Finals Photo Epic - Snowshoe DH World Cup #1 2021

 I was standing right above the section where he crashed. It sounded like he had a flat before the wheel imploded - several audible rim dings in the previous rock garden. And then CRACK! I helped get his bike off course and out of the woods, and he was (understandably) very emotional. Allez Thibaut!

 @Mavic101: Weird crash and super hard to tell what happened, maybe he knows maybe nobody knows. Anyway the crash/fail is the elephant in the room.

 @Mavic101: Relying on your inflated rubber to avoid wheel implosion doesn't seem like good insurance either...

 It'll be interesting to see if factory commencal is still on enve next season. Like santa cruz syndicate before them, they've probably had enough.

 @brawlstars5000: watch the rebulltv slomo in replay and slow it down further to 0.25% you can see the tire burps and starts to unseat itself before the rim-rock impact

 Another angle of the crash:

www.facebook.com/1405831336/videos/1516833225316889

Vergier's qualifier crash/tackle:
www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2878209112444504&id=100007663308567

SAVAGE hit by what it says may be a Junior:
www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2878863349045747&id=100007663308567

 @blowmyfuse: Very good angle, but the cause of the crash is as unclear to me as ever. Not sure why the tire should burp in that situation. It looks like it came undone before the hole that finally caught him out, in a place with no obvious sideloads. How fast and with how little resistance the wheel seems to collapse is also baffling.

 @blowmyfuse: f

 @brawlstars5000: The rim may have cracked a few seconds earlier, maybe even earlier than that, thus the tire deflated and rim was already weakened causing it to implode so seemingly easily. But that's just a guess.

 @Mavic101: Those rim pings and pops from the previous rock garden (and his relative sketchiness steering through that section) were most likely the rim cracking and delaminating ply-by-ply, prior to catastrophic failure during the crash. As the plies fail, spoke tension will decrease and steering precision will likewise decrease. Composites will often fail sequentially, ply by ply, audibly (as often heard when structurally testing composite structures / components to failure) — until the structure gives up and fails completely, usually in spectacular explosive fashion. In the video from @blowmyfuse, you can hear the wheel cracking through the last several plies as he hits the last few bumps before it fully implodes.

In my expert opinion, based on detailed observations of about a dozen ENVE wheels, ENVE introduces structural flaws into their wheels at the spoke holes — and they do this by molding-in the spoke holes (at least this was the case in past years, and I believe they still do that molded-in process). The hole-molding dowels they use (or used) spread the uncured prepreg fibers around the dowel, creating small resin-rich regions in each ply around the dowel where the fibers spread. They should mold the rims whole like We Are One and then drill the spoke holes after. That will prevent microcracks from forming in the relatively brittle epoxy resin-rich pockets that ENVE tends to create in each ply around the spoke holes. Those microcracks can turn into larger cracks that can form large delaminations between plies, or inter-ply transverse cracks through the thickness of the laminate. Cyclical loading like that is just about the worst thing for microcracks around a resin-rich hole in a composite structure. As those epoxy-resin microcracks get larger, the compressive forces on the carbon fibers increase — and carbon fibers usually fail in compression rather than tension. When the carbon fibers fail, you’ll hear them “pop” ply by ply before a big final compressive + tensile catastrophic failure of the remaining composite plies in the structure.

Anyone who knows composites well knows that holes, especially spoke holes, are generally a bad idea in composites (as such, many companies create engineering / design / materials work-arounds to seriously increase the strength of the area around spoke holes in carbon fiber rims). ENVE’s molded-in approach is particularly risky, in my opinion, particularly with how the spokes introduce cyclical loading, spread over a very small surface area, right at the spoke hole...creating a huge gradient of tensile and compressive stresses on the resin and fiber, through the thickness of the laminate, right around the spoke hole. This is a recipe for failure, especially with the crack-prone resin-rich regions in the plies on ENVE’s wheels. I’ve seen ENVEs crack and split at the spoke holes just from wheel building (right along the center line of the rim, initiating from the resin-rich flaws introduced by their spoke-hole-molding dowels). Considering this, it’s not surprising that Thibaut’s rim ultimately broke in several places, right at the spoke holes. The sort of failure we witnessed most likely indicates a structural flaw / cracking at the spoke holes, more than it indicates a flat tire rim failure from compressive impact to the outer rim edge.

Also, Thibaut’s rear wheel appears to be cracked (or a decal is coming off), as seen when he is sitting after the crash...but it looks like a crack / delaminating ply, as it starts at the spoke hole and extends toward the rim edge at a 45-degree angle, consistent with their ply orientation.

 @WRCDH: ... superb. wonder how many folk will read this. no matter. superb answer

 @forkbrayker: Hey, thanks! It’s great to hear someone appreciated it =)

 @WRCDH: i think that also shows just how fast these top guy like him are

 @WRCDH: interesting, when I toured enve (albeit several years ago) they talked about their spoke molding with pride. It is a more technical/laborious process than drilling, and they said they do it to INCREASE strength. Allegedly they were able to greatly increase spoke tension with this approach and actually have broken dt spokes before pulling through the rim.

I wonder if it isn't the superior method, but as you describe, prone to issues when not applied perfectly or QCed thoroughly.

 @dwbaillar: I recall them using this as a selling point years ago as well. I'm not in a position to disagree with @WRCDH, sounds like he knows his stuff. But it would be surprising to me if Enve would continue with a process that knowingly compromised their product. I personally know a former Enve engineer; his opinion seemed to be that Enve tends to push their luck too far when it comes to design and durability. they don't "play it safely" enough.

Anyway, super curious about this one. And it's funny that PB is kinda pretending it's not the talk of the town right now.

 Not the best photo, but it's in 3 pieces.
m.pinkbike.com/photo/21320807

 Did she stopped to glue a rim?

 Thanks to her crash, Vali Höll finally took her first elite win and doesn't pout this time.

 It looked like her seat got rotated out of place in the crash and she paused shortly thereafter to fix that.

 @font style="vertical-align: inherit;">font style="vertical-align: inherit;">danstonQ /font>/font>: If in Leogang and in other races Vali had not crashed in the last corner, maybe other girls would be pouting. Vali had to enjoy this time.

 @danstonQ in Leogang and in other races Vali had not crashed in the last corner, maybe other girls would be pouting. Vali had to enjoy this time.

 sure is. i cried baby tears

 @blowmyfuse: same.

 I had a grade 3 from a snowboard crash back in 2002 and he has no chance of riding, even on Saturday.

 A little bit -

 He looks like the kid from "Spy Kids" in that picture with those dumb*ss glasses lol

 I can't unsee it now

 Agreed. Also kind of noticed that Camille looks like Brosnan as a girl. That and Valli looks a bit like Kylr Strait.

 YES! Hahaha

 I did too, then I was waiting for her to explode in pain after crossing the finish line, but she just casually hugs Vali, and I knew either her finger must still be attached OR she's a cyborg who feels no pain ... honestly, I may have picked the cyborg thing before she "malfunctioned" in that rock garden LOL

 if you go onto redbulltv, watch the slomo replay of the crash in your own selected super slomo 0.25% you can see the tyre burps and starts to "de-glove" just before the rocks meaning the first impact was direct rim to rock.....also Rob and Elliot and sound properly baked when you hear their voices in slomotion.

 Doesn't matter if a tire comes off first. Seen countless front rims ridden down bare, no tire and not explode.

Surely it had to be a rim/spoke/nipple failure. You can run a carbon rim down the mountain for a solid 30 seconds no tire most any time.

 @blowmyfuse: well... i'd have to agree with you there, i did it on last stage of EWS in whistler 2019 through rockcity all way to the arena, lost the tyre within 30 secs and rode on the bare carbon rim at race pace for another 2 mins- survived it in one piece but with a severe cracks..... but it was rear wheel and as much as id like to think i'm fast............ im a tortoise compared to thibault

 It was a saracen in the junior men

 Sorry Jackson got 2nd ;-). 3/4 aint bad

 And RockShox did pretty well, too.

 @Averagemtbracer @purplegorillaz : Of course - ah well. Looking through, I can't tell if Izabella Yankova is on the high pivot or not.

 @NeilMackie: shhhhh dialed doesn't want you to notice

 @thingswelike: dont think she is. At least was not in the prior rounds for sure

 I thought the same but Vali herself seems to spell it either Höll or Hoell. Not Holl though. So I guess the e replaces the umlaut if necessary.

 Nah, it is indeed the correct international spelling of Höll. Been complaining bout that in every PB article, cuz they have always been wiriting Holl, which is a bit disrespectful for an upcoming star.

 Doesn’t have to wear them.
Could just be he didn’t have that jersey with them on.
They would probably clash with the rainbow effect fox gear.

 Not DH related but in a similar vein I wondered why Nino had the bands on his jersey for the XCC race last weekend when he's never been world champ in that specific discipline (as that's only been a WC event from this year).

 They're not on the cuff/collar, but you can see the world champs rainbow midway up his right sleeve in the podium photo.

 @chotim57: ah yes! well spotted - *boring alert* he's in violation of UCI rules on rainbow accent placement. I believe some road teams were fined earlier this year for not placing them correctly. Gotta love the UCI!

archive.uci.org/docs/default-source/equipment/2021-uci-jerseys-guidelines.pdf

 @NeilMackie: Even as an x world champ he would be allowed to wear the rainbow strips in any discipline.

 @Joecx: you sure? Seems odd when in road racing TT champs can't wear bands for non-TT races/stages and as XCC and XCO are two different events one would think the same applies here.

 @NeilMackie: They can't wear the World Champion jersey out of discipline but are allowed stripes at cuffs & collar.