The second World Cup DH of the year took place in France. Here are the results, race report and highlights vids from Loudenvielle-Payragudes.
Genuine thanks for this, I got lost in the UCI IG posts yesterday, so good to read what happened.
Singletrack stepping up in a Dirtless world!
Probably not the right place for this, but does anyone know why there was no Vital Raw vids from Loudenvielle DH?
WB/Disco being asshats again?
Apparently Vital chose to cover the North American races instead, think they'll be back after Leogang. Gutted there was no VitalRaw!
Anyone know if there are highlights WITH commentary?
It’s an absolute bit of a mess of broadcasting!
(the swear filter certainly intervened with that word that’s quite like custard duck!)
Let's face it, WBD don't give a **** about the coverage no one is paying for.
Who needs commentary when you have the incredible sound effects of a bike being ridden over rocks... even when said bike is in mid jump 🤦♂️
I don't mind the YT highlights without commentary tbh, they had commentary on Round 1's highlights and it sounded very 'chopped up' and badly edited so I'd rather do without. Watched Q2 on YouTube too and found it to be pretty good personally..Still refusing to pay for TNT though!
Another annoying thing is the UCI channel had a thumbnail giving away the winner too, though redbull were guilty of that sometimes.
Watched the finals last night. Tiz great. Managed to miss the results by staying off SM - yay!
Result was great and riding spectacular but as ever Ric is a disappointment, again.
The one thing that really gets to me is this insistence in calling the location Loudenvielle Payregudes every single ****ing time he mentions it. Just shorten it to Loudenville like everyone else does. No-one cares the 2 places are linked. If it's a contractual thing, just use the full name at the start and end of the program. Not every, sodding, mention.
Great result for Jackson and Jordan. shame the Brits seem to be struggling on the whole.
Imagine paying £30/month soley to watch downhill & the put up with adverts within race runs.
Total enshitification of coverage. I look forward to them taking a scheduled ad break on a weather affected round & missing half the winning round.
Anyone know if there are highlights WITH commentary?
They must have put them up without commentary by mistake, as they take every other opportunity to ram Ric down our throats.
The full race is available by dodgy means referenced above, presumably with a FFWD function.
Don't miss Nathan Pontvianne's run though - astonishing bit of bike control.
“The full race is available by dodgy means referenced above, presumably with a FFWD function.”
Thank you!
I watched Q2 and it was great. Highlights help with my lack of time but I do miss watching the full races. Never as good without Warner though!
The one thing that really gets to me is this insistence in calling the location Loudenvielle Payregudes every single ****ing time he mentions it. Just shorten it to Loudenville like everyone else does. No-one cares the 2 places are linked. If it's a contractual thing, just use the full name at the start and end of the program. Not every, sodding, mention.
I imagine as you say, that's probably not his fault and he's contracted. It's annoying though.
I don't mind his commentary much to be honest. Obviously he's a different kettle of fish to Rob Warner but yeah. It's the other people that I'm not so keen on like the Aussie bloke the other day.
I'm still a freeloader so only watch the highlights and for once this time I managed to avoid the results! 😊
Some phenomenal riding. Great race.
I quite liked the Aussie fella as he added a bit of excitement to proceedings, also great having Nico in there as he obviously adds a lot of insight.
I still think that 30 isn't a big enough field for the finals - too many people going out in qualifying and I'd say it's ruining the overall results, if not the show.
Interesting on the pronunciation thing, though - because LoudenVILLE is actually wrong. As in Loo-Den-Vill or Loo-Den-Vee.
It is LoudenVIELLE as in Loo-Den-Vee-Ell as far as I know...
What I didn’t know until the race runs is that there are different TNT sport channels showing the same thing.
If you watch on TNT2 (I think) then there are adverts during the racing but if you select ‘cycling’ from the top menu then navigate to the live race coverage you don’t get adverts.
Quite why this is a thing I have no idea!
I still think that 30 isn't a big enough field for the finals - too many people going out in qualifying and I'd say it's ruining the overall results, if not the show.
The Q2 format makes for some exciting racing and I'm sure people are pushing much harder in first qualifying. It's annoying that even with the vastly reduced field we only get 30 seconds of some riders.
It's annoying that even with the vastly reduced field we only get 30 seconds of some riders.
Exactly this it's not really done anything for the broadcast other than reduce the length of it. It's just a matter of packaging. I wonder what the feedback from the riders on the Q1/Q2 format is going to be at the end of the year. It used to be that qualifying for the quick guys was pretty much a formability. Now, with the need to get in the top 20 or 10, it's 2 or 3 full on race runs with all the associated stress on each one.
Anyone know if there are highlights WITH commentary?
It’s an absolute bit of a mess of broadcasting!
These are the 29min highlights inc both the elite women and men, I watched last night - for better or worse, they've got Ric and others commentating:
I think it was the individual highlights for women and men that had no commentary. Agree with it being a complete custard duck of broadcasting - too many 'highlights' videos to choose from on the official YT channel.
Don't miss Nathan Pontvianne's run though - astonishing bit of bike control.
Any link to his full run? I've only seen clips of it and it was exciting to say the least!
Any link to his full run? I've only seen clips of it and it was exciting to say the least!
I just watched it in the race feed, but you've probably seen the best bit.
One of the wildest, loosest moments I've ever seen.
I just watched it in the race feed, but you've probably seen the best bit.
One of the wildest, loosest moments I've ever seen.
Straight into the fantasy team after watching that run on Sunday. Absolutely fantastic.
Mind you I've also got Ronan Dunne still in my team so might not be the wisest move as they both seem like they are the type of riders to roll the dice. I reckon Ronan is going to come in swinging this weekend though.
Watched the Women's & Men's last night - fantastic racing.
I 'caved' and renegotiated our contract with Sky so I'm in effect only paying an extra £10/month for TNT/Disco+
I'll be cancelling it so it finishes after the last race.
Rick is slowly growing on me - I like Neko's insights, and quite like Josh as he gets pretty excited - not quite Rob & Cedric levels though lol
Q1 & Q2 seems like a good idea at the moment, there's some big names that haven't made it through which shakes things up a bit.
I really like the new Q1 / Q2 format and I think 30 riders is enough to be honest. I used to fast forward through 45-20 unless it was a specific rider I expected to have a wild / good run.
It is a shame that we see top riders missing out on finals at the moment but they will have to change their approach and ultimately, we still see the best riders that weekend (except for 1 or 2 that have double mechanicals, which would happen with a bigger field as well).
Also so glad there is no protected status - It was a massive disadvantage to those coming off a long injury or those unable to do the full season.
The coverage it pretty good too, some definite directorial issues aside (why did we only see 5 seconds of Anna Newkirk's run?). I don't mind Ric but I do think there needs to be a bit more excitement from the commentators. Sports like this where its against the clock really need someone to build the excitement & tension around what the rider is doing. We saw some absolutely wild runs in this race and whilst they communicated that, they didn't build any excitement about it.
The riders are doing a phenomenal job, shame the broadcast is overpriced garbage.
Saw some interesting comments from Reece Wilson the other day on his IG story about the speed of the tracks and the risk associated to committing. I guess they figure the balls out speed is what sells and makes it exciting.
The riders are doing a phenomenal job, shame the broadcast is overpriced garbage.
Saw some interesting comments from Reece Wilson the other day on his IG story about the speed of the tracks and the risk associated to committing. I guess they figure the balls out speed is what sells and makes it exciting.
Interesting. Reece seems to be struggling to find the level a bit this year, like a few other big names.
Personally, I thought Loudenville looked like the toughest track to race since Leogang 2020 (where Reece won the stripes ironically). It was carnage up there and even Loic and Amaury got it wrong.
I'm not sure if it was "separating the riders" in a positive way, or just dangerous and a bit random though?
Also not sure we can pin that on WBD, so much as the local race organiser?
What do you all reckon?
Crashes sell clicks - just look at the viral clips from the cheese rolling last week. You can guarantee that high speed, high danger is part of the deal with WBD. They were pushing for 3 minute tracks and in some paces the only way to get that is to go flat out down the fall line. It's part of the reason for Fort Bill getting dropped. The fact that that ends up with spectacular results is a bonus for them. They're looking to promote the sport to the generic sports fan and big crashes are a lot easier to sell than slow tech.
Reece is one of the guys I am particularly frustrated not to see in the finals. But I guess if the speed isn't there . . .
I think it's a tough one for Reece. I think it was a GMBN video where I saw him say he doesn't do any testing against the clock and if he feels good on the bike that is all he cares about. I remember thinking at the time that I wonder if you can get away with that now when we know all the top teams are doing so much timed testing and looking for every 1/100th of a second they can wring from the bike, but I'm certain he knows what he's doing and maybe just needs a few races under his belt where he can dial up the speed.
I'm sure we'll get a mudder soon enough where the speeds are a bit less and he and that lovely looking bike will absolutely shine.
Reece's comments on IG kind of baffled me, this is the same track he podiumed on last year and its the first year the track has been raced on dry, speeds were indeed bonkers. Whilst I do agree that the tracks should be more technical (hoping La Thuille will be amazing based on the riding I did there a few years ago) I think Reece is perhaps smarting because he spent a lot of the pre-season bigging himself up and is not performing very well so far. I really want to see him get his flow back though as he's one of the most creative guys on a bike.
The race organiser did make some small tweaks to the course further down but you're limited at the top of the hill as its pretty flat.
I agree, I suspect that the sheer speed required these days has taken him aback. I hope he gets up to speed as he's really great to watch. Just hope he call balance the pressures of being the boss with pulling some good results.
Fingers crossed for Charlie Hatton and Laurie Greenland too. Would like to see them back up there. Will be interesting to see where BK comes back, when (if) he comes back.
I wouldn't worry too much lads, the Brit boys have been more unfortunate than they have been slow. Reece, Charlie are still FASSSSSST, it's just not quite worked on the runs for them. They're now like all the others having to push properly FLAT-OUT !!!! All day every day and that flat out it only takes the smallest mistakes to lost time here, time there and next thing, you're off the pace... Ethan is still right on it... Just on it and on it on the the right run, isn't quite always the same. Laurie looks fast in practice, but i know less about him.
shame the Brits seem to be struggling on the whole
The Brit girls have been great, with the winner in round 1 and 3 in the top 10 on Sunday.
The only highlights you need from any DH race - Sleeper Shreddit from rd2:
