bnflynn

Glad to see some people trying technical lines this week. It gets boring watching bad jumping over and over again.

Knolly has been using a 6-bar to drive their shock for many years, and they even thought to place it in a safe location, rather than under the BB.

My memory is that protected riders who did not qualify inside the top 60 were slotted in as if they placed 21st through however many there were. But if they qualified 59th, they still were placed as if they were 59th. Looking at the start list here, it appears that the top 15 from qualies run last, then all protected riders who were not in the top 15 are placed in order in front of them, then all other qualified riders in order. So all protected riders get pulled near the end, likely for TV reasons. One more note, on this start list they only show the 'P', which is protected into finals. If you look at the qualies results, it also shows 'p' which is protected into semis only.

I feel like they must be working on a slight delay. I was really confused at first, because they showed Pinkerton crashing and getting up, with 2 split times shown: green, then red. Then as soon as he got up they showed the 3rd split and it was green. I'm assuming he crashed before the second split, and the split times didn't line up with the video feed. So they already knew that he hadn't lost much time. Similarly, when Hauser crashed they immediately cut away since they already knew he would DNF and gave the time to the next rider.

The steep initial part of the curve looks a lot like preload to me. Anyone know if this is just a general design element for the RS forks?

Customs value is not the same as retail value. The bike companies are having frames and parts manufactured in other countries, to be later sold in the US. So the cost to manufacture a single frame may only be $100, but by the time they sell it to the public, they charge more like $1000, because they have other costs to cover, such as the tools to build the frame, shipping the frame to the US, and then all of the other overhead the company has. (Cost numbers completely made up...)

@Muckal: By race day, everyone involved knows how that do or die jump is working or not working. That is not what this is for. The clearing rider immediately before the race is ensure that the course is clear and ready to race. And ski racing absolutely has large borderline unsafe jumps, and just like in DH, they sometimes get worked on during the week to make things safer. Practice, inspection, and jury inspections all exist for those reasons.

Ski racing has used forerunners for this purpose for a very long time. The forerunner does not need to be going 100% of race pace to assess safety, they just need to know what they are looking for.

@R-M-R: I was thinking the same. The power stage does show the difference in the motors, and that's partially the point. It encourages the manufacturers to make their motors better, and that technology filters its way down to the consumer. Same basic idea as pretty much every professional racing series out there.

@jayjay1989: just showing what $10 actually buys these days. Anyone who has bought raw steel in the last 6 months knows it doesn't buy much. Besides, the customer isn't paying for raw material. They are paying for fabricated metal, and the design, and the labor to build it.