meagerdude

Technically it’s a seeding race, not qualifying, as all racers are allowed in the final as long as they roll out of the start gate

See my comment below

Technically it’s a seeding race, not qualifying, as all racers are allowed in the final as long as they roll out of the start gate.

@waltworks: actually not true. Wider hubs give a better bracing angle. Superboost plus is actually 29% stiffer than 142 for side loads/deflection. I can’t recall how much stiffer they are than boost though. But think back to geometry and physics back in high school: a triangle with a wider base requires more force to be deflected than a triangle with a narrow base if the other two sides are identical between the triangles.

Blue skies, brother! You truly were a gift. Humble, thoughtful, generous, and kind. I still owe you a beer or two for the body work at Leogang in 2014. Don’t fret—I’ll pay up in a few years if not sooner.

Looking at rider pricing and flat out saying THAT needs a rethink: $750k for a top shelf rider--a full $200k increase!?!!! WTF?!?!! That makes it insanely difficult to get more than one of our 6 riders on the box. Picking 2 top shelf riders left me with $10k remaining. Add in dynamic pricing and its going to make picking a team an exercise in mediocrity.

MS Team has a storied history, having been MS-evil and MS-intense prior to MS-Mondraker. I’ve no idea about the dollars and sense behind Mondraker stepping back, but Covid recoil is real. And as a whole, I can’t see Intense with more money than Mondraker. They are both somewhat niche brands. The MS part of the equation is solid. So I wouldn’t be surprised to see MS Norco or MS Devinci next year. Or MS GT, for that matter.

@tacopop: one logistical hold up on a World Cup being hosted at Whistler is travel time required to get team trucks to British Columbia. Those rigs hold commercial license and the drivers can only drive X number of hours per day. Legally, they cannot get there in time. A second consideration is national Federations wanting their piece of the pie. Typically only a single World Cup per country is on the schedule because the national racing Federations scream bloody murder about a country having more than one WC race. Having a world cup in MSA and then in Whistler would cause just as much of a behind the scenes ruckus as the MSA/Bromont races a decade or more ago. I can't help but notice, though, that France has two EWS and DH events that overlap, both TBC. There's also the fact that Whistler has had multiple opportunities to host a WC in the past two decades and has failed to deliver every single time. The two races held at Grouse Mountain 20 years ago, for example, only happened because Whistler was originally on the schedule but bailed out at the last minute. As much as the UCI would love to be at Whistler, they don't exactly trust Whistler. Additionally to be logistically viable, that would have to be a race on the west coast of the US, too, and I am uncertain of a venue with the appropriate infrastructure this side of Tahoe. Maybe Sun Valley? Maybe Whitefish, Montana. And then to be financially viable, there would have to be a three-year contract, otherwise no promoter will touch it. Why 3 years? Typically the first year will operate as a loss. The second year will usually see the promoter break even. But the promoter likely won't show a profit until the third year. Personally, I think we have a better chance of Striking it rich in Las Vegas than seeing Whistler host a World Cup anytime soon.