Slack Randoms: Luca Shaw's World Cup Crash, Rope Spoke Analysis & More

May 27, 2022 at 8:39
by Ed Spratt  
We use Slack as our workplace communication tool at Pinkbike and we have a #randoms channel which we use to share an assortment of videos and stories from all corners of the cycling world and beyond... We thought a couple of the moments from the past week were too good not to share with a wider audience, so here are some of the highlights.




Luca Shaw's World Cup crash


Luca Shaw had a disaster of a race run during the Fort William World Cup last week. After the race the Canyon CLLCTV released this great piece of footage from Luca's crash. Some say he's still sliding now.


Rope spoke computer analysis


bigquotesIt's been a couple of months since Adam and I built the rope spoked wheel and even if I haven't ridden it every day I certainly haven't been going easy on it and I wanted to do a follow-up video to show how it's holding up.

At the same time, we had Steff join us after he got in touch telling us about his software that can give us a better idea of the characteristics of a wheel with regular steel and rope spokes...is there a difference in wheel strength? This video finds out!

It's quite a talky video but there's a lot of great info packed in. Because the original rope spoke video did so well I'm hoping this level of detail will be appreciated. I think this tech could be great for riders/teams/manufacturers looking to really dial in the feel of their wheels!

Of course I owe Steff a huge thanks for reaching out and putting the work in to make this video happen, if you want to know more about what he does or want to contact him for business reasons then please head to his website where you can get in touch.—Ali Clarkson


World’s longest rail


bigquotesSwedish freeskier Jesper Tjäder set his sights on breaking the Guinness World Record for the longest rail slide on skis, which was previously held by legendary freeskier Tom Wallish. Now after six years and 127 attempts, Tjäder wrote freeskiing history by smashing Wallish’s record after completing a rail measuring 154,49 meters aka 506 feet and 28 inches.

“Being the official Guinness World Record holder feels pretty cool. I have dreamt about it since I was a kid. This rail was a hard challenge, and my guess was that it would take about 525 attempts, but it went way easier than I expected.” says Jesper Tjäder.

Earlier in May, work began in Stendalen in Åre, Sweden, to build and implement the world's longest rail. After the just over 162 meter (531 feet) long metal rail was in place, it took three days and 127 attempts until the new Guinness World Record was a fact, 154.49 meters or 506 feet 10.28 inches, on May 9th at 5:23pm CEST. Tjäder jumped on the rail at a speed of about 77 kilometers per hour (47.85 mph) and landed with the leading ski on the rail eight meters in.—Red Bull Snow


GoPro awards: Mt. Everest expedition


bigquotesJoin GoPro Awards Recipient + mountaineering guide Jon Gupta as he takes his GoPros from Mount Everest Base Camp up to 29,032 ft (8848m). Congrats on hiking the world's tallest peak + thanks for showing us the view from the top.—GoPro


Gee Atherton's World Cup pit tour


bigquotesJoin Gee Atherton as he takes you on a tour of Atherton Racings home away from home. An exclusive insight into one of the worlds best Downhill Mountain Biking Pits on the UCI World Cup circuit.—The Athertons


Croatian BMX vacation with Daniel Dhers, Marin Rantes & Senad Grosic


bigquotesThe picturesque coastal town of Rovinj in Croatia is world-renowned for a number of things. The beaches, the architecture, the people, the vibes. The list is long but few would include “BMX destination” in it. Stone-paved 16th century streets aren't really ideal to cruise on 20-inch wheels, but that sure didn't stop Marin Ranteš dreaming about setting up features all around the town. By the time these dreams came to fruition the Croatian local had became an international BMX park heavyweight with the likes of Daniel Dhers & Senad Grosic on speed dial. Both wasted no time, packed their bikes and joined Marin for a Croatian BMX vacation.—Red Bull Bike


Carnage from the Rally Portugal Fafe jump


bigquotesWhen it comes to spectacular rally stages, they don't come much more eye-opening than the infamous Fafe stage at Rally Portugal.—Red Bull Rally


How strong are bearings?


bigquotesHow strong are pressure / axial bearings? We are going to use our 150 ton hydraulic press and 240 ton force sensor to find out! Don't try this at home, this was one of the most dangerous crushes ever and we have double blast shields etc. safety measures to do this in a safe way so you don't have to try these at home!—Hydraulic Press Channel



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59 Comments
  • 56 1
 Luca and Kade are the true champions of Fort Bill!
  • 50 7
 Both of them were on my fantasy team and I beg to differ.
  • 2 3
 @unambitiouscyclist: They were in mine too.
  • 10 14
flag DoubleCrownAddict (May 27, 2022 at 18:15) (Below Threshold)
 The track was the champ of this race, unprecedented drivetrain destruction!
m.pinkbike.com/u/DoubleCrownAddict/blog/fort-william-world-cup-drivetrain-carnage-and-the-problem-with-the-motorway.html
  • 4 0
 Yellow press love title story of him and Jolanda on the ad poster he slides past. They knew how to get pinkbike to posting this clip.
  • 1 0
 Oh and is this a flat earth photo?
  • 2 0
 @DoubleCrownAddict: 3 of 6 failures were due to chainring damage. The other 3 are also not confirmed to have anything to do with your hobby horse, the derailleur.
  • 1 0
 @xice: Is Luca a flat earther???
  • 1 0
 @OrangeGoblin: nah... Come on.
  • 1 0
 @xice: Just a general fun-poke then?
  • 24 0
 I liked the part in Gee's video where he used his hands to emphasise the point he was making.
  • 2 0
 hahahahaha yes with giant spatula hands
  • 17 0
 Luca coming out of that barrel... thats some quality editing right there.
  • 2 2
 Better had it been a video, not a photo.
  • 15 0
 Man, in the 90's you sure could stand close the edge of the road at the most dangerous part of a rally course.
  • 9 0
 And a few years earlier, they were standing on the road and only jumped to the sides when the group b monsters were already in the air. That was even crazier.
  • 4 2
 I don't think that has changed very much from the current day European rally coverage I see on TV.
  • 1 0
 @bashhard: group b saw too many spectator deaths.

Modern rally doesn't compare.

No tc, peaky power delivery.
  • 12 0
 “Most of the time, most the balls don’t do sheet”. Many levels to that quote for life
  • 11 2
 wait a bmxer wearing a helmet
  • 1 0
 I feel like he always wore one.
  • 7 0
 The Luca meme clip.....so good!! The perfect combination of drama and minimal rider harm, and laughs
  • 3 2
 Honestly I expected better. To each their own I suppose
  • 4 0
 1) Way to understate it: "hiking the world's tallest peak". Let me grab my boots and some granola.

2) When it says "carnage" I was looking for non-stop mayhem, not the majority of clean landings. However, extra point to the drivers for either crashing or landing a car in a manner and at a speed I cannot fathom on a single lane back road.
  • 6 1
 The rope spoke video was quite interesting but for someone who is obviously very intelligent... his presentation of data was terrrrrrrible.
  • 5 1
 Gotta love line plots connecting unrelated data sets... and arbitrary axis values. And video of plots inside excel sheets on laptop screens. I'm almost tempted to write down the data in the table and plot it myself.
  • 6 0
 The bus stop ad in the Luca video.
  • 4 0
 Nice to see my hometown Fafe in Pinkbike, even if it is because of Rally Cars Smile
  • 1 0
 Luca lost the race, but won the hearts and minds of anyone who watched the video. Sponsors should be happy. Loved the part with him fucking off down the road in glencoe, the bus stop poster and the flat earth pic. The editor is a funny bastard.
  • 8 5
 World's Longest Rail-Slide sounds about as interesting as Person Stands on One Foot World Record.
  • 1 1
 Its way less interesting than seeing a skater hit a long grind. Impressive...kinda.
  • 9 0
 506 feet and 28 inches is a weird measurement. 505 feet and 40 inches. 500 feet and 100 inches. 507 feet and 16 inches.

You know?
  • 4 0
 Oh, I see further down the blurb it’s written correctly. 506 feet 10.28 inches. That makes more sense.
  • 2 4
 @BrambleLee: Still though. Someone clearly blindly converted that from a metric measure and gave zero thought to appropriate levels of precision. An inch is ~1/10th of a foot, so reporting 1/1000 of a foot is...well it's just silly.
  • 2 0
 @pmhobson: isn’t there 12” to the foot? So 1” would be 1/12th?
  • 3 0
 @cypher74: Of course. I'm speaking approximately (that's what the "~" symbol means in my comment). For instance, the surveyor (rightfully) only reports to 1 cm, which is appropriate for the instrument he used for the measurement. Reporting the length in to the 1/100th of an inch is equivalent to reporting down to ~0.3 mm, which is absurd.

US surveyors typically work in decimal feet instead of feet+inches. So 1/12 ~ 1/10 is a reasonable approximation for this discussion. Given the margin of error for the initial measurement, I would have reported this as 154.5 m or 506.8 ft
  • 11 1
 @BrambleLee: feet and inches are weird units, yeah. Just use meters
  • 2 12
flag vapidoscar FL (May 27, 2022 at 19:39) (Below Threshold)
 @bashhard: Meters are just as arbitrary. Any metric is completely arbitrary. Base 10 is also arbitrary.

When people go today is 2/2/2022 could have easily been called 128/13/6078.
  • 3 1
 You gotta watch Jespers other stuff. He earned that Red Bull helmet for sure
  • 12 0
 @vapidoscar: everything is arbitrary.. May aswell use units that are easy to calculate with Smile
  • 3 0
 @daweil: the meter is tied to a stable physical constant................. and it's easy to work with.
  • 3 0
 @Injuredhippo: and since the Carter administration, the inch has been defined by the centimeter. So we (the US) might as well just use centimeters and meters.

(I will concede that there is a certain convenience to 12 being evenly divisible into halves, quarters, and thirds)
  • 1 0
 @pmhobson: you've clearly never been forced to work with mils (1/1000 of an inch)
  • 1 0
 @mtmc99: I have! But this isn’t the application for them and the instrument that was used can’t measure them.
  • 2 0
 @pmhobson: fair enough. Also mils are the worst. My job mixes imperial and metric (surprisingly not bike related) and it seems like mils were invented to be confused with millimeters
  • 2 0
 @mtmc99: We usually just say "thou" of mils to avoid confusion with mm. Really wish we could just go all metric though.
  • 3 0
 That´s why they could use full gopro features without being overheated,cos they are in the Everest...Interesting hehehehe.
  • 4 0
 I was waiting for the Luca as Mega Man sliding slide, but it never came.
  • 3 0
 the suspension on rally cars is amazing; so plush, yet they stick those huge jumps without a bobble. wild.
  • 4 1
 I feel like I watched a Red Bull commercial.
  • 3 1
 It seemed like a total waste of location. They could have green screened in the background with the jumps set up anywhere.
  • 1 1
 Jesper is a legit skier though. He didn’t get a redbull helmet for no reason.
  • 3 0
 When reading the HPC text it was in the presenters voice in my head.
  • 2 0
 www.instagram.com/tv/Cd59238lMuM/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y
  • 1 0
 To the finish and beyond! Genius!!!
  • 1 0
 Fyi - the Insta clip has better aspect ratio and is longer than the YouTube
  • 2 0
 That bearing blowing up does sounds kind of similar to when I case a jump?
  • 1 0
 Some say he almost slide to the finish.
  • 1 0
 always know the world was flat







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