but was always a great read.
Although my report on the lads race was epic 🙂
There you go, get Weeksy to add in a few extra words and put his report on the front page. Bung him a few spares or get him some tyres to 'test' as a contra deal, and DH coverage is sorted.
This would be a Good Idea, imo.
This would be a Good Idea, imo.
Probably a better idea having someone who was there racing/pitting/spectating doing an article on it rather than just rehashing a press release from BC whenever they can be arsed to send it out.
Only because most of the elite weren’t actually racing.
The UK National Champs had a more stacked field, at a quick glance.
Brayton said the track was great in his vlog, but it didn't exactly look fun in all that glop.
BC seem to have unpublished that press release above?
Maybe because it wasn't Hattie's first DH race, she won a national round this year IIRC?
It's there, bad link on my part.
There you go, get Weeksy to add in a few extra words and put his report on the front page. Bung him a few spares or get him some tyres to ‘test’ as a contra deal, and DH coverage is sorted.
It would kinda work but kinda be tricky at times too. The Elites generally go off after my lads races and in between his seeding and race, so often i'm in the pits sorting his bike, sorting his kit, making sure he's fed and watered and no issues on the bike etc... It's not always we need to do stuff, but it's fairly often, even if it's just washing and lubing it, or throwing new pads, new tyres etc in there.. Without being too harsh, there's no way i'm risking his race run for writing a report sorry... That's just the reality.
Even in practice it's tricky as everyone was coming down with filthy number boards etc so unless you're standing watching the screen, then it's hard to know who's who. Especially as with this weekend when no-one was in race kit until race run.
I'm honestly not against the idea and it'd be great to give a bit more back to STW as they gave the lad some t-shirts, hoodies etc earlier this year... but i feel any report could be quite lacking from me.
And looking at BC Twitter, the weekend / post weekend reporting is a good mix of XC, DH, BMX, road and track coverage (more knobbly tyre stuff than I was expecting).
There's 3 Insta post about the DH, and one of those is a borrowed vid of the course preview (done by Joe Breedon ironically). Before the weekend they (BC) were still showing vid of the road racing finals. There was one post with results that I had to scroll through their page to find. I must have missed it in earlier scrolling on my feed. That's the entirety of BC's coverage of their own DH championship race on Insta. Their coverage on Twitter was similarly frugal.
I get that DH isn't an Olympic sport, and I sort of understand that they have a limited budget that means they probs have to parse out what they've got. But it seems that their recent deal with Shell extends to just getting what feels like the office junior to bang out no more than the absolute minimum on SM over the weekend. During the events themselves, the difference between their coverage of road and off-road is stark.
And let's remind ourselves that this is THEIR National Champs. They organise it, it's their trophy. Feels like they do it becasue they have to, not becasue they want to. Sucks
They organise it, it’s their trophy.
Mmmmmm that's a thing.... That's like saying the refrees organise the Premier League games.
I may be a little cynical here, but for me it's as much if not more down to the behind the scenes staff than it is BC. (and in the 'behind the scenes' i do count the Commisaires) In many ways i'm not sure at times what BC brings to DH at all apart from a ranking system.