[Closed] Why are female DH mtb peeps so much slower than the guys?

I think there just aren't anywhere near enough female DHers for there to be the strength and depth of talent/ability/bravery/fitness amongst the women to compare with the men. I think the men are forced to ride beyond themselves much more often from a much younger age, or they won't win, whilst a good young female DHer will win everything much more easily. I'm not saying they're not bloody quick, or that they don't try, they just don't have to get in the habit of riding at 100% to win races because they can still win at 95%.

I'd be interested to see how male and female downhill skiing times compare?

Leave the gaps for a moment, some of the top men are truly on a different level.
Results wise Rachel Atherton would have placed in the top 100 in all bar 1 rounds of the WC (other was 102)

It's muscle mass/strength and aerobic capacity.
Out the gate, a man can sprint faster than a woman.
When it comes to cornering, a man will be stronger which translates into more ability to carry corner speed, and for longer.

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will never beat Usain Bolt, Serena Williams would never beat Andy Murray - that kinda thing.

Long hair, wide hips and boobs are hardly aerodynamic are they duh

steveirwin

Long hair, wide hips and boobs are hardly aerodynamic are they duh

I'll burn in hell tonight no doubt, but that comment made me have a good chuckle!

6079smithw - Member

Serena Williams would never beat Andy Murray

Serena Williams could beat Andy Murray. Well, Andy Murray could beat Andy Murray while playing Serena Williams.

Obviously there's the physical, but this is also a massive numbers game. Boys are still more likely to get bikes as children and to ride them every day, still more likely to drag mum and dad down the park. This starts young, the pool of riders is just smaller

And then later on, boys/young men are more likely to have the immediate support network- when I wanted to go riding, I had mates who were into bikes. That's just statistically less likely, and so puts off even more, vicious cycles. Obviously girls can ride with boys, but all boys know talking to girls is gay so.

(this continues to apply into adulthood but obviously isn't as important for top end racing)

Basically it's easier for boys to drift into riding and find out they love it, and there's less reasons they're likely to drift or be pulled away. I could be wrong but I think there's more often a family connection with female riders than males- that's not backed up with numbers or anything, just my impression. Look at our top riders, you see bikey big brothers and bikey dads everywhere. Maybe that's also true of dudes, maybe I just notice it less, I dunno...

As mikewsmith says, the best female downhiller in the world is more or less a top 100 bloke, and there's a handful of women who can match her. But how many more keen mountain biker boys are there than girls? How much more likely are they to stick at it? Just looked at a recent SDA, there were 18 times more guys than girls. (though, the girl's youth turnout is much stronger, I think about 1/10. Maybe "the next Rachel" is more likely to stick at it than "the next Gee"? She'll have an easier ride to the top in some ways, it might be more encouraging being one of 10 girls racing for a 3 strong podium, than one of 50 boys...)

There's a ton of things like this. Women are less likely to be engineers; in large part it's because young girls are less likely to push hard at maths. By the time you start making life choices, it turns out, you've already made life choices. But also- girls are just plain less likely to choose that course once they get there. For completely obvious reasons...

True fact though- female riders are more likely to be cool than male riders. Something about that sifting process, the female dickheads seem to be deterred, the male dickheads thrive.

Yep, just a numbers thing. Male would pretty much always beat female in physical sport in a top male versus top women scenario but add in the pool of people and it gets even more likely.
In some sports that margin would be very small where female participation is large, pool of talent is therefore larger in other sports the margin would be large with DH MTB a good example.

Just look around you when cycling. From my observation I would guess around 99+% of the 'proper' cyclists I see when riding around (and I see quite a lot where I live) are male.

The sprinting thing shows how different dh is...top women are 10% slower than the men, top dh women are 20-25% slower?

And long hair, wide hips and boobs? Can't think of a single pro female downhiller with all 3!

And long hair, wide hips and boobs? Can't think of a single pro female downhiller with all 3!

Long hair, wide hips, big boobs, pick any two, eh? 🙂

I think it's more about the strength / physical make-up issue than the numbers, ie, girls don't ride as much.
While that may be true for the UK, it's certainly not over here on the French Swiss border, where I work.
The male to female ratio was much closer than I've ever seen at a UK event & at a recent MTB festival here in Basel, granted it had an XC bias, I was gob-smacked by the number of kids, teens & adults racing, as well as how seriously they took it. The amount of carbon frames, sidi shoes , spare wheel bags etc was mind-blowing, even for the youngsters.
As Brits we certainly have more than our fair share of top riders at the mo, I'm sure if more of the girls I see over here, on our group rides as well as riding in groups of their own, decided to pursue it into later life, then the gap would surely close somewhat, but probably never all the way, for the reasons given above.

Leave the gaps for a moment, some of the top men are truly on a different level.

A spirit level?

[img] [/img]

At the UK EWS this year T-Mo was top women but not in the top 100.

It must be a fitness/strength/something-else issue rather than bravery, as Equestrian Cross-Country shows them competitive with men and that is a seriously mental sport.

Their vaginas act as drogues.

Not really. Mostly just a numbers thing, they're might be a gap at the very top end due to relative physiques but with equal levels of participation i bet it'd be pretty marginal

Long hair, wide hips, big boobs, pick any two, eh?

I'm in the numbers camp. Forget for a moment the difference in time between men and women and look at the difference in time between 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. The gaps are far greater in the women's competition which suggests to me there aren't as many women competing to race at the top level.

It must be a fitness/strength/something-else issue rather than bravery, as Equestrian Cross-Country shows them competitive with men and that is a seriously mental sport.

Look at the relative numbers of teenage boy and girls riding horses!

Physical attributes, same as pretty much any other physical sport. I'd bet that a lot of the women are a skilled as the men, they just have different physiology.

It's a fitness / strength thing. Take the Athertons they are one of, if not the fittest downhillers out there, but Gee has way more power and strength than Rachel and that makes a massive difference

If it was solely a fitness/strength thing the women would place better vs the jrs.

b r - Member

At the UK EWS this year T-Mo was top women but not in the top 100.

Are you sure about that?

As with most things, there's rarely 1 answer, it's probably a combination of all of the above (well most of the above).

I personally think the time differences are a bit skewed. The WC courses seem to suit the men. I've watched every WC this year, every man they show is clearing jumps and doubles with relative ease. It's a fast smooth transition which costs them almost no time. When it comes to the Women they don't seem to be able to do it, I don't think it's speed because they look just as fast, and it's certainly not technique I can only assume it's power either-they have to take a different line or take a slight case and it knocks all their speed. Manon tried to go for one of the big ones in Ft. William and it didn't go well for her.

So they flying around the bends, blasting through the rock gardens to my untrained eye pretty much on par with the lads, but then they've got to either brake and roll or case some of the bigger jumps and then wait until they're back up to speed - I've guess on a track with smaller doubles they'd be much closer.

@jimjam- she would have been 101st in men's E1, I think 114th in the overall mens with the masters and youts included

Sponsors and levels of support at the top level must play a small part . I think it's a shame that some of the biggest bike companies like specialized trek and Scott don't sponsor a female downhiller

If it was solely a fitness/strength thing the women would place better vs the jrs.

Trek do sponsor Female downhillers. Steffi Marth for example.

Darwin must come into it. Men are basically expendable for the survival of the species and so generally better equipped physically and psychologically to do life-threatening activities.

Rubber Buccaneer - I would say the numbers thing is the wrong place to look.

There are two distributions, not one. A male one and a female one. Ignore the sample population for a moment. Each distribution will have a mean cluster and upper and lower tails.

That the current best female is in the upper quartile/decile/percentile of the men's distribution does not mean that if the sample of female riders increased dramatically that the standard deviation of the distribution of female rider times would widen sufficiently to bring substantial numbers of them into the fastest men times.

I think for many of us we recognise that it's usually lack of "balls"* that limits our own capabilities, but also we know when we are banging up against our physical limits (arm pump, lactic build, fighting against the G compression in the berm etc). And if we know that there are physical limits, then there are going to be unavoidable physiological performance differences between the sexes.

* in the sense of stupid risk taking

[i]Darwin must come into it. Men are basically expendable for the survival of the species and so generally better equipped physically and psychologically to do life-threatening activities. [/i]

think there ma be truth in that - I can't see any other factor keeping me out of the WC rankings. If I grew my hair as well, would things get better or worse ?

Ratboy would have won the world champs last year if only he'd shaved his head.

Stoner I agree the men will always be faster for physical and 'balls' reasons. I'm just suggesting that there so few women participating at every level that your stats don't mean much.

I'd bet that a lot of the women are a skilled as the men

I would disagree

I think it's a shame that some of the biggest bike companies like specialized trek and Scott don't sponsor a female downhiller

Where would they find them? I don't think there's any barrier but the up and coming riders aren't there. Every manufacturer in the world would be falling over themselves to sign the DH equivalent of Emily Batty. Then Porsche would throw a car at her.

Men are basically expendable for the survival of the species and so generally better equipped physically and psychologically to do life-threatening activities.

This^ Men spend their whole lives arsing around with toys and vehicles or musical instruments. Some of them will get really, very good at it and someone has to be on top.

As for the numbers argument, when I ride with my girlfriend (now my main riding partner) it's a 50/50 split male and female. But, I can wheelie and skid and bunnyhop and hit all the drops and jumps and she can't. It's because I wasted my youth riding bikes every day and she's the one with the proper job.

You just don't see girls 'playing' on bikes which is what it takes to get really good at it. For the fastest girls in the world it's a sport and it only takes place on a race track. For the men it's a lifetime of BMX and motorcross and dirt jumping and macho one-upmanship. That's what puts the blokes on another level. They're putting their life on the line to win a bike race.

you could say the sample size is small. And yes, increasing the sample size [i]will[/i] nudge more female results into the upper x-ile of the men's results, but small sample size will never explain the differences in the distributions, only the reasons for a narrow/wide/skewed shape in the female distribution,

I would disagree

You just don't see girls 'playing' on bikes which is what it takes to get really good at it.

Fair enough, but I'd be interested in how/why.

Did you not read the rest of my post? The young women aren't there at the dirt jumps or the MX track or digging gnarly trails in the woods and trying to beat their mates down them with nothing at stake but bragging rights.

Rachael Atherton?

The only properly fast woman on a bike in the entire world? Who, if she did a carbon copy of her worlds run but, as a man, you wouldn't even know his name.

I'm only cogitating, I'm not a scientist.

Who, if she did a carbon copy of her worlds run but, as a man, you wouldn't even know his name.

You just don't see girls 'playing' on bikes which is what it takes to get really good at it.

Apart from the fact that some of the top women did exactly that e.g. Anne-Caroline Chausson or Manon Carpenter. Yet they are still a way off the top men's performance.

I think the point about course design is interesting as the jumps etc are all setup for men, and women really struggle to do the bigger ones. Which I assume is a strength, power and weight thing, as this problem is also similar in snow boarding and the like.

Their vaginas act as drogues.

If I had a mouthful of coffee it would've been ejected with force.

I think it's just a different mentality. For the women it's a sport and they'll train (pedal a road or XC bike) and hit the gym and get super fit but for men it's a lifestyle. And having mad skills and better ability on your bike equals status. There's loads of well known male riders who don't race world cups. We like having them around because they go huge and look amazing.

I don't know if you follow any riders on Instagram but with the men it's none stop. It's day in day out riding. Riding with your mates means arsing around. Jumps and drops and 'style'. You just never see the women having any fun on their bikes.

I'll digress a bit here because I didn't spend my youth racing downhill,

I used to ride street on a BMX with some of the best riders in the country (I don't include myself in that statement) and we used to travel all over the country and sleep on floors and eat burgers and chips and be total dirtbags. We used to go above and beyond to find spots so you'd explore the darkest, dirtiest areas of urban decay and them some idiot would throw themselves off a roof or down a handrail, in the middle of nowhere on a carpet of broken glass.

I've seen horrific injuries. Because people are obsessed with nailing a trick or a line that only a handful of people will ever know about and they'll put their health on the line to do it. And guess what, we had no female participants in our crew.

I'm not saying women couldn't learn this stuff. But it's dumb and typically male and superfluous to results.

In athletics, the rule of thumb is that female performance for an equally talented and fit athlete would be 11% slower than the equivalent male runner.

I suppose in pure "power" terms, a female runner is going both slower and has less mass, so her running "power"output would be even lower than 11% deficit (perhaps assume 20% - 11% slower and 10% lighter?)

At the top of a DH track, a woman clearly has less "potential energy" if her mass is less than that of a male rider, so even if she rolled it down with zero pedalling, she'd be slower (assuming identical lines taken etc). Add that to the fact that the power output should follow the model above, and I think you've got the answer.

Interesting table on female cycling power outputs here:-
http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=13750

At the top of a DH track, a woman clearly has less "potential energy" if her mass is less than that of a male rider, so even if she rolled it down with zero pedalling, she'd be slower

ahem
[img] [/img]

(allowing for boobs, natch)

Factor in Aaron Gwin's famous no chain win. So leg power is out

I think its more to do with upper body strength, mass & air resistance...

Don't even mention Courage (as a difference), those girls (and Guys) are bloody awesome

because she's mentally programmed not to take as many risks?

Combined with a deficit in absolute strength riding the same course

sharkattack - Member

You just never see the women having any fun on their bikes.

You might not see it, but it's pretty nonstop if you're looking in the right places. I think possibly you need to look harder though, for the wimmin.

Testosterone is a hell of a drug.

samunkim

Factor in Aaron Gwin's famous no chain win. So leg power is out

I think its more to do with upper body strength, mass & air resistance...

Hmmmm. It's a bit of an anomaly though. Three other people who could/should/would have beaten his time had issues in their run. And also you can't really just discount leg power as I'm sure he was pumping every contour and working his bike like crazy using every muscle in his body including his legs.

Factor in Aaron Gwin's famous no chain win. So leg power is out

For those commenting on physical strength. Looking at the current top women DHers they look a pretty lightweight build.

I'm sure if physical strength was holding them back this could be built up.

Look at a professional female swimmer or professional female track cyclist. They're an absolute powerhouse of muscle which would make ratboy look like a ratgirl.

Back in the day (fields etc) I'm sure I read that Anne-Caro used to take the fastest blokes time in practice and add 30s to it as her target race time, which she invariably hit.

Not exactly bothering the boys for a podium, but better than the current crop.

Girls need to MTFU?

Same question could be asked as to why there's no known Female, F1 or Rally drivers... what about bobsleigh... none of these are as physical as ripping a bike down a hill.

smatkins1 - Member

For those commenting on physical strength. Looking at the current top women DHers they look a pretty lightweight build.

I'm sure if physical strength was holding them back this could be built up.

Look at a professional female swimmer or professional female track cyclist. They're an absolute powerhouse of muscle which would make ratboy look like a ratgirl.

They probably don't have the funding or access to the same drugs.

Stoner, stoner, stoner...

You're a big chap (IIRC 😉 ). You must have noticed that big guys tend to roll DH faster than smaller ones. Wind resistance innit....

Not to mention that bigger riders tend to cope with bumps/etc better than smaller ones

Men are physically more capable than women, surely that is not in doubt, so for whatever sport men are always going to out perform women.

I guess the question is if the difference in performance gap is greater than the average for all sports, then it would have to be something to do with the talent coming through.

Its hard enough getting women in to sport, making girls to take up DH biking over other sports is never going to be easy. Who is to say that the current crop of girls doing DH mtb is anything like the best physical women to be doing it?

I wonder if taking a similar approach to bobsleigh would work for DH? Find some gifted teenage athletes who aren't quite world class at heptathlon, 400m, etc, then throw them down a gnarly track and see who enjoys it and has some talent. Then develop them from there. Even if female DHers are as skilled as the men the selection pool still isn't big enough to get the great athletes or the complete mentalists who'll put their life on the line for the win.

I know footballers get paid way too much etc etc but one thing you can't doubt is that the best footballers in the world really are the best they can be, because everyone gets to try football. If you're good then you'll make a career of it because there is such easy access and a ton of money as an incentive. Compare that to F1 - tons of money but only 20 jobs and hardly anyone gets to try it.

I took sharkattack's comment to mean the sort of "[url=

]" this woman has on her bike.

I totally agree with him but wouldn't really expect most of STW to get it. There's only ONE girl on the WC circuit who has any style at all. The rest (the top 3 included) look ****ing awful in the air. like they're scared rather than having any sort of fun with it.

There's only ONE girl on the WC circuit who has any style at all

Casey Browntown? History of chasing her brothers on MX bikes around Canadian dirt roads. Nice childhood if you can get it.

like they're scared rather than having any sort of fun with it.

Yep. Hanging on for grim death.

I think all the attempts at maths and science in this thread is missing the point. You need some kind of evolutionary psychologist. Downhill is fekking dangerous and young men are rabid for stuff like that.

WTF? Since when did doing a big whip in a downhill equate to times and winning? And you appear to be suggesting that Rachel, Mannon etc. don't have fun doing their profession?

If the jumps are designed for men and their speed and power which they are carrying into them, then of course the women will be stretched and struggling.

maybe they need a wimminz take off further back like in golf.

Downhill is fekking dangerous and young men are rabid for stuff like that

I wasn't. Plenty of other blokes aren't. Just like plenty of girl/women don't fit your narrow stereotype. While there could be some truth in it as an average statement (for many reasons, many cultural), it's the outliers who are the top performers by definition so I don't particularly hold that the top male DHers are fundamentally more daring/brave/whatever than the top female ones.

I'd argue that a smaller pool in women's DH leads to slower progress - competition pushes people forward and more competitors at a similar level produces more competition. It doesn't particularly show that the women are fundamentally less good.

Oh and don't underestimate just how much less power female athletes have than male ones in power sports (which DH would be classified as given the approx 5 minute race times) which makes a difference out of most corners and the ability to deal with big hits.

It'd be interesting to compare GPS traces on the men and women's winners at DH competitions to see where the differences are.

Since when did doing a big whip in a downhill equate to times and winning?

It doesn't but it does show a level of ability that none of the women have.

narrow stereotype

Go visit a skatepark, MX track, dirt jumps, football pitch, sketchy tyre on a rope death swing. Tell me why there are no girls there learning how to do pointless, death defying skills.

I already stated that 😉 You're seeing the average, the norm, the trend. If you go to enough skateparks, MX tracks, etc, you will find the exceptions. Some of them will be very good. They are the outliers.

Mostly just a numbers thing,

You're seeing the average, the norm, the trend

Which is what plays out on the world cup circuit.

you will find the exceptions

Yes. In the tiny amount of female participants.

EDIT:

Since when did doing a big whip in a downhill equate to times and winning?

And another thing!
These are the skills that you learn by riding your bike day in day out. Skills that will let you turn the roughest section of a DH track into a massive gap jump that only the most skilled riders can hit.

You might think that 'playing' on a bike doesn't equal results but if you can send a massive gap, hold a two wheel drift, manual and pump properly, you're going to drop the average rider.

sooo do we have any (physical) sports where women outnumber the blokes and also lead outright

[img] [/img]

Sharattack - You are bordering on coming across as being a sexist stereo type, but I think I actually get where you are coming from.

Again its the fact that men are more predesposed to the taking risk/danger thing, from cave man days. However for anyone who is happy doing a 'dangerous' sport to elite level, when they look at a course it wont be scary at all, it will be a challenge/exciting certainly in no way scary.

I have to disagree that women are generaly less skilled. In my sport (skiing) the women are nearly always technically better than the men, as they can not just use brute force and power to get a result.

Which is what plays out on the world cup circuit.

Exactly my point. But it doesn't prove anything about the fundamental capability of 'women', just about how the current scene is compared to the men. I'll bet if you suddenly cloned the top 10 women's DHers 5 times each (and threw in ACC for good measure), you'd see a dramatic progression of their relative pace to the men towards a limit where the physical differences (power) lie.

Sharattack - You are bordering on coming across as being a sexist stereo type, but I think I actually get where you are coming from.

Well that's the downside of black and white text on a forum.

I've actually guided and coached women around my local trail centre. I mostly ride with my girlfriend now and we've talked about this at length.

The women I know come to cycling much later in life. Much like some of the male IT bods on STW. It's not a lifelong obsession like it has been for the professionals and they lack the basic foundation of skills that they would have gained from a childhood of pushing the limits on a bike.

I started riding at about age 5 and never stopped. But my girlfriend spent her childhood watching Disney films and being in her words "a girly girl". She can and does make it down Alpine DH runs but there's no drifting or gap jumping or any of the stuff that would take huge chunks of time out of a race run.

EDIT:

But it doesn't prove anything about the fundamental capability of 'women',

Can I just point out that I've never said anything about 'fundamental capabilities'! That would be a bit strong. I'm just saying, it's a lifestyle thing. There's about a hundred times more men breaking themselves to beat the clock and their mates or whatever standard they set for themselves. Obviously the talent will rise to the top of the game. The numbers of really early starters just aren't there for the women.

Because for the top women to match the times of even the top 30 men would require them to double their power output.

In terms of VO2 max I imagine the women (unless genetic freaks) are giving away huge amounts of oxygen take-up to even the reasonably trained men, as it's measured as ml/m/[u]KG[/u]. In short the likes of Gwin and Gee are running at much less approaching their max output, than an women [i]trying to match him[/i] obviously in their own races they would be at similar output. They simply don't have the power output to match the men's times .

And if your thinking, nah it's not about aerobic capacity, just listen to how hard ALL of them are breathing at the end of the track.

EDIT. It's like a well tuned 1.6 straight 4 engine trying to out perform a well tuned 3.0 V8, ain't ever gonna happen

Combine that with the cumulative toll of all the jumps, and hitting the front rather than rolling the downsides, and the seconds soon mount up.

I wonder how good Shanaze Reade would be at DH. She's got power to leave everyone for dead (track sprint champion), and the skills to send the massive gaps (multiple BMX world champ). Maybe it would just be her cornering she needs to work on 😆 .

Stoner - yes, if they were travelling in a vacuum towards the earth, then they would travel at the same speed. But mass (inertia?) overcoming resistance in the form of all the friction forces etc that a rider will encounter descending a non-vertical surface is important. And the potential energy stored by an object at a given height is higher for a heavier object.

Roll a pingpong ball down a slope against a squash ball or similar. Which gets to the bottom first?

Well, she couldn't beat ACC at the Olympics... 😉

She'd be at the same place that the current crop of women. It's not like they're not trying, it's just that the physiological jump to be near a well trained male athelte would take impossible amounts of improvment in power output

Well, she couldn't beat ACC at the Olympics...

It's not purely about strength, it's about muscle composition that determines the the stregth to weight ratio. If you take the average man and the average woman, strip them of all fat, bulk them up to 100kg, the man will still be stronger. Every way you cut that the man wins the race, the woman either has to get heavier to match on strength or is weaker.

The 10-11% difference in athletic ability at endurance sports is going to be a factor, stronger aerobic system allows more oxygen per unit of muscle, enables more work to be done, lets the men 'sprint' faster for longer. I put sprint in inverted commas because most of the run will be aerobic rather than anaerobic effort. The men have better anaerobic ability in the muscle composition too though.

Evolutionary history means that the average man has better reactions, better vision and better ability to make quick decisions that mean they react to the course better and carry more speed.

I think a large amount of the difference is likely to be caused by the fact that when riding bikes down a hill, the faster you go the easier it gets to a large extend. Bikes just get exponentially faster as ability increases because they roll over obstacles better; once you've lost speed over a rock garden it's hard to get it back. but the men were so fast they jumped most of the rock garden anyway, so didn't slow at all. There's a compounding effect.

[i]Evolutionary history means that the average man has better reactions, better vision and better ability to make quick decisions[/i]

With respect, this is utter bollards.

I'm also suspicious of your claim that muscle composition varies significantly between the sexes. I think over a population if you stripped away all fat and made the whole; 100kg, you'd have not a massive amount of difference.

I think that whilst there might be an element of not quite powerful enough to hit the same gaps as the guys and therefore compounding loss of speed over multiple obstacle, it's probably the level everyone is aiming at due to the smaller numbers of women coming through the sport from the grass roots.
Having a field of 10 doesn't really encourage women to do the sport - it gives them less feedback. If you're in a field of 10 you have a better chance to podium, but your result is a lot more down to other individuals having a bad/good day. In a field of 50 your position is far more down to you having a good or bad day, and the majority of riders accept that they won't often podium.

Sharattack - You are bordering on coming across as being a sexist stereo type, but I think I actually get where you are coming from.

Again its the fact that men are more predesposed to the taking risk/danger thing, from cave man days.

I wonder if there's any real evidence of this? It's certainly not a result of evolution - in many species the females do the hunting, and in many human societies it's been the women who do the bulk of the physical work. (How often do you hear of the women heading off to collect water or pound grain or whatever while the men bravely defend the flocks ie laze around all day 😉 )

I have a feeling that assuming the men are more predisposed to danger is a relatively modern thing. Blame the Victorians. 😆

Interesting question I guess.
But. Does it matter ?
It's not as though there aren't separate men's and women's events anyway .
I'm in awe either way, of those with the balls (?) , skill and fitness , who compete at this level, regardless of their sex.

Again its the fact that men are more predesposed to the taking risk/danger thing, from cave man days.

Unless you're referring to a different species of archaic human, then from 200,000ya, "cave men" are identical in evolutionary terms to modern humans.

Quite a few people on here talking about muscle mass and size of men v women. Does that mean that bigger riders tend to win DH? How tall are the current riders? Are there any small, skinny men who regularly win?