Hoedown Throwdown: Race Day 2 - EWS Aspen 2017

 Hand guards for the win!!!

 Partying always helped him to be wild

 Great, I love pasta!

 Lucky number 13, hey!

 Yes it is, I watch it like I used to watch WRC recaps as a 15yr old with Colin McRae, Carlos Sainz or Tommi Makkinen. Yet a bunch of insecure wankers are shreddier than thou and can't stop making lame Enduro jokes, cuz they either shred DH or fucking Trail. Gutted for Richie but so stoked for Sam!

 I can't see how anyone in their right mind could Count Sam Hill out!! He is freaking awesome..

 They only drink Kombucha

 @thenotoriousmic: arguably Enduro is the highest level in a pure riding sense. Sam's obviously having more fun and the results show. I doubt he'll ever go back to WCDH.

 There's been a lot of morons saying Sam has lost it when he announced quitting DH, since Enduro is supposedly so lame. Same kind of dumb crowd saying that Ratboy is wasting his talent. As if they were living exemplary lives. Hey, If you think that you have some good advice to a world champ then go fk yourself first

 @WAKIdesigns: bang on. Racing should be fun, riders should have fun. Claiming your show pony is better than the other show pony is comical. This looks like a wicked weekend of racing, the UCI isn't involved, tracks are varied and new.

Everyone talks about DH being the highest level. Level of what? These guys are racing far less maintained tracks, on shorter travel bikes, with far less practice and they have to far more varied in their skillset. Makes it so rad. DH is dying a slow death, two huge stars bailed out because it sucked, BDS is having to cancel rounds due to low registration. DH bike sales falling through the floor.

 @Nathan6209: it isn't though is it? The best riders and the toughest tracks are all found at the world cups. Enduro riders aren't retiring or stepping back from the EWS and winning world cups are they like sams doing.

 @thenotoriousmic: toughest tracks at DH World Cups? You are joking right? Which track is tough these days? Andorra and Val Di Sole. Even MSA gets more and more ironing each year

 @thenotoriousmic: DH rewards track memorization and pinning it right on the edge so you can hold it together for one, sorta two (if you count qualis) laps. It's very "sterile", and it certainly helps being young and spry. That's why you see riders taking their skills and experience to enduro, and not so much the other way around, IMO.

 @trialsracer: IMHO DH riders do well in Enduro because skill fades with time slower than fitness. So once you built up a strong skill base and dedicate sht loads of time to get fit, you just do maintenance work for skills. XC rider simply has no chance to get as good at descending as an average DH guy. He has to keep that engine in best possible shape. Also a dude like Nino is super skilled, yeah, as for a XC rider. But he would stand no chance to qualify to DH World Cup finals. Meanwhile dude like Barel or Graves could take a shot at WC XC in the future, to finish inside top 20. Finally explosive interval training converts to more marathonish muscle structure relatively ok, but it is very hard for a marathon guy to become a good sprinter. Once you are fit enough to kill 10-14 Enduro stages in a weekend, I mean really pin it, you are quite possibly fit enough to deal with those marathon climbs. Get a marathon body and it will gladly do 10k ft of climbing on DH tyres in a weekend, but it will get beaten to sht after third stage at high heart rate, involving whole body burn out. ANY IDIOT CAN SIT ON HIS ARSE AND SPIN FOR HOURS

 im obviously not joking waki as the gulf in difficulty between any World Cup track and a EWS stage isn't even debatable and to suggest otherwise is simply laughable.

 dowmhill racers do well at enduro because they're used to racing at a much higher level. Dress it up however you want but that's the truth.

 @thenotoriousmic: that's a joke. Atwill rocking his hardtail in practice. So many riders bitching about how the tracks have gotten softer as the sport has progressed.

Last season EWS in Chile in the 2ft of dust. That was insane. Downhill is neat, it's a pure race. Nothing maters except for one 4 minute full speed attack. Just different stuff. EWS is a more well rounded race, you need a whole lot of skills to finish a weekend. Not to detract from the skill set and fitness of say Minaar and Gwin. Equally as impressive. But that sport is dying and Enduro is eating its lunch.

 @WAKIdesigns: "XC rider simply has no chance to get as good at descending as an average DH guy. He has to keep that engine in best possible shape."

Ever heard of a guy named John Tomac? Proven winner - XC, DH, DS, BMX, Road - raw talent plus motivation. EWS racer, Jesse Melamed, also comes from a XC background. I've never heard of a gravity specific racer even attempt to compete with the WC XC crowd. I'd imagine Jared would need to drop some body bulk to dream of a top twenty result (his 175lbs vs Nino at 150lbs).

 Thenotourismic, there's nothing to talk about then. Any idiot can get down a World Cup DH track on DH bike if you give him a week to practice. 1 dude out of 1000 will clear all jumps on World Cup BMX track if you give him a year to practice. Is BMX better than DH?

 @bonfire: Yeah Phil atwill rode leogang on his hardtail but he didn't race on it did he? Riders have always complained about tracks and they always will leogang turned out to be a awesome race and yes it's the easiest track on the circuit but it's still way beyond anything you'd find at a EWS event. Josh bryceland rode a EWS in a pair of old school vans and safety glasses for a laugh and got a top ten.

Downhills bigger than ever you only need to look at the amount of people who watch it on red bull to see that and only getting bigger where enduro peaked in 2015. Unless your talking about bike sales?

 @teamtoad: nobody gets everything. XC and DH lie on far sides of the spectrum when it comes to kind of required fitness. Enduro lies quite in the middle, and is kind of a freak because it requires DH race prowess and XC Marathon long run. Graves is as lean as Schurter, but he requires more upper body muscle mass and more explosive legs (which are heavier than marathon legs) for handling a 15kg bike (virtually a DH bike) on EWS course. Graves also won a few XC races in Australia while being top dog in DH and dominator in 4X, as well as Olympic BMX contender. Jesse Melamed? Never heard of the guy until recently. Tomac?! Dude, at the times he was racing, you could win XC race on a fkng cyclocross bike, and when it came to DH, as soon as you got on ANY gym and riding regime, you were kicking most of the DH field. Those were the days of Booze and Weed. Look at some old vids, just look at how Palmer moved on the bike. This body language would qualify him ofr a junior final these days. You had Tomac, Peat, Vouilloz, maybe Gracia, there were few others who were sticking out. There rest was skilled Party Boys or XCers who never made it and were in Top20 only because not all courses were gnarly and bikes were pretty much XC bikes.

Now, XC racer has fitness that does not fit Enduro in any way. DH racers fitness fit Enduro stages. XC racer spends most of his time working on XC fitness, DH racer works on skill and fitness usable in Enduro race. As soon a XC rider wants to compete in Enduro he has to work some more on skill and sprinty fitness to get to the level that average World Cup qualifier is already on. Whereas a DHiller keeps his skills as they don't fade away as quickly as XCers fitness and he can focus on pure fitness aspect of Enduro racing. No matter how gnarly a XC course is, the speeds are low.

 47 comments on the EWS highlights and 28k views hardly blowing the internet up is it?

 @thenotoriousmic: don't be silly, go to any bigger bike park and you will see way more Enduro bikes than DH bikes. And 70% of DH bike owners have an Enduro or Trail bike at home. Go to a real bike festival or a place with actual high numbers of bikers like Lake Garda and 90% of bikes are XC bikes. I don't know where you come from to not realize that DH bikes are extreme rarities and very few people ride DH track kind of trails instead of machine dug stuff of mellower singeltracks. Sport itself, I don't give much sht, I am no good spectator, I am into sports that I practice these days, I leave fanship for people who need sense of community, team playing social dynamics, and being belittled by greatness of their heroes. When I come to WC pits I treat them as normal people who happen to ride bikes for living. I don't lose my sht because I meet someone who is a lawyer or a firefighter or shop owner, so I won't lose my sht for seeing a pro racer. I'm a pro architect, my dad is a pro electrician.

 You're talking absolute nonsense. That's like saying go for a drive you'l see way more fords than Mclaren's.

 @thenotoriousmic: except 90% of DH bike riders are wooses just like 90% of any kind of people at whatever they do. And 10% of people of any trade are impressive to watch while the ultimate 1% are absolute killers. I have no idea why you play those "is better" game. You are like a 12 year old. I even thought that I wouldn't be surprised if you said that Phil rode a Hardtail because it is better. I think I know why, because you think that steel is better than aluminium and he rode an alu one

 Still not making any sense.

 @thenotoriousmic: no, you are not making any sense mate, have you actually been to a World Cup and EWS Venue? I have. And I'd rather race in Val Di Sole than in Finale Ligure.

 right well that's fantastic. It was really beginning to bother me that I didn't know that but now that's been cleared up I'm feeling loads better. It's strange but I actually feel physically lighter. Really do feel like the weight of the world has been lifted of my shoulders.

 whoa !!

 As they say in Baja: A hole in the tread is the tire's fault, a hole in the sidewall is the driver's fault.

 @Saiyan66: yup

 No.

 @Rubberelli: ^^^

 Dunno why you're getting neg propped for this, I thought it looked funny man, old pro's Sam and grubby spraying it up while the young gun Martin struggles a bit

 @frankwizza: Right... the same way to Aaron Gwin, sometimes he's struggling to pop the cork of his champagne bottle, while he's been at the podium frequently.

 Well, I bet women find that attractive when you don't blow it right away...

 To answer my own question, my stat obsessed self dug up some DH results from the past year. The fastest track I could think of was Mt Ste Anne. Their top speeds were just over 75km/h as well.
Anyways, 75km/h on an enduro bike is insane.

 @PJD1: proving dh is way rougher than ews

 @jimmythehat: true.

 @adrock-whistler: Both men and women hit close to 80km/h in the Hafjell speed trap a couple of years back. Peaty was wastest I believe.

 @rayy: Peaty is always the most wasted

 @adrock-whistler: Luis Buchanan hit 77kph and said the final stright of stage 6 felt like the fastest he's ever gone one a bike. Surely on a trail bike that must have felt insane.

 Peaty hit 100kph in val d'allos in 2013. Think the others got near 90.

 Dude for real. On a steep high speed track? That's like counting peaty out of the afterparty.

 @gemma8788: high altitude and a lot of fat pedaling in the long stages. Fair play to those who predicted Graves to win, that has his name written all I've it. Richie as well who was Cushing it until he sliced a tire... But Sam killed it.

 @davetrumpore: Mr. Trumpore it's an honor to have your comments, and you're right of course; Graves and Richie both almost took it and practical thinking should have favored them. Fair play there. But to actively "count Sam out" (not that anyone was actually rooting against him, that would be ludicrous) just surprised me based on his recent performances. Been bittersweet watching Sam move to the ews (I, for one, was forever holding out hope that he would be doing what Minnaar is currently doing), but over the past ~2 seasons he's crushed it on a wider and wider variety of tracks. The first race of this season now seems like a preview of what was to come; Sam was one of the few tippy top riders to persevere in horrible conditions and simply wouldn't be denied. Dude always had guts, is it fair to say that now he has endurance? ; ) Cheers, big fan of your work!

 not to mention the almost 2k of calories burned. I don't think I'll ever burn that much.

 @ugez: go for a long ass ride! Guys burn over 8k in 12 hour races. A solid 4 hour ride will get ya there!

 On his head?

 He stopped doing the full season didn't he, don't know if he was dropped by his team but I'm sure I read this a few rounds ago

 ...and they probably have no clue about the reference! San Pedro's finest!

 1 is allowed iirc

 You can change tires I believe as much as you want. They place stickers on the frame, wheels, and suspension to restrict major component changes.

 Also interested in this...

 K-Edge by the look of things. They make a Garmin mount that replaces a stem spacer. But as she is TFR is could be a race shop custom to work with the Knock block headset.

 First thing I thought of as well. I want a Garmin mounted there on my DH bike.

 I'm pretty sure the orange on the 34, 36, 40 and 49's are team rider only

 Style for days. I'm sure that was one of many gems that @mdelorme snapped this weekend.

 You could say that it's now a..... rock star.