[Closed] Thank the Lourdes

^^ of course

Bet Gee's a happy man

Sod that for a laugh, shame.

Points on the board for Gee though. 😮

I looks like Avoriaz when it rains.

****ing lethal.

great run from Bruni !

So we've learnt god hates 29ers?

Well that was a load of shit, only positive is that 15+ riders were in the bad weather not the top 5 or something, so shouldn't effect the overall much.

So, to summarise:
Womens was sadly a farce as usual - 22s down gets a top 10.
Screw riding that track in the rain!!
Some good riders have a pretty good head start in overall due to conditions, wonder if any can hold on and take the lead to the end?
29ers? To be continued...
What madness made Vergier run a mud spike? I'd have thought in those conditions you want the biggest surface area you can manage?

I'd hardly call the women's a farce.

What on earth else do you call it with such big time gaps?
22s back in the Mens got you 67th, top 10 covered by 5s.

Its supposed to be a World Cup which implies a certain level of competition. It's a bit mind boggling they are even managing to attract sponsors when they are that far off the pace.

so what do you suggest ?

Aye, but you're a bit of a DH mysoginist, so best ignored to be honest Andy.

That, I don't have an answer to. Suspect its largely due to not enough participation at grass roots level = too small a talent pool to draw from. and if thats the case it'll take at least 5-10 years to fix even if we could start tomorrow with an equal number of young girls/boys riding MTB's on their local trails.

@Nobeer, get over yourself, anyone with a set of eyes can see that 5-6 competitive riders doesn't make a world cup level competition.

He's right though.

I think Fifeandy should get himself up to fort bill and show the woman what a great time/rider he is.

I bet he be more than 22s back.......

Sigh, clearly MTB Rob doesn't read the forum too much, but for his benefit, i'll reiterate that i'm a card carrying mincer and would likely need to wear a nappy to attempt a WC DH track.

And yet amazingly that has absolutely no relevance to the depth of competition in the event in question.

It could be worse, we could be forced to watch the lap after lap drudgery of xc....

DH isn't Moto GP, time differences are much more similar to WRC.

As for Caludio banging on about the 29er question only being answered in Fort William - well it ****ing won't will it Claudio because there are other races that might be better suited to 27.5 - and the fastest rider from the top 10 qualifying was on a 27.5.

Really interesting but a shame weather made the men's a non event.

Fifeandy does have a point as much as it is a shame.

Run of the day was from Connor Fearon.

and the fastest rider from the top 10 qualifying was on a 27.5.

Did you actually watch the race?

Yeah, the massive field of competitors makes the mens a joke - the time it takes to send them all down the track means the event is to open to weather changes.

Cut World cups down to 30 riders and include more tracks in a season.

Did you actually watch the race?

Fastest in the race, from the top 10 was Bruni - wasn't it. Am I wrong? Vergier,

Did I miss him suddenly swapping to a 29er?

Edit: Wait you're right Minaar 59th

from a viewing point of view it does get dull with R. Atherton winning the entire time. For the casual viewer it makes it less interesting - e.g. my wife doesn't see the point of watching the women as it's a foregone conclusion. Can't really ask Rachel to slow down though so the others need to step up!

Fastest in the race, from the top 10 was Bruni - wasn't it.

And Danny hart crashed on a straight section of track....

Yeah, the massive field of competitors makes the mens a joke - the time it takes to send them all down the track means the event is to open to weather changes.

Cut World cups down to 30 riders and include more tracks in a season.

Must be a troll.

Must be a troll.

Aren't a lot of the fast guys asking for the same thing?

@Tom_W interesting idea cutting the mens field right down, but then you'd have to run another set of high level races and have some promotion/relegation/wildcard criteria. Not sure DH is popular enough to generate enough income to be booking double (or more since you want more races) race weekends.

@jam bo. Think Hart landed on the side of the bank which was what was responsible for him getting out of shape. Shows how slippy it was that he couldn't straighten it up though.

Tier two level race, eg DH2 - like superstock - using off the shelf parts only?

From a bike geek instagram post Greg out down the fastest from the top ten qualifiers. Certainly a run that stood out in the weather.
Cutting the field would be a step backwards it like skipping the middle 50 laps of a gp because the exciting bits are the start and end. If you dont have the attention span don't blame the event.
Women's needs the time and the representation to grow, to get the grass roots through needs work, support and initiative (things like women's races and days which the haters love to hate) and things will improve. There was a point where if your name wasn't Williams it wasn't worth turning up to a grand slam utility people didn't want to to cut them down to 4 games.

Qualifying shows that there are women who can challenge, we don't really know how much the wind played a part on race day.

and to add...
If you want the top 30 to race and I guess 5 women? How are you going to fund that? How much do you think a WC costs to host? Given that wouldn't even cover most of the top teams it's getting a bit silly and there would not be more races.
As far as other series goes there are Regional, National and things like Euro series to feed in. Problem is with such with such a northern hemisphere/Euro based series the rest of the world needs to decamp up for the season, people like Connor Fearon would be stuck in the Aus Nationals still, who is going to fund trips to a low coverage 2nd tier event? Riders like that get their chance for a breakthrough at the WC level and get to learn as they go along. It's part of the way feeding through works.

There may be work to do and the weather does play a part but as said in commentary it's a freak occurance really for a race to turn like that normally the weather hits and the best can come out on top.

Shame about the weather! At least when the rain came down you could clearly see the seconds being lost but even before then the wind was costing the riders an unassailable amount of time.

They've already cut the numbers.

30 elite men would not be enough given the depth of talent currently.

And would make for a short days viewing. One of the best days watching is surely the wander down from the top to the arena at FW, cutting the numbers would seriously affect that, and tbh it's those spectators that are the important ones, not armchair wannabes that have never done dh....

the time it takes to send them all down the track means the event is to open to weather changes.

just like any other outdoor sport that takes a day to complete then, like say; Golf..? 😆

I think the extreme closeness of the Men's race highlights the opposite in the Women's, but the racing is no less interesting because of that, and what's the option, a race of 10, or 5 racers? Any slip up or crash between the top 10 will still have an effect, it's not Rachel or Tanee or PomPon can have a fag break half way down and still win.

Less riders but 2 runs and average the results.

It could be worse, we could be forced to watch the lap after lap drudgery of xc....

Personally, DH is best on the telly box... top level xc best at the event ...

MrPottatoHead - Member
Less riders but 2 runs and average the results.

To get 30 UCI points is a tough ask, the people there are on top of their games.

Superstock riders are at the top of their games as well, I'm not sure that warrants pitting them against the elites in WSB/Moto GP.

I don't watch DH for the endless low ranking privateers, I watch it to see who wins out of the actual consistently fast lot - and that means watching them race on a reasonably level playing field - not having some nobody wipe out the competition because it took two hours to get all the competitors down and it that time the weather had gone from dry to pissing it down.

It's that or run two race events like WSB and issue points for both, or issue points for qualifying.

I think as an event it works well - there's no need to reinvent the wheel 😉 just because the weather came in at the end.

They seem to have slimmed down the event to 2.5 hours of screen time, about the same as the main F1 programme on C4 and there's only 20 of them racing - how inefficient is that!

or issue points for qualifying.

They do, don't they?

I'm with P-jay I don't think the series need reinventing because of one rainy event. that's the nature of outdoor sports, suck it up. Fayolle's time was just as quick as Vergier's in Qualis, so he more than earned his podium anyway, and it's probs not going to effect the overall at the end of the year.

Yep points for qualifying exist. If you want to watch the top 10 men tune in at the right time or watch it on replay.

How much are you willing to pay to watch the 30 only race with all the cameras, commentary and rest?

Cutting numbers would be terrible for WC-DH, the depth of the field makes 'upsets' like yesterday possible someone winning from outside the top ten qualifiers and a start to the season that rubs against all expectations.

Weather and wear is part of racing and such "randomness" adds to the spectical IMO, who wants to watch the same names cruise into the same position each round without any real challenge...

You mean like in the women's race? 😉

The strength of your opinions seems to be inversely proportional to your knowledge of the sport TomW.

Do you just enjoy the attention?

MrPottatoHead - Member
Less riders but 2 runs and average the results.

That would be horrendous for viewing as split times would meaningless. Your only 2 run option would be fastest off first in run 1, then fastest last in run 2 with the times combined ala slalom skiing. However, the courses would would also have to be shorter to avoid big time gaps

It's a pretty amazing spectator sport as it is, tinkering too much with the format would be dangerous IMO.

The format is ok as it is, it just needs a couple more races adding.

Mind you, yesterday was a massive anticlimax.

^^Spot one

Mind you, yesterday was a massive anticlimax.

Nobody wants to reinvent the premiership after a miserable 0-0 in Hull

IMO, the more you try to interfere with stuff to try to make racing "fair" the worse it gets (see F1 for reference..... 😆 )

Changing conditions have made for some great DH races, and some you loose, some you win.

Weather and wear is part of racing and such "randomness" adds to the spectical IMO, who wants to watch the same names cruise into the same position each round without any real challenge...

Also, I think the other women are starting to catch up with Rachel, certainly a lot closer at Lourdes than they have been.

Seeing the top riders "mincing" down in the wet made me feel better about my attitude to slimy conditions too 😆

You mean like in the women's race?

Precisely. It's not done the women's racing any favours whatever justifications the UCI use.

The format is ok as it is, it just needs a couple more races adding.

And that...

Seems Gwin was disqualified for not rejoining the track where he bounced off it. That's a hard start to a season.

Seems like a tough decision, I'm not even sure he went totally out of the course did he? Just sort of stumbles over the post/tape at the top of that rocky jump... Other racers have had more lenient decisions for much bigger course deviation [cough]Rachel Atherton[/cough].

It was a pretty clear breach tbh. (though enforcement of the rule sometimes seems erratic, like atherton as you say which was ridiculous- IIRC it was clarified after that?) I thought it was pretty telling of his frame of mind, not a mistake he'd usually make but he just seemed to want to get it over by that point.

Are the overall points up anywhere? UCI still has last year's, I can't be bothered to work it all out

Northwind - this is where I found 'em: https://www.pinkbike.com/news/final-results-lourdes-dh-world-cup-2017.html

(edit) Times, not points.

The strength of your opinions seems to be inversely proportional to your knowledge of the sport TomW.

Do you just enjoy the attention?

Lol.

Loic's not a happy Bunny

[img] [/img]

Seems like a tough decision, I'm not even sure he went totally out of the course did he? Just sort of stumbles over the post/tape at the top of that rocky jump.

It didn't help that the marshalls lifted up the tape inviting him onto the course a little further from where he crashed out.

Aye, marshals helped a few riders, riders and marshals should know that's not on...

They probably do, but when you run up to a crash thinking you might have a casualty on your hands it's quite reflexive to help. Hart and Gwin's crash both definitely qualify for that...

The eyeopener for me was seeing the chainsaw team working on the track during practice, that's as sketchy as it gets.

Why didnt they just start the race an hour early to avoid the bad weather??

well, Loic seems to think it was because of the telly broadcast.

I don't know anything about live broadcasting but I don't imagine it's as easy as saying "let's just move it an hour earlier".

Apparently UCI rules preclude the race start time being moved.

It can just be cancelled in the event of bad weather.

Loic's getting a kicking for his comment.

Loic seems to have forgotten that without RedBull he wouldnt have a DH championship to actually ride in.

For the spectators the rain makes it more interesting. I think its great that the top guys all came 60th or worse.

Means the racing will be way closer now.

I think it was a bit cack myself, but it's just one of those things.

The keyboard warriors calling him a whiny bitch are probably not realising how motivated he is to get out there and prove himself this season. I'd be a bit frustated too.

chakaping - Member

Apparently UCI rules preclude the race start time being moved.

It can just be cancelled in the event of bad weather.

Stupid UCI!!! 😡

For me it doesn't matter if it was RB or the UCI.

The World Cup Series, like all professional sports runs on money - Redbull pony up a lot of money to MTB, for such a massive marketing machine with fingers in everything (they've got 2 F1 race teams for heavens sake) they give MTB a lot of prominence on their web site / online TV channel. They've been pushing the race for months, count downs running etc.

Plus it's not just the elite men, there's the women and the juniors all having their races shifted.

And they're supposed to shift all that forward, because it's forecast to rain 30-60 mins before the end of the Elite Men's Race in an area notorious for unpredictable weather.

I'm sure he's upset, but it's a MTFU form me, he gets to travel the world riding his bike for decent money, he shouldn't bite the hand that feeds him.

There was a World Cup series before red bull.

Youd read an unintelligible article by Steve Jones about it a month later.

Why would you wait for Dirt when Eurosport were covering the Grundigs?

I go back as far as the freecaster days myself, but I think my point sticks - someone has to promote and broadcast the thing if it's going to be worthwhile the teams and sponsors turning up to race and paying riders to ride.

But if top rides dont win races , people will stop watching .

If the season were 20 races long, it wouldn't be such a big deal to have one or 2 where the weather impacts the result. On such a short season you can see why the riders would be frustrated though.

Fortunately it seems to be pretty rare for weather to decide things. Over the last few seasons the course itself deteriorating has been a bigger problem and they've taken steps to improve that this year.

And in this race it will have very little impact on the overall, probably the biggest risk was crashing big.
There are 6 more races to go all most of the top guys went down in poor conditions. Time to move on.

I can understand why he would be annoyed, but by the time you've reached that level of riding you should realise that you just have to accept whatever the condition throw at you. If weather conditions were having a massive effect on every race then I would agree that something would need to change, but it doesn't.

A greater number of rounds would be good. It's a world cup that only has one race out of Europe. You could have a "best of" points system so then events like yesterday could be scrubbed for those riders who didn't score (or couldn't afford/make a race). You'd get a load of privateers or smaller teams who couldn't travel to South America, for example, but it would give a chance for South Americans who can't afford to get to a race in Europe.

TBH with gondola uplift it's a miracle they don't get more disruption... (I wonder if Lourdes could have run, if it were chair/gondola rather than a funi... Maybe they'd have just got all the riders up before the wind...)

cookeaa - Member

Seems like a tough decision, I'm not even sure he went totally out of the course did he? Just sort of stumbles over the post/tape at the top of that rocky jump...

Why didnt they just start the race an hour early to avoid the bad weather??

Alan Milway posted this on FB, interesting to see how the top 10 qualifiers compared (though it looked like the conditions maybe got a bit worse at the very end)...
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