radiusq

I didn't realize he was sooo good. The riding in that edit is sublime.

haha - this one! https://www.trailforks.com/video/157501/ I'm sure Rob is blushing!

Greg, Danny, Laurie, Amauri all deserved to win. But Loic raised himself to new heights. Too achieve that with the pressure of the overall, defending the stripes and the background of Brook's serious crash show his head is unbreakable. A conservative run would have been forgiveable, but we got greatness instead. Outstanding.

Downhill. That's it! Fucking nuts.

Gear range is critical with a 1x[9,10,11] setup. Existing 11-36 is not enough range for most folks with a 1x setup. For me, when riding downhill, 36x11 is a good gear; I won't spin out and can put plenty of pedals in when needed. I can get away with 34x11 riding down, and spin out on some sections. So that's what I ride, but I do suffer a bit with 34x42 on the climbs. OK, I'm not fit, but do climb proper hills (900-2000m vert on a typical ride). Ideally, for climbing I'd like to go down to a 30 chainring. Unfortunately with a 11-42t cassette, I'd spin out massively with 30x11 on the way down. A 10-42t, or even better 9-42t cassette would work for me though. Unfortunately though, SRAM are a bunch of money grabbing c*nts and no X9 level 11speed groupset has been released yet. These hacks are good in the meantime, though I'm so annoyed buy SRAMs greed that I'm seriously going contemplating a lifetime boycott.

Where is their 9-36t cassette? Can't they now make it 9-42t instead? Would be 466% range and leave me in a position to never by an SRAM product again as long as I live. Greedy f*ckers keeping 1x11 at that stupidly high price point.

Hmm... Hope were talking a wide range cassette (9--36T) several years ago and before XX1 - http://www.pinkbike.com/news/Ten-Speed-and-the-Nine-Tooth-Cassette-Cog.html 9-42T would be totally cool, but I guess they hit some technical issues, which is a real shame. I'd really like to an affordable alternative to XX1. The pieces of the puzzle are coming together. Wide and Narrow chainrings. 42cog (a few ppl are doing this). Smaller cog would be great (Canfield bros have an expensive solution here too). XX1/X01 out of my price range, and I'll never forgive SRAM for making it so. There's no reason why an X9 price point equivalent doesn't exist now. Greedy f*ckers. I'm serious, no more SRAM kit for me ever. I'm currently running a raceface WN chainring, mtbtools 42t cog. It all works, but is still a bit of a hack. I'll buy a proper ramped 42T cog when they're available and not too expensive.

I think Gwin would have been disappointed at how poorly Trek marketed him. I mean, he totally dominated the last two seasons and is the first American to do so for a very very long time. He should have been on the cover of Time magazine for his achievements, but I think most American's outside of the sport wouldn't have even noticed. He and the sport will be properly promoted at Specialized. Which is good very good news for DH IMO. More outside industry sponsorship for downhill is needed.

I hope he has the heart to fight it out with Gwin next year. The poor lad has had terrible luck with injuries since 2009. This is the reason why Gwin has been out there on his own. I have no doubt that if Sam had been running at 100% in 2011 and 2012 then Gwin wouldn't have won quite so many races. Maybe Sam wouldn't have stopped him winning the overalls, but it would have been a fight at least. I think it'll go two ways with this move. He'll either be winning or it'll be his last season at the World Cups. I hope it's the former. Sam on form is insane to watch. Pity it's so long until the 1st World Cup!