captaindingus

@CaptainBLT: to properly showcase the women's field they need their own venue. formation was genuinely awesome and while there is no argument that those girls are damn talented on bikes, the level of riding we saw from them was the highest level of riding we saw at that venue. it did not have the chance to be eclipsed by anything better. if you have a field of 10 and there are maybe 2 or 3 women who can safely make it down the Rampage venue without riding around most of the features, how does that cast any credibility to the womens field?. in the freeride world tour all genders ski and snowboard on the same venue; anyone who doesn't watch through rose coloured glasses can see the contrast in abilities and it makes the female competitors look like make-a-wish kids not professionals at the top of their sport. that comparison is impossible to ignore and once the men's categories have wrapped up i have no desire to spend any time watching another group do the same thing but be significantly worse at it.

@wobblegoblin: This. As much as I hate big business that's what Redbull is. I am not privy to the numbers but I'm confident in assuming a large majority of Redbull's income comes from their male audience who (predominantly) watch the male events because that is the top of the sport. No one owes anyone an audience to something they don't want to watch, and no one is owed opportunities simply because they think they deserve it. If women think that they deserve more money and better opportunities, then more women need watch and support women's sports.

@shredddr: not resigning and be dropped are 2 very different things. He didn’t get dropped.

Not usually the biggest fan of Dean’s content but this is really good. Hope he does more of this in the future

@heatproofgenie: sure, until they realize that you cant pay your rent with fire and passion

@tom666: i spent the last 2 years managing stores (ski winter/bike summer) for a company that got sold out to a mega-corp a few years back. this year my store (along with multiple others under same ownership) had their best financial years on record, and then proceeded to have our operating costs cut to make up for deficits within other parts of the corporation. i've witnessed this shit first hand man, this is what happens following corporate takeover.

the sad part is there's more money than ever going into this sport, but with nearly every big brand involved in mountain biking now being owned by some mega conglomerate parent corporation less and less of that money goes to the riders.

pure speculation here but I'll bet Chris Ball has found himself coming to the same sad realization that comes with expansion into the corporate world: he now answers to the board members and corporate overlords above him and is now a messenger for decisions he can no longer make.

Dak had like 4-6 noticeable mistakes and was still less than a second off a near perfect Bruni. From listening to Vital's B-Practice pod he seems to be seriously stoked on riding his bike right now and it is translating to his performances. If my betting app had a World Cup DH section I would be putting some units down on him standing on the top step by the end of the season.

this was stated on the downtime pod les gets pre-race, but apparently they ran 4 minute gaps between the women during finals, the largest gaps ever given for womens racing. if bits of runs were missing that would be on the producer, who by all appearances frequently just picks which camera to cut to next at random.