THAT'S A WRAP! Vital's B Practice Podcast - Mont Sainte Anne World Cup 17

Dakotah Norton, Jason Schroeder, and Tanner Stephens break down the final round of the 2023 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup season from Mont Sainte Anne, Canada.

Jason_Schroeder
10/12/2023 9:00am
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The 2023 season is over! What a season. Eight races, seven winners, five first-time winners, and 22 points-paying races (if you include qualifying, semi-finals, and finals). Rachel Atherton made her return to DH and won another World Cup; Vali Holl became the first female to win Worlds and the World Cup Overall since Rachel in 2018; Loic Bruni took his third World Cup overall title; Ryan Pinkerton won the Junior Mens overall for U.S.A; Valentina Roa Sanchez became the first South American to win a UCI World Cup overall; and our boy Dak added two more podiums to his name. Arguably one of the most exciting World Cup seasons to date, it also brought a lot of change with Warner Bros/Discovery taking over the broadcasting, the addition of semi-finals, fewer riders in finals, and a bit of unknown looking towards the future of downhill. 

In this episode, the crew reflects on the good and bad from the 2023 season, Dakotah breaks down his best World Cup season yet, we speculate on what is really underneath the Specialized diaper that they are trying to hide, the conclusion of Vital's Shorts Bounty, Takis banners in the rock garden, why MSA is still the sickest track on the circuit, overall standings, break out rides by Gaetan Vige and Ethan Craik, how the hell Jackson goes so fast, and finish thing off with plans for the podcast going into the offseason.

Thank you for listening this race season! We will be back for some off-season podcasts soon, so stay tuned.

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17 comments

View replies to: THAT'S A WRAP! Vital's B Practice Podcast - Mont Sainte Anne World Cup

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Brian_Peterson
1 year ago

The idea of a feeder series sounds good, but who's going to do it? Warner Bros/ Discovery won't have an interest because they won't make money on it. Here in the US it seems like we have several regional series but no true national series that gets the attention of the pre-USAC NORBA days..

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Jason_Schroeder
1 year ago

I think that is the forever question—who will take the risk and start a series? It seems like Warner Bros/Discovery and the UCI have a level of responsibility to help figure out feeder/amateur events for their own elite-level events. But I don't think they will care until it is actually needed to help ensure they have future talents in the sport. For now, they kinda have the power since everyone still wants to race World Cups, and riders are still figuring out a way to do it.

The US is in a rad place right now with the multiple regional series happening. A national series would be rad, too, but I'm not really sure how needed that is if we are just talking about ways to help racers progress to World Cups. It's expensive to travel all over the US for races, and if you can hone your skills "locally" at NW Cups, ESC, Downhill Rockies, or DHSE, I would then go do some iXS or Crankworx events solely to get used to racing in another country, and then look at World Cups. When I was racing World Cups, the hardest part was always the travel, jet lag, and lack of familiarity with the area, food, hotels, language, and pits. Actually riding was "easy" because it was still just riding a bike at the end of the day.

Of course, the counter to that is that if we had a national series with enough clout like NORBA or iXS now that pulled in high-level or international talent, you could probably get faster and gain more experience while racing in the US. 

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Brian_Peterson
1 year ago

The strong regional series are a good thing for sure..  Maybe less 8s more approach to the national series.. 4 races that can hopefully be big a enough deal to draw people from all over the US yet still yet these regional series thrive. Does it big enough to rival NORBA with a huge international presence?  Definitely not right away. But getting some races where all these regional fast racers can race each other will help them all..

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bizutch
1 year ago

The Mullaly family downhill corporation combined with a US version of Martin Whitley is what is needed in a way.

Young racers probably don't even realize that Whitley was the driving force behind DH's success (consult/advisor/staffer of UCI) prior to turning his focus to Global Racing, which has helped support the careers for over 2 decades now of the world's best MTB athletes.

Minnar, Matti, Mik Hannah, Fairclough, Greenland, Suarez, Mullaly, Mathias Flückiger, Anton Cooper received representation from his 23 Degrees Sports over the years. He's been behind the scenes helping consult & navigate DH during it's best times.

USA badly needs someone like Martin to look at the US DH scene, develop a plan, series and promotion to "wake up 'Merica" 

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bizutch
1 year ago

I'm referring to the specifics of re-imagining, marketing and organizing a legitimate DH series that PAYS big money.

Nobody finds it ironic the US Open said one year "Hey....we'll pay $30k to the winners" and in the following 10 years, NOBODY anywhere in the USA has been able to replicate that payout.

An internationally broadcast product was sold to an mega-corporation by an international cycling organization & Dak makes barely enough to finish a house after traveling the world over from the prize money (not sponsor checks..just position pay from the organizers)

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jeff.brines
1 year ago

Great episode. 

Dak - nerd comment incoming but there is no cone valve rear shock in existence (so far as I know anyway). The whole cone valve thing is only applied to the front end of a bike. That said, I have little doubt that Ohlins is doing something very interesting for Bruni's bike.

From my 1000% armchair washed up QB POV, it seems like his suspension has a lot of LSC damping and very little HSC damping. What seems so special is the way the suspension seems to truly parse "high speed" (running into bumps of all types on track) from "low speed" (pumping, pedaling, braking etc). This is why the bike seems to hold up so well, Bruni seems to always have a little more travel avalaible, but he's not overly reliant on the spring of the bike - allowing the bike to eat bumps like nobody's business.

Every brand pretends to delineate between high and low speed, but they in reality affect one and other. You end up with a damping profile that doesn't have quiet enough low speed to really control the attitude of the bike, while having too much high speed to hovercraft. No-mans land, but where most suspension setups end up.
 

How is Ohlins doing this? No idea, but I don't think its cones nor something super mega revolutionary. I'd wager its got a lot more to do with really creative/interesting shim stacks, mid valve design, oil capacity etc. But nothing that would even be patentable from a design/architecture perspective. 

 

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bizutch
1 year ago

I find it funny that everyone thinks there is Ohlins magic on Bruni's bike.

He rides exactly the same as he did when he first hit the scene.  Same composure. Same rhythm. Same results.
It's just him and his riding style.
Nothing super secret in his dampers.

And my take on the green button...it's just been left on the bike ever since it got so much attention at Worlds & is just a motivational/inspirational tool to play mind games.  

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thiccjim
1 year ago

If 100% made a Norton Construction shirt Id be all over it. If the proceeds went to a USDH privateer fund I'd buy the shirt, jersey, hoodie, bumper sticker and limited edition underwear. 

Just putting it out there that there are multiple DH WC podcasts and an open niche for EWS podcasts. 

Well done on the podcast and well done Dak.

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Losifer
1 year ago

I've really enjoyed this podcast as a whole, but this season has really come together.

Good job, y'all.

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Mr.Nally
1 year ago

Interesting the continued discussion around how the new organizers want to get ride of the privateers. There were more riders entered at every World Cup this year than in 2022. So?

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StudBeefpile
1 year ago

Thanks for a rad season.

Maybe its been covered in the last few but it would be cool to hear what the switch was for Dak.  What clicked this year that made racing fun?  

Semi's seem like a shit show.  No one likes them, but I was wondering the same thing.  Are they the reason we had mostly new winners each race?  I don't think so.  Someone who likes to nerd out could probably make a cool chart that shows the difference in position between semi's and finals for the top ten for each race.  

Anywho thanks for these!

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bizutch
1 year ago

With the Semi-Finals & Finals format, comfort with being able to repeat a high end run was the deciding factor
Comfort w/ terrain was the #1 factor

This would have Benoit's year in a single run format.  He was burning everyone in a 1 run format.  2 runs did him in though. 

Jordan...comfortable to the point he couldn't explain why he won(he's the only outlier).
Jackson. Val di Sole...comfortable.  (something about the grip/terrain was like Canada for him and Finn finishing 1/2) Even Hemstreet (Canadian) was fastest in qualy & finals on the final 3 splits despite her result
Hatton. Ft Bill...comfortable. Home
Kolb. Austria...comfortable. Home
Benoit. France..comfortable. Home
Bruni. France...comfortable. Home
Daprela. Andorra..comfortable. Home
Oisin. Snowshoe..comfortable. Terrain like Home
Jackson...comfortable. Home

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