WINNING BIKES - Fort William World Cup Downhill 2024 8

The 2024 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Downhill season kicked of with an abusive, high-speed race on the classic track of Fort William, Scotland. While not steep, the track in the Scottish highlands features both unrelenting, unending rock gardens and smooth, buffed out jumps and motorway sections that make bike and suspension set up a tricky affair. Does one set up the bike to manage the rough, rowdy sections, or can the race be won on the flat, smooth, pumpy-jump sections? Today, we saw winning bikes with electronic suspension components that made that decision a little less difficult. Dig into the bikes of Loic Bruni, Vali Holl, Asa Vermette and Heather Wilson and look for those things we mortals can't access. Photos by Jack Rice

Loic Bruni's Specialized Demo

For anyone watching the webcast, when Loic left the start hut and aimed right, the first thing that made us flinch was a guard over his front disc rotor. WTF is that? We'd never seen it in pit bits, practice, qualis or semis, but Loic went full high-tech for finals and it paid off. Turns out he had front and rear. We're not saying the disc guards are why he won, but how could you not feel hyper-factory with something like that on your bike to slice through the wind? Loic still has his super-secret, multi-button suspension controls on  the bars, his Specialized tires have a "prototype" hot patch with what looks like "ETD 818" or "ETO 848" written in ballpoint pen on them, his lower fork crown is a split-clamp design (thanks tech rumors for pointing that out), his drivetrain is still SRAM X0 DH, his rims are still DT Swiss alloy (and 25mm?), and the secret sauce on his shock remains covered. No matter what the tech, Loic and his bike were an untouchable duo through every foot of the track today with his mechanic, Jack, the mastermind in the pits.

Vali Holl's YT TUES

Current World Champ, Vali Holl, showed up with a new team rolling on a brand new bike, the latest version of the YT TUES. YT had teased the bike the last few months with a cover, hinting at a high-pivot suspension layout via spy shots and internet rumors. On Wedsnesday, the bike was officially released and there was no high pivot. The new TUES Mk4 is a refined version of the previous model with adjustability that wasn't present before. Vali even walked through the bike with Lawlor in our PIT BITS video, but we've come to learn something. What we see in the pits and what we see on track aren't always the same thing. First of all, the decoy (get it, YT decoy?) TUES in the pits with a golden-stanchioned BoXXer didn't have the chain-raising idler chainguide we saw her with on track. Secondly, the BoXXer and Vivid Coil didn't have electronic Flight Attendant bits hanging off. By race day, all of these pieces of flair were hardly secret, and Vali raced the comment-enraging golden-tubed BoXXer with robotic suspension to a narrow victory of just .5 seconds. Win on Sunday...something, something.

Asa Vermette's Frameworks

From the pinnacle of science, engineering and technology to good, old-fashioned welds and grit. Asa Vermette obliterated the Junior Men's field aboard his Frameworks downhill bike. Hand-dabbed beads connect the aluminum tubes and gussets of the front half of the bike while carbon seat and chainstays bolt up to the machined rocker link to activate the rear end. ENVE hoops, new for the squad this year, held up great, Continental tires (also new for the team) gripped and ripped, the purple Hayes brakes were seldom used, the golden FOX 40 gobbled up Scottish slabs, and those eye-catching 5dev cranks did their job just like Asa did. If you're in this article, you've probably followed the Frameworks story from the get-go, so there's not a whole lot we need to repeat. A six-second victory for the partially broken Vermette is probably a sign of things to come and has the other groms on their heels.

(EDIT - if you look closely at the left side of Asa's bars, there seems to be some kind of control and he clearly has a RAD shock in the action pic.)

Heather Wilson's Mondraker Summum

I think it's safe to say that Heather Wilson isn't a name most are familiar with. She made sure that changed today with a convincing Junior Women's victory at Fort William aboard here Mondraker Summum. She won by 3.5 seconds against some serious contenders thanks to graceful line choice, and a steady building of pace the entire way down her finals run. Part of the Muc-Off Young Guns team, Heather is on what looks like a fairly stock Summum. As the fiery orange chainring draws you in, the after-market idler chainguide invites you stay for a while. FOX suspension, Shimano shifting, Hayes brakes, e13 wheels and Schwalbe tires were up to the task today and are proudly displayed here on the podium. Heather's Vital Downhil Fantasy value will definitely be on the rise come round two. 

Check out our Pit Bits photo gallery for more World Cup DH bike goods.