In a leaked document titled '2025 MTB Reform, Evolution of Mountain Bike Racing', the UCI and Warner Brothers Discovery (WBD) set out proposed changes ...
By stwhannah
Get the full story here:
https://singletrackmag.com/2024/09/leaked-document-reveals-mtb-world-cup-plans-for-2025/
OMG every single round in France!
Leaked document and no mention of taking away their bus passes
JFC. Another Project 2025? Is there some sort of tombola prize for this nonsense? Thanks for bringing this to wider attention, STW peeps. Good reporting.
Friday-night-just-got-back-from-local-cricket-prizegiving-grade(tm) analysis:
1)Way to turn the faffing sport into some sort of full-kit-w**ker F1-style dorkfest - unless, of course, this is some sort of intentional leak to soften the blow of something a bit less clipboardy and blazery. I feel sorry for the riders, mechanics, support staff and teams, mildly impressed for all the companies selling baseball caps, unimaginative open mould bikes and replica kit.
2) Two effing hours for a podcast? Life's too short. Can we not just have the article(s) to read? That's a quarter of my day. Seriously. I used to top out at 20 minutes per episode with the ones I ran - as a courtesy to my poor bloody listeners.
3) My bikes are 130mm travel. Can I ride my bike now, or do I need to set them all on fire and sit on a sofa?
4) There's a thread on the forum about how, because no-one on the forum apparently watches DH, we must all hate it. I think there's a ton of fatigue post-Red Bull, and a huge split between actual participation and passive viewing. I doubt I'll ever buy a Discovery Channel sub, but I'll sure as hell buy another bike.
5) Can we see the full document without it compromising the source?
I don’t see where the emphasis on a small number of teams comes from. The proposal is for 40 of them with between 3 and 10 riders plus the other ways to enter sounds like a lot of riders being able to compete.
The continental series are the critical part the plan to give privateers a route into the elite and get places on the world teams in a relatively affordable series, especially if the world cups go more global
The proposal is for 40 of them with between 3 and 10 riders plus the other ways to enter sounds like a lot of riders being able to compete.
That's 40 over 4 disciplines, but not really as the '15' will all likely be mixed discipline big teams. Trek, Spec etc. They've left 5 places for others across DH and Enduro, and 5 XC and SC. The reality is it will be less than 30 teams across all mtb disciplines.
Some people might think that's enough, but I think part of the appeal of dh Vs other big sports has always been it's open nature. If you're good enough as a racer you can race. Now if you're good enough you'll still have to find a place on one of 20-30 teams. Sure there's other ways to get an entry, but without a team backing you every round, for most it's just lip service, and given ews history of sponsor blackouts for racers that don't ride for a team that paid the team tax, I expect they'd think it fine to extend that into the other disciplines meaning if you're sponsored by someone outside the top teams you should expect almost zero coverage, no matter how well you do.
Cant see it mentioned in this article but Wideopenmag has a provisional schedule. If it's true they're running 14 DH races next year!
It’s problematic writing from a leak when you don’t know what its status is. Did the intern write to keep them busy or has a full UCI committee endorsed it?
Having to be in a team would mean no Candice Lille in the XC this year. That’s shooting themselves in the foot as she’s been on podiums and generates a good chunk of the interest
I do have a Discovery plus subscription. I watch the xc but not much downhill. I found the downhill confusing after the changes
Hard to interpret what the team changes mean at the lower level but I'm assuming this spells the end for an Adam Brayton type rider?
I really hope the suspension travel thing is just a guideline. The last thing mountain bike racing needs is the UCI's input (in the form of mandatory rules) on how bikes should be designed.
Hard to interpret what the team changes mean at the lower level but I’m assuming this spells the end for an Adam Brayton type rider?
In the top flight, yes. However if the changes are properly implemented, he’d have a chance of racing the continental series and potentially be at the sharp end.
I’m typing the following as someone who has finished in the bottom 5% of every race I’ve ever entered. We need to thin the field. Adam is a talented rider but with all due respect, doesn’t have what it takes to win a World Cup event. He’s raced year on year with the sole goal of qualifying. The World Cup needs to be filled with genuine contenders. All other professional sports have a tiered series and mtb is lacking this. We need the feeder series to give young riders time to mature and let the real talents come through. It does have the downside of losing the out of nowhere runs, such as Ronan Dunne’s meteoric rise but with the right continental series riders like him would still get their shot at the big time.
I think we’d all like more races, but with the current fields, the number of venues with infrastructure needed to accommodate everyone is very limited. Smaller fields would allow different places to host races that just wouldn’t be possible at the moment. We also need to make it a true World Series. Heading to the southern hemisphere cost a huge amount, but a smaller number of better funded big teams would mean this would be possible. Privateer’s could race their nearest continental series and keep costs down. If they are good enough, they’ll get picked up by a big team and move up. Unfortunately this all rests on series that don’t even exist yet. I can see a lot of pain and complaints in the short term and some riders may well fall between the cracks.
The XC travel has got longer as the courses have became more extreme makes no sense to limit travel to 100mm.
Totally agree about Candice Lill, she’s had a great season this year.
It all really depends what the brief was doesn't it, if WDB/UCI told whoever drafted it that they wanted to drive more elitism and cost into the sport, whilst making things easier to package for broadcast then many of those proposals would work quite well.
The idea of 'wildcard' teams/riders being picked based on Social media profile is an interesting one, clearly they've taken note of how the Lifetime Grand Prix operates.
The tech regs setting travel limits are interesting, not necessarily an issue (I do note the image is headed "Sport and Product alignment"), but I wonder how that would affect national and regional series if it's cascaded down, I for example happen to own a bike that doesn't sit in any of those travel brackets, not that I would trouble the podium, but I can't see it helping uptake if implemented further down the competitive tree.
Ultimately you have to wonder how it's all going to shake out once there's a shift in WBD management and they drop cycling and meddling with the UCI (as they inevitably will)...
We need to thin the field. Adam is a talented rider but with all due respect, doesn’t have what it takes to win a World Cup event.
While that is true, the sport has always had high profile riders that were never going to win a race series, yet their media presence was more than just winning races. A perfect example is Brendan Fairclough. A huge inspiration to kids and adults, yet as a racer. Only ever managed 3 podiums in his career, never finishing higher than 3rd, qualified outside the proposed top 30 a lot. A similar story for Brook MacDonald, Mark Wallace, Ben Cathro etc
Funnily enough, looking at Chris Ball's race history, of the 26 world cups he raced, he only scraped into the top 30 qualifiers once.
This is a sport that's more than just about race glory
Shaun Palmer is etched in the history of MTB racing, yet his actual race results aren't the stuff of legend, it was his image and attitude that made him what he was.
With these proposed changes, the characters that, for me at least, are the most interesting, will potentially be lost
@boardinbob qualification was top 80 when Chris ball was racing.
@brucewee this is nothing to do with the uci. It’s Warner brothers.
qualification was top 80 when Chris ball was racing.
I know that, I'm pointing out that the sport is more than just the top 30 riders
@brucewee this is nothing to do with the uci. It’s Warner brothers.
Did you read the article?
If there are going to be technical rules governing how mountain bikes are designed it'll come from the UCI.
The travel stuff just seems... deranged? That's just something that doesn't need regulated whatsoever. What's the benefit supposed to be? Just let the riding dictate the bikes and let people ride what works.
The travel stuff just seems… deranged? That’s just something that doesn’t need regulated whatsoever. What’s the benefit supposed to be? Just let the riding dictate the bikes and let people ride what works.
Definitely , I can't see who this benefits. I would of thought the industry wouldn't be to happy either , the specialized Enduro would have too much travel to be ridden in an Enduro .
It seems to assume that teams will be able to find the budget to do all this as well . My understanding was the reason the Enduro season was all in Europe this year was at the request of the teams in order to keep costs down and I'd be surprised if a year later their budgets have grown much .
The travel thing sort of makes sense if it is the UCI as they don't want advantages that can be exploited. They are about the rider being the best and the bikes being very similar to not give an advantage.
They are about the rider being the best and the bikes being very similar to not give an advantage.
I'd disagree with that. The road bikes you see on TV look the way they do because the UCI wrote the rules so that bikes still look like bikes and not Chris Boardman's Lotus.
Travel would be such an arbitrary thing to police. More travel comes with compromises and doesn't always mean advantages. If it did then all Enduro privateers would be riding modified Nicolai G1s with 210mm travel at each end.
I really hope this is just a guideline for track designers that has been badly worded.
Wideopenmag has a provisional schedule. If it’s true they’re running 14 DH races next year!
Sure I've read that every round of the DH and Enduro world cups will be in Europe
Having more travel doesn’t always mean better, some rounds are won on hardtails in the xc, varies on the course they are racing on to what some riders choose.
I really hope this is just a guideline for track designers that has been badly worded.
It reads more like a brief presentation of the bikes used in each discipline, for the benefit of somebody totally alien to the sport, but written five years ago.
Sure I’ve read that every round of the DH and Enduro world cups will be in Europe
That's certainly what that WideOpenMag article (fixed link) suggests - all rounds of all disciplines bar the first 2 XCO in Europe. Pinkbike comments will be frothing!
What’s the benefit supposed to be?
Sell more bikes. The peadable dh bikes that some of the riders are using won’t be bought by many. A boat full of 150 ish travel bikes with good geo will sell well. The purpose of racing is to sell more bikes
Sell more bikes. The peadable dh bikes that some of the riders are using won’t be bought by many. A boat full of 150 ish travel bikes with good geo will sell well. The purpose of racing is to sell more bikes
for enduro I can see the logic (although I’d rather the courses changed to favour the smaller bikes rather than a blunt rule)
but making xc 100mm (or any other equipment rule) is going to undo everything great that has happened to XC over the past 5+ years.
I got as far as
There’s a clear expectation that DH will be ‘3 minutes of racing’. We already saw the Fort William track being sped up and straightened out to reduce the race times – will long courses like it be a thing of the past?
before my forehead hit the table.
Has Fort William really been "sped up" in that way? I mean, there's a bunch of changes on the track that do make it faster but mostly they're totally logical and in keeping with the track improvements that have been happening for years. Like, the big doon is far faster than the old line through the woods onto the road but not just to be faster. The section down to the river gap is straighter and faster but when the hoofer was first built the line into it was frankly bizarre, just slow and awkward, and some of the new options in the woods are slower than the classic lines (but more durable/less weather destroyable, for obvious reasons)
It seems to me that only the last bit above teh woods really feels like it's been "straightened out" in this way but even that is largely about trail lifecycle things, it's fresher than the old line so it's smoother but in 5 years time it'll be just as haggard. T
Two effing hours for a podcast? Life’s too short. Can we not just have the article(s) to read? That’s a quarter of my day. Seriously. I used to top out at 20 minutes per episode with the ones I ran – as a courtesy to my poor bloody listeners.
Whateveer happened to brevity being the soul of wit?
Lots of interesting points and lots of things to take into the future thoughts. I really do hope they still keep the sport open to the general riders, but i can sort of see why they won't.. However this sadens me.
I Listened to the Chris Ball podcast the other week.
I could see where he was coming from on some of the issues with overall number of riders etc, 400 riders each for the DH & XC at Les Gets is an insane number.
But, what they don't want to do is make it too small, agree with the above about some of the personalities who aren't regular podium or even top 30 contenders - all sports need personalities that people can relate too.
No mention of the increased entry fees in that document though?
The Lou Ferguson interview sheds a bit of light on the fact that the teams don't even know what's going on, and that thing will be different for Elite teams and Non-Elite Teams.
All a bit of a mess really, you'd have thought that they'd have sorted this in time for teams/riders to know where they stand for next year.
Hoping that they keep Fort William (no way you could get that to a 3 minute course) - perhaps they could do what F1 does with Monaco and others for Historic purposes they're kept on the calendar.
Thanks for posting this STW. The pod was a really interesting listen, great work George & co.
In that article, am I right in thinking you've posted the WB graphics with your own copy in between?
I can't see a link to the actual doc anywhere? Did I miss it?
Looks like a mix of positive measures, things I could grudgingly accept and a good dose of bollocks as well. Particularly the little descriptions under each discipline on that graphic.
My interpretation, from listening to the pod, was that these are WB's proposals to the UCI. Who may knock some of them back. Especially if this leak goes down like a cup of cold sick.
I think the suspension thing is likely to be part of a simpletons guide aimed at explaining the difference to higher ups within WBD rather than a proposed rule.
As for creating the "Continental Series", Chris Ball recently said that's not his responsibility and he's only concerned with the World Series, effectively passing the buck when it all goes wrong. So he's expecting others to pick up the bill for both the rider development and event management that he can then sell once they become "Elite".
As for Fort William, it's done and not happening next year according to locals in the know. Not only was the course sped up this year, but the Start and Finish lines were moved to cut the length as well.
As for Fort William, it’s done and not happening next year according to locals in the know.
That IMO is just a complete sodding disaster for the sport. Both as a whole and in terms of UK... Just a complete shit-show that
By the way, am I the only one who can't find the podcast?
We took the podcast down at George's request because there's a bit he wants to edit, but he's been away racing all weekend (he missed the track walk and Friday evening race prep rushing this podcast through for us!). It'll be back up as soon as we get the new file from him.
And I haven't shared the full document, because if I did that, then everyone could write a story about it, couldn't they?! Then it wouldn't be a scoop - I figured folks can go find their own secret sauces 🙂 For now, that seems to be working - I haven't seen another site post anything about it.
Travel would be such an arbitrary thing to police.
I don't think they are. The wider plan for the UCI and Warner is to bring mountain bike racing to a wider audience, who probably don't know the XC/Enduro/DH riders are on different bikes, or what the differences are and why. I can see them setting out categories (like weight classes in combat sports) to give folks who're new to it all a ready reckoner to the sport they find themselves watching.
I don’t think they are. The wider plan for the UCI and Warner is to bring mountain bike racing to a wider audience, who probably don’t know the XC/Enduro/DH riders are on different bikes, or what the differences are and why. I can see them setting out categories (like weight classes in combat sports) to give folks who’re new to it all a ready reckoner to the sport they find themselves watching.
The trouble with that is that instead of getting bikes that are designed for us punters to ride we get bikes that are primarily designed to meet the requirements of eligibility for racing.
Even if 99.99% of these bikes will never go anywhere near a race course, they'll still all have to be built for these arbitrary specs.
See every road bike ever.
As for Fort William, it’s done and not happening next year according to locals in the know.
I'd be surprised if it is done. The first DH race in the leaked schedule is in the same weekend as last year's race at Fort William. It's early in the year so the risk of snow at proper high altitude resorts is very real.
The trouble with that is that instead of getting bikes that are designed for us punters to ride we get bikes that are primarily designed to meet the requirements of eligibility for racing.
Yeah I guess if you read that information as if its a specification (and it is entitled product spec, so fair enough) To me it reads like a guide to explain mountain bike racing to a punter.
Re-edited podcast should now be avialble in the usual places
Screen shots of the document now added to the end of the story, so you can read it for yourselves!
To me they have just completely complicated the **** out of it. Totally confused what they are trying to achieve
@stwhannah some of those pages - especially team entry requirements - make my brain hurt!
So there are:
Elite teams who have an entry for the season
Wild Card teams - who qualify based on points, athlete profiles and other criteria
Invited teams to each round - scored similar to wild Card
That makes no sense what so ever......
So no individual rider entries or have I missed that?
Sure I’ve read that every round of the DH and Enduro world cups will be in Europe
Updating my previous post on this.. looks like the WOM list was missing page 2 of the (draft) calendar which adds a further 4 stops (3 of which are indicated as outside Europe) - which I think makes a total of 14 World Cup DH races.
Hey guys, quick explanation as to why we took the pod down for a bit...
I want to give everyone on the pod a platform to speak candidly. With this episode we were up against it, we only recorded on Friday morning & I knew Singletrack were publishing on Friday evening, so we rushed it out & Jack, Emilie & Joe didn’t get a chance to listen back to it until it was live. On reflection there were a couple of bits where people wished they’d phrased things differently. I was racing at the time in a field in Wales & didn’t have the files with me to re-edit (or any decent internet) so Hannah (at my request) took it down for a bit, but I can confirm there were no big revelations removed.
Thanks for the positive comments on this one, really glad everyone seems to be enjoying it. The Vali episode drops on Thursday…
To me they have just completely complicated the **** out of it. Totally confused what they are trying to achieve
Completely disagree. You might not like what they are looking to do, but this document at least clearly sets out a direction for things. Teams can get on board with it or make a proper decision to sack it off.
Teams thing aligns with other UCI events, particularly road. Teams numbers limits riders which allows them to be more focussed over a weekend, maybe more practice time, cover qualis more effectively.
Bike types for category sets course design expectations.
DH course length of 3 mins should allow top to bottom coverage for each rider in finals.
IF it works it makes a product that is more marketable outside the mtb industry which is probably necessary for sustainability (given the bike industry is on its arse) and to allow the top end riders to make a sensible living. If is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence but it is a position that can be debated rather than a mire of rumours that we've had up to now.
I know nish about DH/Enduro but Pidcock when designing that Pinarello limited it to 100mm and said thats all you need for these XC course. Didn't one of the female XC racers comment on how this is idea of the course being more technical was overhyped ?
So no individual rider entries or have I missed that?
When did an individual rider with no team affiliations, whether factory team or non factory team, last feature in the top 30 in DH men’s or Ladies?
what are the real world probability of an individual not being on a team who is good enough to stand a credible chance of making the final for a whole series. Don’t forget you could have a team of 1 or 2 riders as per ineos
So no individual rider entries or have I missed that?
Certainly is in Juniors. Riders ranked within the top 100 in UCI ranking are allowed. How to score the points for that, well that's a whole new kettle of worms to open right there. Obviously riders ranked this season i expect will take some sort of points through to next, but the Youth riders coming up into it, i don't know what events yet they'll enter to score the associated points.
It'll be interesting to see how they work that one out for the first year juniors, as none will have any UCI points or ranking to speak of. Our young aspiring rider is already making plans for a weekend in May, but she'll need to get the invite to wear one of those four national jerseys in order to be on the start list.
It’ll be interesting to see how they work that one out for the first year juniors, as none will have any UCI points or ranking to speak of. Our young aspiring rider is already making plans for a weekend in May, but she’ll need to get the invite to wear one of those four national jerseys in order to be on the start list
https://ucimtbworldseries.com/rankings/series/uci-dhi-world-cup/2024
Looking at the juniors list they've only got their points from racing WCs, so if you can't enter, then you can't have points. I can only assume that this will happen at some stage in some way, but like yourself i simply don't know.
Mine isn't at the place where he'll get a National Jersey, there's too many riders ahead of him for those. But we'l keep pushing, trying and working towards it. 🙂
When did an individual rider with no team affiliations, whether factory team or non factory team, last feature in the top 30 in DH men’s or Ladies?
In every race this season? Thibault Daprela, Kirk McDowell, Stefano Introzzi, Loris Revelli and Douglas Viera have all had one or more top 30 finals finish.
Exceptions to the rule, maybe.. but exceptions nonetheless.
It would be far too straight forward to only have one list of rankings, here's the other one! here
I have to ask, what was actually wrong with the whole thing when Red Bull, Free caster and even before it was broadcast? I never got the sense of any fundamental problems with the setup and structure.
All of this feels like Chris Ball has to do something to deliver on whatever he's promised WBD. For Red Bull it was advertising for them. Under the new setup they must find a way to monetise it to deliver the returns WBD expect. That means selling advertising space, whether that's on track or TV/social media adverts.
It's a sport that seemed to function perfectly well for a long time, that's now at real risk of being ruined by the pursuit of profit for WBD, and no doubt a fat bonus for Chris Ball.
I have to ask, what was actually wrong with the whole thing when Red Bull, Free caster and even before it was broadcast?
The riders want a decent salary. To get that the sport needs money.
Things move on, the world, the sports, everything.
People want professional level teams and riders, so someone needs to pay.
weeksy
The riders want a decent salary.
And who's going to give them that? Because it sure as **** ain't going to be WB or the UCI and all the teams are doing is paying out to be part of the show. WB and Chris Ball keep telling us they've invested heavily, but how much of that has been in setting up the broadcast vs on the actual sport and it's participants. The only visible changes have been the change to stick markers from tape and the addition of the stupid course pillows.
The riders would race anywhere on anything so long as it was timed and WB are exploiting that need to race to create a show and line their own pockets. If this change had happened organically over a number of years it would have been manageable but this change everything and hide it behind a paywall approach has p*ssed everyone right off. Fans, (most) riders and teams alike. The only person I've heard talk positively about it is Bruni and that's because he'd like to be paid like contemporaries in other sports.
There was definitely some room for improvement but this was too much too soon and it's alienated the natural fans and annoyed the participants. It's a good job the racing hasn't suffered and that there's a lot of content being generated in other channels.
Agree. Aren’t there are still rumours going about that the teams will have to pay to race…how this translates to more money for the riders I don’t know.
Also, Ball himself once rode in his boxers as a protest to the organises, kind of ironic given the absolute sh*r show lately.
The riders want a decent salary
Bernard Kerr seems to be doing ridiculously well. Have you seen his fleet of cars, toys and house?
Reece is ripping around in his Lotus.
Loris has a McLaren
Gwin is incredibly wealthy
I'm sure the lower riders aren't on huge money, but that's the same in any sport or industry. There's plenty of money being made
This^
Meant to say, the likes of Bernard (I mention Bernard as he’s by far the most outspoken) want reimbursement from WB etc as the footage is now behind a pay wall. The thought of WB pocketing (potentially) a lot of cash off the back of the riders who provide the entertainment understandably doesn’t sit well with a lot of the riders.
Trouble is I doubt that WB are going to be making a significant amount of money off the back of DH. Very few from the MTB community will admit to have signed up for a sub and they're going to need viewing figures to sell advertising. It just feels really ill conceived. How long before the exec. responsible loses confidence and it all falls down?
They're already realised what they've done.
They paid a ridiculous amount for GCN, then wrote the value down massively and sold it back to the original owners for a fraction of what they paid. Post sale back to the original owners, the GCN guys missed no opportunity to have a a dig at WBD in their videos
Listening to MUTN, I thought it was interesting that they categorised the current audience into two camps. Hardcore fans who will watch however they can and pay whatever they need to do so, and more casual fans who will watch if they can but won't change their plans to do so. The second group might be persuaded to pay but not if it seems like they are taking the piss.
I'm very much in the second group. I paid for GCN and enjoyed watching all the races they had available. No way am I paying for Discovery+. For one, WB seems like a shitty company and I don't want to give them my money. Two, I just don't want all the extra shite they want me to watch. Life is complicated enough already. Might sound counterintuitive like, 'Why can't you just ignore all the other stuff' but that's not the way my brain works. If I'm paying for something I feel like I have to get VFM out of it.
Now I use tiz-cycling and that's it.
WB know they've got the hardcore fans, regardless. The problem is they clearly don't give a shit about the second group which I would assume makes up the majority of the audience.
They seem to be working on the assumption that there is a huge audience out there looking for something to watch between Moto GP and football. And if they get DH on Eurosport in the right format then this audience will materialise.
Personally I'm not sure if it's that aspirational when the pinnacle of sporting achievement is being able to hold the attention of someone who is too lazy to reach for the remote (or even go outside and do something) between the stuff they actually want to watch.
And who’s going to give them that? Because it sure as **** ain’t going to be WB or the UCI
Of course, that's where the great exposure to TV rights and then sponsors come into play. Theoretically anyway. Whether any of the comes to fruition and plays out, I have no idea at all. However that seems to be the theory and logic in play.
I understand that your people like Kerr etc are earning well... but he's not just a rider and he is more of the exception than the rule in this. THere's of course some riders that earn enough, but plenty who are not.
If we then get into the discussion of "well they're getting paid to ride their bikes" as we always seem to, then yes they are, but car drivers, motogp, etc are also equally guilty of all this stuff.
A large chunk of riders in the WC paddock have to not only fund things for themselves but have to buy into a ride.... Whether they feel they get more out of it than they're having to pay is open to debate, but don't think for a second that all these people are getting everything for nothing and a large pile of cash on top of it...That's just not how it works.
And who’s going to give them that? Because it sure as **** ain’t going to be WB or the UCI and all the teams are doing is paying out to be part of the show.
Same in road racing. Teams pay to be part of TDF/Giro/Vuelta etc. Organisers provide a platform and broadcast to give exposure to the sponsors. Having races on somewhere like Red Bull tv isn’t going to increase viewership. Millions of people have sky subscriptions, which include Eurosport and Discovery+ as standard. That’s a lot of new viewers if you can get the broadcast format right. A two hour broadcast of 60 riders, where 40 of them have no chance of winning isn’t compelling viewing, even for me as a fan. I’ve never watched a full race. A shorter broadcast where anyone could potentially win is a much better prospect.
The real kick in the nuts for me is WB and Chris washing their hands of the feeder race series though. This is crucial to stop everything collapsing when the current crop of riders retire. Without it the rest of the plan doesn’t work long term. UCI should force them to run it, but that won’t happen.
Yeah that's what shocked me as well, you cant make all these fundamental changes to the WC series without at least consulting other race organisers to look at the viability of a feeder series. There is going to be a massive gap/shortfall in talent if these series' aren't ready to go once these changes are implemented. Pretty selfish and short sighted from Ball et all.
In EU the series in IXS already exists, but needs clarification as to how that factors into the overall scheme of things as currently it's not clear what the 'pathway' is. I believe there's a series in the US too but i get the impression there's contention there in terms of relationship with UCI.
Part of the theory is that this will bring people back into Nationals, if you look at this weekends race you had Brayton, Breedon, Walker as the main entrants, the rest (without being too harsh to them) are not full on WC level. Will the lack of ability to enter WCs mean that the other UK riders come back into Nationals.... well, that remains to be seen. I guess it may depend on whether UK Nationals (or French/US etc) give UCI ranking points to give the riders the ability to get back into WCs.
The real kick in the nuts for me is WB and Chris washing their hands of the feeder race series though.
Isn't this the "Continental Series" suggested in the document though. It's hardly 'washing its hands' if it's proposing a/the feeder system.
Isn’t this the “Continental Series” suggested in the document though. It’s hardly ‘washing its hands’ if it’s proposing a/the feeder system.
I think the document (and Ball in his interview) were more saying, 'Someone should create and run a Continental Series but not us.'
I'm not sure how many people are going to be banging on the doors to take on that job.
They're proposing that these series exist but when they talk about "we" what they mean is "you" as in someone else, they're going to let market forces and the wider DH race community sort that one out . . .
They don't "feel they should be involved" or some words that mean the same
How's a Continental series going to work anyway? 80% of World Cups are in Europe (mostly France) and most of the entrants too. This **** about 5 from each continent isn't even going to cover the UK each year let alone France and the other European countries.
Far too many changes too soon......
They needed to let it settle under their stewardship before making, what are drastic changes.
And while WBD are the rights holders/ Promoters of just the MTB World Cup, it is in their interests that the level below is healthy - otherwise, where are the next generation going to come from.
Look at motorsport; in F1; they have lower formulae on the programme, the WRC has a junior class, WEC has the Le Mans Cup races, etc
There has to be another lower category series away from the headline act running elsewhere......
I’m not sure how many people are going to be banging on the doors to take on that job
There's always going to be a steady stream of kids lining up to be the next DH winner. It's not the work of genius to see that the groups of people that will benefit the most from that are the Teams that get invited to take part in the world cup, and the national bodies interested in the next round of the Olympics. It shouldn't be beyond their wit to organise themselves accordingly, especially as the bones of a format has been handed to them on a plate.
I'm sure there's an opportunity but doubt it's worth the risk vs reward for the organiser on a "continental" scale.
nickc
I’m not sure how many people are going to be banging on the doors to take on that job
There’s always going to be a steady stream of kids lining up to be the next DH winner. It’s not the work of genius to see that the groups of people that will benefit the most from that are the Teams that get invited to take part in the world cup, and the national bodies interested in the next round of the Olympics. It shouldn’t be beyond their wit to organise themselves accordingly, especially as the bones of a format has been handed to them on a plate.
Yes there will "always"? be a bunch of youngsters that want to race DH, that genie's out of the bottle. Yes there is a possibility that the invited teams may, like in F1, be in a very privileged position to exploit that status and make money from sponsorship opportunities born from the fact that they're on TV 15+ weekends a year. But it's expensive to do on a truly global scale in a way that the bike industry probably can't support currently, certainly not outside the top 3 or 4 teams.
It's all running before we can walk right now
I'm not sure where you're going with the national bodies and the Olympics . . . .
