Vero Sandler was a downhill racer for many years but after becoming jaded with her lack of progress and a lack of industry support, she packed it in, moved to the UK and decided to just ride for fun. She was documenting her riding on Instagram and it wasn't long before the sponsorship emails started coming thick and fast. Now she's finally living her dream of becoming a professional rider and has just become the first woman to lead a freeride film in Vision. To celebrate her new movie, Marin had this special edition Mount Vision built up.
On a bike that already divides people in the looks department, Marin have gone for a red to purple fade with a smattering of personal touches to make it special for Vero. Hope have also chipped in with plenty of purple components and some custom brakes. Vero doesn't really make any setup changes for riding big jumps but she does have a longer steerer on this bike than her regular trail bike. This allows her to run a higher front end on it than she normally would which she believes helps when getting airborne.
| I felt mind blown, it was a total surprise. I've only ever seen racers at World Champs with custom bikes. I don't know if I deserve it but I'll definitely take it.—Vero Sandler |
Marzocchi and Fox provide damping duties on Vero's ride. The shock is run at 178psi while the fork is 70psi.
Personal touches are everywhere on this custom painted ride.
There is a huge controversy over here in the USA about the womens soccer team, which won the World Cup, being paid less than the men. However, the US Soccer Federation lost money on the womens team, and was made up by revenue from the mens team. I wonder if this is the same case for the very few sponsored female riders.
The bottom line is that women don't spend money on cycling in a significant way compared to men, and men respond to marketing from male pro athletes more than female. I think this is dumb, but reality doesn't matter what I think. Pro women are much closer in performance to you and I, average Joe Pinkbiker, than Amary Perrion or Brandon Semenuk. The demands they put on their equipment, their geometry needs, etc are not necessarily what is best for you and I. Someone like Tracey Hannah, while still much faster than you or I, has closer needs for her equipment (ignoring that women are lighter than men) to our needs. Few of us would ride better with suspension set up as stiff as Aaron Gwin or Try Brosnan.
You might have old facts.
Women are spending more on cycling than men and they are more influential. Women's cycling is booming. However, the bike industry is struggling to figure out how to market to women. The women I ride with don't want smaller bikes. They want bikes that fit them, not the average woman. They want good values, not necessarily inexpensive bikes and parts. I've sold Transition Bikes to men and women because of Tahnee Seagrave. Aside from the women's soccer, all of my information is from first hand experience so it could be isolated to my small corner of the world.
Case in point - as a bike nerd, I like watching mens and womens XC and DH (DH less so, honestly) world cup races. My fiance is not a "bike nerd" - she likes biking but she's not really "into" bikes like myself. She loves watching WC races, but she refuses to watch the women's races. I asked, "you don't wanna watch the girls race?" and she says, "no, it's just slower and lamer compared to the men." I laughed and told her there's a lot to learn and appreciate from watching a 110lb rider finesse a bike compared to a 180lb rider who can muscle it out, but at the end of the day, only bike nerds like you an I care about the nuances of technique. Most viewers just wanna see shit get rowdy.
Luckily for mtb, it's a lifestyle sport. So, there's plenty of room for chicks to shred and sell bike stuff and make cool videos and all that. However, pretending there is some sort of "erasure" in the competition realm of sport, as if there is a sexist conspiracy, is just BS. If people don't wanna watch it, no one is going to pay for it to be aired. It's simple economics, and it doesn't account for feelings. Plus, people don't consider the fact that one girl rider who stands apart from the rest, like Casey Brown or Veronique Sandler, can actually be a way better spokesperson for a brand than another dude shredder who's just another "bro pro". And at the end of the day, all of this sponsorship and tv coverage and shit is simply to sell a product. That's what racing is for - to test, sell and showcase product.
@conv3rt the only reason to change that is to sell more bikes and get more people involved in riding, which has obvious benefits. But you're exactly right, the whole idea that everything needs 50/50 representation is a load of feel-good crap. Men and women, on average, like different things. They value different things (again, on average.) Also, the fact that you have to clarify that you don't intend "toxic masculinity" makes me sad (I totally understand why you said it, but the fact that we are at a place in western society where you have to try to clarify that is ridiculous.) Unpopular opinion - toxic masculinity is a myth. The real problem is lack of masculinity, lack of general human decency and a materialistic, image-obsessed society that misleads young men (and women).
I'm braced for the downvotes, let's go! lol
"Over the past decade, U.S. Soccer has paid our Women’s National Team more than our Men’s National Team. From 2010 through 2018, U.S. Soccer paid our women $34.1 million in salaries and game bonuses and we paid our men $26.4 million—not counting the significant additional value of various benefits that our women’s players receive but which our men do not"
www.ussoccer.com/governance/board-of-directors/us-soccer-president-carlos-cordeiro/open-letter-july-29-2019-finding-common-ground
Jokes aside, I think about this stuff a lot and genuinely want things to be better for people. I want people to have equal opportunity and the freedom to choose. As far as I'm aware, bike shops don't refuse sales (and if they do they're stupid), trail access is not restricted to a subset of society, and almost all brands I can think of make effort to provide a variety of designs in order to increase revenue (your point above). So as long as a person is capable of earning a decent wage, they can ride bikes for fun. If they don't want to ride bikes for fun, I'm not going to go search them out and pressure them into it just to satisfy some unrelated ratio. That's nuts.
I do, however, think that a solitary women in a group ride changes the ride dynamic and may lead to future absence. Two women and it may lead to future rides. Solid role models are always good no matter what. I'm stoked that Vero and others have something to say and hope it leads to benefit in general. Seems like they are where they want to be. It's when the forced equal outcome stuff comes up when I get grouchy. Does that give me the green light to go to a WC DH race and demand a trophy? Or maybe I can approach Red Bull and require them to give me a custom painted helmet based on the under representation of the bearded middle aged? There's a reason (well, many) why I shouldn't get those. I didn't work hard to earn them for one. I'm not strong enough nor skilled enough. Most importantly, I don't really want to do those things. That's unequal but doesn't mean I'm being structurally oppressed. Sorry, I'm just ranting now. haha...and I'm sure someone is going to point out a bearded middle aged Red Bull athlete now (mid-forties preferred).
It's not about other people, it's about how *I* like my bike.
goodlooking and good at "riding"
The rest isn't really any uglier than a yeti and pinkbike collectively drools over those
Man, what a bike it really is, the suspension platform works amazingly well, im a VPP lover but it seriously impressed me.
Good Work Marin! and we all love Vero...!!
I would imagine most of you commenting aren’t blue steel models, but expect someone to ride you???
Personally, I don’t think that red and purple go well together but WTF do I know? I do think that the white Marzocchi decals should go for something less bright.
You’re welcome for my unsolicited opinion.
Marin: HOLD MY BEER!
Great philosopher: Errrr yeah, that shit doesn't polish bruh.
Marin: