Head Jar: "Hashtags now more important than results." Says Trade Team Manager

HEAD JAR IS A PURELY SATIRICAL BLOG ALL QUOTES OR 'FACTS' IN THIS POST ARE FICTIONAL

A leading trade team manager has recently been overheard saying that most trade teams now consider hashtags more important than results when looking for new riders. The news comes after the manager, who has since filed an injunction to protect his identity, was filmed in the Glentress Peel Center discussing the importance of social media in mountain biking.

The video shows the aforementioned manager saying: 'Frankly I don't give a toss if they finished in the top ten at a national I'd rather they finished in the 30's and wrote a status that sounds like an Atherton Racing press release.'
He then went on to explain why social media is so important for mountain biking; 'I mean whats the f-cking point in mountain biking unless you can cram it down the throats of your friends on social media. Obviously there's nothing mountain bikers love more than sitting down on a Sunday night and reading paragraphs from amateur races talking about their weekend. As for their friends who don't mountain bike it gives a valuable insight into what happens in the woods on Sunday afternoon; who wouldn't want to know about that.'

Interested to see if this was an isolated incident Head Jar took to the pits to try and get statements from other team managers. Luckily, we managed to get a statement from Gstaad Scott manager Claudio Caluori. After we'd safely inserted our noise reducing earplugs Claudio yelled 'WOOOHEEEE Yeah I totally agree! We hire a crack team of trained Swiss cows to look through the list of hashtags on Twitter and Facebook, and decide who gets a ride. We wanted anyone who rides a Scott to follow this ethic, why do you think we signed Brendan Fairclough?'

Brendan Fairclough demonstrating how to make a living off the podium.
We decided to take our reporters to our local national race to see if this ingenious tactic was paying off. We asked the first person we found riding a Scott Gambler what their views were on the matter. Luckily the first person we found, Tristan Fennels, was more than keen to share his opinion 'Absolutely, it's lucky that the races are such a long drive from home 'cause it gives me plenty of time to think about the wording of my status. I'm a big fan of Brendan and his style of writing has really rubbed off on me. The trick is never to make it sound like your happy with your result so people think you're faster than you are. It's very important, though, that you don't ever over step the mark and make out that you think you can win. To avoid this I use the blandest vocabulary possible. Even if I had a perfect run it's important to use words like; good, decent or okay.' As we thanked Tristan and were about to turn away he shouted '#SCOTT2LUVIT' in a fashion akin to that of someone with Tourettes syndrome.

Questions have been raised about the ethics of such advertising. Scott has seen a 150% increase in the sale of Gamblers since signing Fairclough. However is it fair to be taking advantage of impressionable social media users who should be ending their one year long downhill career to take up Enduro?