[Updated] XC Start List: Mont-Sainte-Anne XC World Cup 2022

 I'd agree, although some local riders had a chance to jump in a world cup last week which is an amazing opportunity. They are no slouch, but full time jobs and college students so training and racing took a backseat. Definitely reignited some passion though

 Because it's not DH or Enduro. Pinkbike has clearly opted to drop most of their XC coverage and content this year, which sucks. And it's not like anyone is paying attention to what's being posted here, as your catch on the title and Jenny Rissved on the XCO start list can demonstrate. I hope another publication picks up the slack... even if I need to use Google translate for it.

 Sorry I missed that one with everything going on this weekend, it's fixed now. I'm not sure how we have dropped most of our XC coverage, I think we have at least as much as in past years if not more. I think we do a pretty good job of covering most things especially when you have a week like this with DH and EWS racing as well. Let me know what else you think we should be covering from XC World Cups. From the sounds of it Jenny did do a few practice laps so it makes sense that she would be on the start list even though she is now not racing.

 @edspratt: Thanks. More XC race bike checks and tech please of everything - DH, Enduro, & XC. Can't get enough of the small details they put into the race bikes. Cheers and enjoy the race today, going to be another killer day!

 @edspratt: Have a look at the comments from the Vallnord Photo Epic and you'll see what type of coverage people are asking for.
www.pinkbike.com/news/photo-epic-vallnord-xc-world-cup-2022.html#cid3324833

I realize some of that is beyond what's been done in the past, but I'm surprised if you can't see a difference between XC coverage in past years vs this year. At the very least, it seems unthinkable that anyone at Pinkbike wasn't aware how many readers were asking about XC Fantasy League, yet no one ever addressed it at all. I certainly felt devalued as a reader from that experience and I'm sure I wasn't alone.

For sure the Photo Epics are still there and greatly appreciated, but have a look at how much text has been written in all your XC coverage this year and I'm not sure it amounts to one full article. This article for example has one sentence - the rest is just forwarding on information that is publicly accessible. There's no creation or value added, beyond being able to find a few more things in one place.

I appreciate that this has been an especially busy week, but the value add of "Nino is back after a hard crash at Snowshoe and had this to say" or "Vlad Dasculu won't be starting because of ...". Those are the questions I'd love to have answered and that is the information that would add value to my XC-fan experience.

On the other side, I get that there were only 31 likes to the comment from Vallnord about my desire for increased coverage, so maybe XC is simply too small to dedicate anyone to add to the coverage you share... but just tell us that.

Thanks for reaching out today at least.

 she's focusing on world championships, skipped these races

 Nine world cup races is too much to commit to.

 @MDW83: And yet MTB guys will be like "rOaDieS arE wEaK" and they race 50 some odd races per year (maybe even sprinkling in the MTB).

 @Willemhc: if you’ve raced stage races then it’s pretty easy to get a lot of racing days.

Not to mention the training and peak lactate has to be much higher for MTB vs road. Sure roadies may have higher sprint numbers but those guys can’t produce efforts vo2 for 75 minutes.

Probably most MTB racers would do good with some road racing though. Especially avancini.

 @Shredocalypse69: For one, there are roadies that can do repeated v02 max efforts for 75 min and we know that because they race mtb and beat the mtb racers (VDP, Pidcock). There are also more of those guys than we probably realize. Certainly WVA could win an XCO world cup if he wanted to - his CX and road explosiveness indicate that. Two, I think theres a lot more repeated vo2 max in road than many realize. Strade Bianche, Tour of Flanders, any road race with punchy repeated shitty climbs force vo2 max efforts. The roadies put up absurd numbers on those repeated climbs after having raced for 3-5 hours. I think they train for max efforts too..

 Van Aert would be an almost unbackable favourite in any XCO WC

 @bykeco: Why? His technicals skills are way off - he wins CX races through brute power; technically he's miles off MvdP & Pidcock...He'd struggle in XCO.

 @MDW83: Well they're going to be in for a surprise in the years to come; I can see a few more races being added. 9 opportunities to show the sport in 12 months isn't good enough; that's why there are very few big money sponsors.

 @Starch-Anton: I'm with you on this.

 @Starch-Anton: His technical skills are way off..? Are you joking? That's absolutely not how it works. You don't win that many cyclocross races by being bad at bike handling. Holy shit.

 Covid..

 Lots of that going on, unfortunately. Good to see Sarrou made it over for MSA after missing Snowshoe.
Still no LL, PFP, Frei, Stigger, etc...