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Me and the boy watched the first episodes last night.
I struggle with one part, elimination. Not sure what they get from that, leave everyone in it, competing, learning, you never know, it may unearth a talent that could be missed if sent home early.
Was a little surprised at the lack of knowledge of a couple of riders in terms of spanner duties.
The flying Finn can ride though that's for sure.
Have watched some previous series it suffers from that awful "repeat everything three times, then show a clip of two more people saying it" style that all US reality TV has. All filler.
i am watching.
I take it with a pinch of salt, as george says, its American cheese/repeating the same thing.
But regardless, its entertaining enough and you know... its mountain bikes... so its all good!
Was a little surprised at the lack of knowledge of a couple of riders in terms of spanner duties
I didnt quite follow this challenge, were they told what the 5 issues were or did they need to discover them and fix them?
If you are young and not part of the Weeksy family you may have only had one or a handful of proper mountain bikes in their life.
put on a chain I thought - easy. But apparently 12 spd chains have a direction, I would have failed on that, having never owned one.
"dropper fault" was never expained what the problem is. That could be 5 seconds of fettling a barrel adjuster or a complete rebuild. Again on a brand they may not have worked on before.
Unfortunately, Cathro sets such a high bar with his content on Pinkbike, that the academy is really mince in comparisons.
The World Cup Pinkbike Racing series from Cathro this year was absolutely superb.
Saw the previous seasons and watching this one, the reality show jeopardy means my wife always wants to watch it too. She doesn't have a kiwi to shout for this time though.
I was scratching my head over "dropper problem" too. I assumed just something nobbled at the lever end. It's probably the one challenge I'd do OK on!
I don't mind it but the Finnish rider is obviously the best.
They are going to have to come up with a load of pointless challenges to try to stretch it out.
I tend to watch it whilst on turbo - it puts an hour in!
Agree with bsn's comment above though - Cathro's Pinkbike stuff really is a cut above and the Academy suffers a bit by comparison.
It's light entertainment featuring bikes, what's not to like?
Last year's winner did quite well in the women's e-mtb and previous year's winner ended up being a pro enduro rider.
Have watched the previous seasons and didn't mind them at all. Haven't started on this season yet even though they released a few episodes at once but will give it a go fairly soon.
Agree with the above comments on Cathro as well, really enjoy them
Was just Rootsandraining all series 1 competitors, it's always interesting what they went on to do, or not
I am watching but somehow finding that I'm not enjoying it nearly as much as previous series.
Part of the intro says the contestants are some of the 'best amateur riders' in the world which seems a bit optimistic in my view.
Best to watch it for what it is I guess....
Part of the intro says the contestants are some of the ‘best amateur riders’ in the world which seems a bit optimistic in my view
It's very optimistic... If you look back at the previous series, not many have gone on to big things after PBA, but in their defence, they're bloody decent riders.
Vlad from Series 1 made 55th in the World Champs.. OK, so he was the only Russian in it.... but 55th is far from completely terrible.
Obviously some of the season 2 guys have done pretty well...but many, they've not done much at all.
I was really surprised at Addison who's now the mechanic... he's only raced twice, ever !
https://www.rootsandrain.com/rider57828/addison-zawada/results/
Both of them were in 2014...
I must admit, I've not kept up with what previous contestants have done since they were in the show.
I watch it usually on my phone whilst having my dinner half way through a 12hr night shift and always enjoy it. For me, it's a show that could be so much better but, could also be a hell of a lot worse.
On the other hand, the Pinkbike Racing series was very good.
Evan wall was the series winner.
https://www.rootsandrain.com/rider47737/evan-wall-pro/results/
He's doing pretty darn well.
Emmett was the fan favourite I think
https://www.rootsandrain.com/rider83512/emmett-hancock/results/
He's doing well too. Comparing to eachother they seem to share the spoils with a fair bit of alternating results
Flo went onto ews-e which disappointed me a bit
https://www.rootsandrain.com/rider138010/florencia-espineira/results/
Obviously some of the season 2 guys have done pretty well…but many, they’ve not done much at all.
Isn't that the point of the series? Maybe the other participants haven't been so successful (I haven't checked), but then they haven't had a year of dedicated team support. Many people are capable of good individual results but having the opportunity to focus entirely on racing can be the difference needed to climb the overall ladder.
The series winners mentioned above have all achieved top 10 / 5 / podiums at elite level races - often at the expense of more well-known names. Sounds like a 'big thing' to me..
(maybe they just need a different bike 😜)
Not sure how you seem to have taken any of what I've written to say that.
I was really surprised at Addison who’s now the mechanic… he’s only raced twice, ever !
He was a road/gravelist - not sure where to find those results but probably not on R&R - who did mtb for fun.
Remember series 1 was under Canada's covid restrictions. You basically had to live in British Columbia to get in that year and (speculation) I think they gave preference to anyone who wasn’t a Canadian national so it looked a bit more “international”.
i say.... WTFnow !!!!
How on earth that was the result from all of the PBA this year, is, well, beyond me.
If they'd have sold the event differently i could possibly see why Max may win....
But i believe it's still $30,000 and a pro-contract to race EWS... or maybe it's just a 'pro-contract'
It seems Tarmo has been picked up by Specialized to race EWS which will be comical if Max is doing it too.
Max, seems like a nice fella, seems a great rider..but he ain't fast for sure.
Flo went onto ews-e which disappointed me a bit
I guess the realities of turnng pro - sponsor wants her competing for wins in EWS-E rather than top 10s in EWS. But I agree, it would have been really interesting to see her have a full supported EWS season. I have noticed she doesn't have a particularly big profile despite her successes. Maybe she's more prominent in Spanish speaking countries?
I watched a couple of episodes this season. I find the concept really interesting but the reality very hard to watch. It didn't surprise me none of the racers won. It wasn't the strongest pool (Tarmo isn't as quick as Evan Wall or Emmett Hancock from past seasons) and none would be anywhere near as competitive as Flo, so it makes sense it would be a social media rider that wins this time.
As pointed out frequently during the series, the job of the pro is to market product (Orbea bikes in this case) and not necessarily to win races. They chose Max because he has much greater potential to help sell bikes.
To who and what though ?
I'd be interested to see what he rides, i assume an Occam... and whether his riding massively influences that in terms of sales... Or whether Tarmo on a Rallon would have influenced sales more... It's a tough one and clearly someone in marketing has decided that.
I mean it's not even like he was close in terms of speed to Eric, let alone Tarmo.... But clearly Max can jump the heck out of crazy things, which it seems is where they're thinking.
Hate it. Even more than Clarkson hates Markle.
It's like watching masterchef. Awful format and awful execution.
Someone above said they repeat stuff three times. They big it up. It's pretty much the perfection of the anti-mtb vibe as I see it.
Cathro's content works because it's chilled and natural.
They chose Max because he has much greater potential to help sell bikes.
...via a ready-made audience of 50k Insta-followers which is a load more than Tarmo or Erik (5k) or any previous winners as far as I can see.
It became pretty clear during the final episode's judges 'deliberation' that the criteria for winning was raising the profile of Orbea in North America & I think they hope that Max hucking big features on their bikes will appeal to the Sea to Sky Whistler bro' culture. They've already bred 2 racers in Evan & Flo so presumably they've had time & data to show that's not getting the resulting sales they were hoping for so they're changing tack. They asked Geoff Gulevich a couple of times how the contestants would be as 'his' team-mate & he's a big part of their team up there it seems. Even Tarmo had worked it out hence the clip of him asking about the judging criteria.
I’ve watched it, and unless I was in a Bristol Cream* induced brain fog, I can’t see that there was any reference to that final enduro race timings in the deliberating. It all just “appeared” to be on the existing rider profile, likes n shares and what not. I may have missed some narrative, but it seems quite pointless riding against the clock and your competitors, if the results stand for nothing.
Tarmo seemed to absolutely fly. Max could whip and flip. But results don’t get the insta-bangers maybe?
Having said all that, it’s entertaining, and that’s all I need from it.
*inherited this liking from my dad.
Tarmo's done really well on EWS this year, 2nd in crane Montana.
Stopped after 2 episodes this season. Like others said it was never great, but was watchable at least in season 1 and 2. This year just seems to have lost any interest for me. No link between the challenges and judging outcomes, trying too hard to be full on reality tv style rather than just some decent YouTube Mtb content.
I don't think I'll bother watching the last episode. I'm fairly low brow when it comes to being entertained but I'm really not into those shows where everything is repeated ad infinitum to pad out the content. That and the predictability of the outcome; you could sense something was afoot after the timed events when Max wasn't sent packing.
I think this year's competition was always going to be about media presence. In previous years the times were measured with respect to the "secret pros", and last year's winner (Flo) came top overall in this year's EWS-E competition. Maybe that didn't get quite the level of exposure they were looking for, so this year the focus was more on who had the potential to get the greatest number of eyeballs on Orbea product. Maybe it was also a reflection on the overall performance levels of the competitors - if you're not capable of regular podium finishes (= automatic media exposure) then the sponsor doesn't care so much if you're 10th or 30th, but they *do* care about getting their product shown off.
On a tangent: it appears from her instagram that Flo just got married - congrats to her, what a great year she's had!