The sport needs to move away from endemic only sponsors etc.. so one team per frame brand just makes no sense. Why stop a team or...
The sport needs to move away from endemic only sponsors etc.. so one team per frame brand just makes no sense. Why stop a team or brand who want to run a development and a-team program?
While i see your point, I think he's not saying that it would be better for money in the sport, he's saying it would result in...
While i see your point, I think he's not saying that it would be better for money in the sport, he's saying it would result in a healthier field and offseason, specifically for this current year.
I do agree that having more teams riding different bikes is generally a better thing for the sport. it provides interesting discussion about what bike is better, and that engagement leads to better viewership, and if the paddock had less teams on the same bike it does create space for other brands to get in on the action.
It should be simple..WBD is TRYING to make DH would cup like F1. BUT they won't say that. If your team is on top of points...
It should be simple..WBD is TRYING to make DH would cup like F1. BUT they won't say that. If your team is on top of points, Your welcome. If your team is close to that then have a go at it and let's see how we feel. IF your team is one of interest to WBD to bring views your in too as a wildcard. I don't agree with it but what they are missing is how many of us are willing to pay for the kid in jeans showing up and going top 30. It SUCKS but it is what it is. NOBODY makes money off of DH racing..Except top 15 pros. WBD included.
The common thread in all of this is the name you keep dropping, and the one that has disappeared from our lexicon: WBD and UCI.
WBD is a for profit organization, they're going to try to make profit from things they spend money on.
The problem is that the UCI sold DHMTB broadcast rights during a bubble as a money maker to WBD, but in reality, it was already a stone with not a lot of blood (profit) left to be squeezed from it, and certainly not the legs to become some F1 scale thing (and if you've watched much Drive to Survive you know for the health of the sport, we really don't want it to become F1 anyway.)
The UCI is supposed to keep the best interests of the sport first in mind, but they've been so spoiled by the money they make from road cycling, that they've treat any part of the sport that doesn't make that kind of money with resentment. they saw a chance to finally make money on MTB (outside of the Olympics) and jumped on it, because as they've proven for the entire time MTB racing has been under their purview, they resent having to deal with it. That's why so much of this is at WBD's discretion as far as organizing and policies, because the UCI saw an opportunity to make organizing it someone else's problem, and get a flat payout for it, without technically letting it out of their overall control, because the only thing they hate more than dealing with MTB is when somebody other than them tries to organize it. I mean think about it, can you imagine the NFL letting FOX dictate major rule changes?
It's relevant to point out how all of the communication about DHMTB now comes from either Chris Ball or WBD. The greater UCI doesn't comment on it, they don't care, they've finally gotten their way of ignoring it but still keeping anybody else from making it better. If something like the Hardline series really does take off, i expect a repeat of their previous "you'll be banned from World Cups if you participate in non-UCI events" the same way they did with gravel racing, enduro racing, and way back when, 24hr racing. I suspect the continental series are an attempt to prevent any alternate series from gaining traction more than they are about actually making the sport better.
Minnaar officially announced his retirement in 2024. Had a farewell party in Andorra after his self declared last ever World Champs and did an on stage...
Minnaar officially announced his retirement in 2024. Had a farewell party in Andorra after his self declared last ever World Champs and did an on stage farewell thing on MSA after the last WC race that I saw in some YouTube piece. The latest Norco press release has him listed as team performance manager or something. He's retired.
Dakota is injured.
Gwin is an active rider, who has not announced retirement.
So I don't get your ramble
The issue is ethical not semantics
Oh, I 100% agree with you. Like I said in my "ramble," I don't necessarily agree with this line of thinking but I could see UCI looking at it that way. The point of my ramble, I guess, was to say that there are multiple ways of mentally framing this situation and the UCI seems to be fine playing things a little loosey goosey with their interpretations of their own rules.
...but now to dig in to that thought further:
Did UCI officially retire him? Seems not...or at least it seems like they don't yet (that I've seen anyway) have an official "retired" status for a rider. He still has points that it looks he's contributing to the team. They must see him as a valid rider just like they see Gwin - who has fewer points, is outside the top 50, and currently is not on a top 15 team - unless they've created a retired rider status that contributes points for the previous season but no longer allows entry into races. I doubt they'd turn him away if he wanted to race, so then I guess he's a rider. So then - if he's a rider - he's contributing points to his team.
All those other ramblings about the other riders was just to say that the UCI could justify Greg's points as much as they could justify any of the other riders' points. He has a track record of racing just like everyone else and he's currently employed by a team that has their riders greenlit into the races. He's "retired" in that he said he's not going to race anymore, got on stage to hand something out, and drank some red wine with people. He's an active rider in the UCI's eyes in that he could race any race at any time (because they wouldn't turn him away) and is contributing points to his team.
I agree with you. He shouldn't be able to ride if he's "retired." Should he contribute points? I'm fine with it (because then the team could secure their status but also take a risk on bringing in an up-and-coming rider) but I'm not on the board of people who decide these things.
I wouldn't call it an ethics issue, but more of an issue of rules/guidelines not being clearly established. At this point - having had no official guidance on an issue like this laid out by UCI - it's ALL semantics. What's the definition of a rider? Someone who is eligible to ride on a team? Could Greg be a rider? He could be as long as he's signed up and has done all the necessary paperwork. So then it seems the UCI has deemed he's a rider who is capable of contributing points to his team.
The common thread in all of this is the name you keep dropping, and the one that has disappeared from our lexicon: WBD and UCI.WBD is...
The common thread in all of this is the name you keep dropping, and the one that has disappeared from our lexicon: WBD and UCI.
WBD is a for profit organization, they're going to try to make profit from things they spend money on.
The problem is that the UCI sold DHMTB broadcast rights during a bubble as a money maker to WBD, but in reality, it was already a stone with not a lot of blood (profit) left to be squeezed from it, and certainly not the legs to become some F1 scale thing (and if you've watched much Drive to Survive you know for the health of the sport, we really don't want it to become F1 anyway.)
The UCI is supposed to keep the best interests of the sport first in mind, but they've been so spoiled by the money they make from road cycling, that they've treat any part of the sport that doesn't make that kind of money with resentment. they saw a chance to finally make money on MTB (outside of the Olympics) and jumped on it, because as they've proven for the entire time MTB racing has been under their purview, they resent having to deal with it. That's why so much of this is at WBD's discretion as far as organizing and policies, because the UCI saw an opportunity to make organizing it someone else's problem, and get a flat payout for it, without technically letting it out of their overall control, because the only thing they hate more than dealing with MTB is when somebody other than them tries to organize it. I mean think about it, can you imagine the NFL letting FOX dictate major rule changes?
It's relevant to point out how all of the communication about DHMTB now comes from either Chris Ball or WBD. The greater UCI doesn't comment on it, they don't care, they've finally gotten their way of ignoring it but still keeping anybody else from making it better. If something like the Hardline series really does take off, i expect a repeat of their previous "you'll be banned from World Cups if you participate in non-UCI events" the same way they did with gravel racing, enduro racing, and way back when, 24hr racing. I suspect the continental series are an attempt to prevent any alternate series from gaining traction more than they are about actually making the sport better.
this list is missing a lot of the teams. Team High Country, Future Frameworks, Dunbar Racing, Simplon Trailblazers, Abetone Ancillotti, The Alliance, Asia Union and Lapierre Gravity Collective. So I count about 34 teams registered for DH.
this list is missing a lot of the teams. Team High Country, Future Frameworks, Dunbar Racing, Simplon Trailblazers, Abetone Ancillotti, The Alliance, Asia Union and Lapierre...
this list is missing a lot of the teams. Team High Country, Future Frameworks, Dunbar Racing, Simplon Trailblazers, Abetone Ancillotti, The Alliance, Asia Union and Lapierre Gravity Collective. So I count about 34 teams registered for DH.
I have a feeling we won't see lapierre this season. The goal of their WC last season was to develop the new spicy, as the previous generation spicys kept snapping. As much as I like the lug and tube protos and belt driven bikes there's something about the twin-shock cannondale and optional high pivot spicy that the pits will be missing. The recent changes make me feel like DH is moving away from innovation and engineering and towards a rider and personality based spectacle, especially now teams can't simply field their new ideas to test them at the best mountain bike race in the world, they'll have to pick up riders and UCI points.
New CLLCTV DH riders Marine Cabirou, Henri Kiefer, and Aletha Ostgaard join fan favorites Troy Brosnan and Luca Shaw in the fastest CLLCTV set-up yet
It’s official: Canyon is throwing its full weight behind the CLLCTV Factory Team for 2025. This isn’t just a refresh—it’s full commitment to building a race program designed to win today and shape the champions of tomorrow.
With the largest Factory MTB team in Canyon’s history, featuring five world-class riders, Canyon is bringing its engineering muscle, team support, and product innovation to a single, unified goal: winning races.
“This is the pinnacle of mountain bike racing and product development,” says Fabien Barel, triple DH World Champion and Canyon Factory DH Team Manager. “When riders, engineers, and staff are 100% focused and working as one, incredible things happen. That’s why we’ve brought two development riders under the same roof—it’s not just about race-day results but creating the future of our sport.”
ALL-NEW LINEUP, SAME WINNING AMBITION
Joining returning fan favorites Troy Brosnan and Luca Shaw are recently announced World Cup star Marine Cabirou, and two exciting new additions: Henri Kiefer and Aletha Ostgaard.
Troy Brosnan, the model of consistency, showed his winning form with a World Cup victory at Mont-Sainte-Anne last season. Luca Shaw brought speed and precision, helping dial in the Sender CFR prototype while stacking top-ten finishes. Marine Cabirou adds serious firepower to the squad—her blistering pace and technical skill make her a threat at every race.
Then there are the young upstarts: Henri Kiefer (already a German National Champ and Junior World Champ) and Aletha Ostgaard, a 16-year-old gravity phenom from the US with more Crankworx medals than most riders twice her age. These two aren’t just the future of the sport—they’re ready to start mixing it up at the sharp end now.
If you're wondering why Canyon brought future talents into the Factory Team, it's simple: These young guns are learning way more here than they ever could tucked away in a separate development team pits. Training, racing, and hanging out alongside the fastest riders in the world isn’t just about mentorship—it’s about accelerating progress.
RACING TO DEVELOP THE FASTEST BIKES
The Sender CFR proto that will be hitting start lines this year didn’t appear out of thin air—it was born on the race track. Every component, every adjustment, every innovation comes from collaboration between our riders and engineers. Racing is Canyon’s ultimate testing ground, and the 2025 Factory Team represents their most focused development program yet.
Fabien Barel—Team Mentor and a critical cog in the Canyon MTB development machine—explains it best: “This is the most rewarding part. Riders and engineers working together to find the next tenth of a second. That’s what racing is all about—pushing boundaries to make the fastest bikes on the planet. And what we learn here doesn’t stay in the pits—the stuff that makes the cut will usually end up on production bikes someday.”
ENDURO PRO'S
Jesse Melamed will be back rocking the red maple leaf of Canadian National Champion for the Canyon CLLCTV EDR Team in 2025. Already back on the XC bike after surgery, he’ll undoubtedly be growing back to his race winning, series dominating best as the season progresses.
EDR racer Ines Thoma took a break from big bikes last year to become a Canyon Adventure author with her fantastic “Allgäu Gravel” book. She’s already been hot lapping in the Italian sun in Finale Ligure on her Strive:ON CFR LTD though, ready to race E-MTB, Gravel and even her first triathlon for Canyon in 2025.
Never rule out veteran DH and Enduro legend Fabien Barel from laying down some serious speed on the DH , Enduro or E-MTB when he’s not too busy managing the CLLCTV Factory DH Team either. The triple DH World Champion is still one of the fastest and smartest riders on the mountain and we know he’s already chasing the team riders hard in timed practice on their training camps.
CANYON FACTORY RACING = CFR
While the Factory Team pushes theSender CFRprototype (pictured below) to its limits, Canyon’s CFR lineup offers riders the same race-winning DNA. The Sender CFR and Strive CFR bring cutting-edge design, proven components, and value that any privateer racer will appreciate.
Want a boost? The Strive:ON CFR LTD pairs Bosch’s CX Race motor with a choice of battery sizes, letting riders balance lightweight agility with long-range capability.
STAY TUNED FOR 2025
With the new Sender CFR, the stage is set for 2025 to be one for the history books, and Canyon’s here for every step of the journey. From early-season testing to behind-the-scenes content from the opening World Cup in Bielsko-Biała BTS, follow the Canyon CLLCTV Factory Team as get up to speed this season. For exclusive updates, trackside action, and everything in between, follow Canyon CLLCTV on Instagram.
this list is missing a lot of the teams. Team High Country, Future Frameworks, Dunbar Racing, Simplon Trailblazers, Abetone Ancillotti, The Alliance, Asia Union and Lapierre...
this list is missing a lot of the teams. Team High Country, Future Frameworks, Dunbar Racing, Simplon Trailblazers, Abetone Ancillotti, The Alliance, Asia Union and Lapierre Gravity Collective. So I count about 34 teams registered for DH.
Simplon is an enduro team without an downhill bike
Nonetheless they are registered with the UCI as an official gravity team or whatever they call it.
Yes, DH and Enduro are both under gravity teams and their name pops up in that list because Tarmo has points from national races and I believe Tristan has some too, just as Moir's name is on there too.
The above link is for the men. Here are the elite women's rankings:
https://dataride.uci.ch/iframe/RankingDetails/156?disciplineId=7&groupI…
The common thread in all of this is the name you keep dropping, and the one that has disappeared from our lexicon: WBD and UCI.
WBD is a for profit organization, they're going to try to make profit from things they spend money on.
The problem is that the UCI sold DHMTB broadcast rights during a bubble as a money maker to WBD, but in reality, it was already a stone with not a lot of blood (profit) left to be squeezed from it, and certainly not the legs to become some F1 scale thing (and if you've watched much Drive to Survive you know for the health of the sport, we really don't want it to become F1 anyway.)
The UCI is supposed to keep the best interests of the sport first in mind, but they've been so spoiled by the money they make from road cycling, that they've treat any part of the sport that doesn't make that kind of money with resentment. they saw a chance to finally make money on MTB (outside of the Olympics) and jumped on it, because as they've proven for the entire time MTB racing has been under their purview, they resent having to deal with it. That's why so much of this is at WBD's discretion as far as organizing and policies, because the UCI saw an opportunity to make organizing it someone else's problem, and get a flat payout for it, without technically letting it out of their overall control, because the only thing they hate more than dealing with MTB is when somebody other than them tries to organize it. I mean think about it, can you imagine the NFL letting FOX dictate major rule changes?
It's relevant to point out how all of the communication about DHMTB now comes from either Chris Ball or WBD. The greater UCI doesn't comment on it, they don't care, they've finally gotten their way of ignoring it but still keeping anybody else from making it better. If something like the Hardline series really does take off, i expect a repeat of their previous "you'll be banned from World Cups if you participate in non-UCI events" the same way they did with gravel racing, enduro racing, and way back when, 24hr racing. I suspect the continental series are an attempt to prevent any alternate series from gaining traction more than they are about actually making the sport better.
Oh, I 100% agree with you. Like I said in my "ramble," I don't necessarily agree with this line of thinking but I could see UCI looking at it that way. The point of my ramble, I guess, was to say that there are multiple ways of mentally framing this situation and the UCI seems to be fine playing things a little loosey goosey with their interpretations of their own rules.
...but now to dig in to that thought further:
Did UCI officially retire him? Seems not...or at least it seems like they don't yet (that I've seen anyway) have an official "retired" status for a rider. He still has points that it looks he's contributing to the team. They must see him as a valid rider just like they see Gwin - who has fewer points, is outside the top 50, and currently is not on a top 15 team - unless they've created a retired rider status that contributes points for the previous season but no longer allows entry into races. I doubt they'd turn him away if he wanted to race, so then I guess he's a rider. So then - if he's a rider - he's contributing points to his team.
All those other ramblings about the other riders was just to say that the UCI could justify Greg's points as much as they could justify any of the other riders' points. He has a track record of racing just like everyone else and he's currently employed by a team that has their riders greenlit into the races. He's "retired" in that he said he's not going to race anymore, got on stage to hand something out, and drank some red wine with people. He's an active rider in the UCI's eyes in that he could race any race at any time (because they wouldn't turn him away) and is contributing points to his team.
I agree with you. He shouldn't be able to ride if he's "retired." Should he contribute points? I'm fine with it (because then the team could secure their status but also take a risk on bringing in an up-and-coming rider) but I'm not on the board of people who decide these things.
I wouldn't call it an ethics issue, but more of an issue of rules/guidelines not being clearly established. At this point - having had no official guidance on an issue like this laid out by UCI - it's ALL semantics. What's the definition of a rider? Someone who is eligible to ride on a team? Could Greg be a rider? He could be as long as he's signed up and has done all the necessary paperwork. So then it seems the UCI has deemed he's a rider who is capable of contributing points to his team.
I'm reminded of this, circa 2021, UCI website.
..final teams for the 2025 season.
Downhill World Cup 2025: Alle Teams & Fahrer für die kommende Saison - MTB-News.de
Wild that they list Greg Minnaar...
26 Teams. So they can all race.
this list is missing a lot of the teams. Team High Country, Future Frameworks, Dunbar Racing, Simplon Trailblazers, Abetone Ancillotti, The Alliance, Asia Union and Lapierre Gravity Collective. So I count about 34 teams registered for DH.
I have a feeling we won't see lapierre this season. The goal of their WC last season was to develop the new spicy, as the previous generation spicys kept snapping. As much as I like the lug and tube protos and belt driven bikes there's something about the twin-shock cannondale and optional high pivot spicy that the pits will be missing. The recent changes make me feel like DH is moving away from innovation and engineering and towards a rider and personality based spectacle, especially now teams can't simply field their new ideas to test them at the best mountain bike race in the world, they'll have to pick up riders and UCI points.
Here's a full team announcement from Canyon, just dropped earlier today:
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New CLLCTV DH riders Marine Cabirou, Henri Kiefer, and Aletha Ostgaard join fan favorites Troy Brosnan and Luca Shaw in the fastest CLLCTV set-up yet
Brook just confirmed to Ari on IG?
Simplon is an enduro team without an downhill bike
Nonetheless they are registered with the UCI as an official gravity team or whatever they call it.
Enduro, Dh.... probably all looks the same to the roadies controlling the UCI.
Yes, DH and Enduro are both under gravity teams and their name pops up in that list because Tarmo has points from national races and I believe Tristan has some too, just as Moir's name is on there too.
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