Video: Cecile Ravanel is Charging Hard Again

 Fantastic for Ravanel! So good to see and hear that she's recovering well. As for your comment that the "Women's EWS would have been intense with both Cordurier and Ravanel at it"

It wasn't... in 2018 Ravanel just destroyed her on pretty much every stage of every race (there might have been a few exceptions but I'm not going to dig through it all).

It will be great to have her back... but if we're being honest, the racing was more interesting without her.

Who knows though... maybe Cordurier is getting faster and maybe Ravanel will be a step behind. We'll have to wait until the 2021 EWS season to find out.

 Agree on all counts. As someone mentioned on the Vallnord thread, it sucks that many races are being cancelled, but it does provide more complete healing/recovery time for the likes of Tahnee, Neff and Cecile. One silver lining from this might be that when racing starts in earnest again, the women's fields will be at full strength. A DH race with Cabirou, Hannah, Tahnee, Rach, Holl, Pom Pom all vying for the top spot would be freakin awesome. And no XC season would be complete without a charging Neff contending for the overall. Like islandforlife said, Cecile was a destroyer before she got hurt and made everything a race for second place, but hopefully Cordurier (who dominated last year in her own right) and others have stepped up their race game and will keep it from being a 1 horse race. Ultimately, its super bad ass to see a lot more women crushing it on bikes, just going to have to wait awhile to see'em racing each other.

 @islandforlife: Ye I know. But Cordurier won every race last season which could give a huge psychological boost, and Ravanel has been out for a year. We can't really know because no racing right now, but I was excited to see if the turns have tabled or if it would be the same again.

 @Upduro: The only way Isabeau wins is if Cecile does not ride as well as before after her back injury, like Thirion in DH for exemple because there was a real big difference of level between them in 2018. To me if there were the same density of riders as for men race Isabeau would not be top 20 when Cecile wins. And there was almost the same difference between Cecile and Tracy Moseley. There are just not enough women riding to have a "real" race

 Well, she lives in france, so she is definitely not allowed to ride at the moment. But hey, at least pinkbike has their disclaimer on the home page...

 @Kainerm: she might have trails within 1km of her house, in which case she's riding.

 @BenPea: @Kainerm it was shot before the quarantine

 @Ravanel-MTB: Of course, I wasn't referring to this video. So, any cheeky trails in the back garden?

 Boosting is stylish, but slow. Think of the arc your bike travels in the air - longer distance. Attacking is faster.

 I think the different ways to hit drops is covered well in these tutorial videos (he's got some stuff on youtube for free as well) fluidrideonline.com/how-to-ride-drops

 As @excel said above, it's a matter of speed coming off of drops. You won't see racers doing full moto whips off of jumps because it slows down their arc in the air. Attacking certain lines is faster than airing the same lines. It's less stylish for sure.

 Jump for the show, corner for the dough!

 Most definitely drops should be minimized for speed. Either pre-jump if you know it well or scrub, either way you want to get back to the ground as soon as possible as that is where speed is made.

 See also: Ski racing.

 @heatproofgenie: "pre-jump", I've never heard that before - but I'm pretty sure I've seen some pros do it. A good example is the Chili Dog Drop at Glorieta/Santa Fe - Rude just floated over it.

 @PHeller: Yep, exactly! I actually saw him do that same drop in practice at the '18 BME. What a committed move to do there but yeah he did just that.

 Depends how you're riding. If I'm aiming to go fast I don't boost jumps or drops. If I just want to have fun, then yes I will boost off the lip.

 Promis, c'était filmé bien avant le confinement!