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Perhaps the way will be to stop creating boring, straight line tracks and start introducing rocks, roots, and turns into the runs. Self preservation will lead to slightly saner riding. Honestly, the DH tracks over the last couple of years, for the most part, have been really boring.
Imagine making world cup DH pros front pivot in a tight corner! Though, given my experience with an XL trail bike with a 1292 mm wheelbase, with modern bikes it doesn't take much to achieve that 😂
DH is wild this year, between the weather, crashes and mechanicals the results are all over the place. Like, I think most people understand Vergier is the fastest dude out there right now (top 3 for sure), but that would be impossible to tell from his race performance...
That said I agree you can't base much on the last race with the top riders being in different conditions; other than that Reece is an absolute beast in the wet I guess....
Not saying anything bad about Matt Walker though, may have just had a bad couple of races.
In Les Gets Matt Walker left the start gate right before Daprella and finished 13th - not at all a bad result but not where I expected to see the WC champ.
I am looking forward to a dry WC round so we can see everyone’s flat out pace but everyone knew what they were in for and rode in fairly similar conditions in Leogang.
https://fullattack.cc/amaury-pierron-nous-donne-de-ses-nouvelles/
Very quick translation:
it was small fall, anyone looking would have been surprised he was even injured
Lungs (pretty much healed), liver and kidneys in a bad state.
Apparently takes longer to heal than bone, doctors told him 6 months before riding, 3 before doing any sport
Getting another scan in 2 weeks to see how things are progressing
Finishes with an epic "I reckon my body is a super warrior, and it will go much faster"
Staying positive and eating/drinking very healthy.
Anybody got some of them team rumors??
The tracks thing I agree with you. I watched them build the intro jump at Snowshoe. Then I watched as everyone cut it. I get that it was faster to weave around it but things like that not only make for interesting watching but also as a check.
The thing is developing, modeling and testing tedious, small things like that costs A LOT of money for very marginal gains. Gains that are worth it at the sharp end. Think stuff like seamless shifting, traction control, party modes for qualifying (burning more engine oil to have a higher flow of energy to the combustion chamber and get more power or just running the engine at a higher power level for one lap, not worrying about total fuel flows or overheating), fettling with the fuel flow sensors (supposed downfall of Ferrari from 2019 to 2020) on the powertrain side, using tuned mass dampers, inerters, front to rear interconnected suspension with a passive switching element to optimise the platform of the car (aero >> handling in series like F1), third spring elements, you had suspension systems separating heave and roll in WEC (one damper/spring unit would be affected when the car rolled in the turns, another unit would be affected when the car was either pressed down by the downforce or pitched from braking or accelerating, enabling you for example to have a very vertically stiff car, but compliant in roll), teams ran helium in the wheel guns so they spun up faster, gas mixtures used in tyres were a science unto themselves to prevent overheating and have a stable tyre temperature until it got banned and a spec gas mixture was defined, you have ridges in the rims and teams fettle with brake drums to tune the amount of heat going through the rims into the tyres during sessions, the aerodynamic details are insane, with small flicks on the front wing making a vortex that is then conditioned all along the car so it passes over the rear diffuser for example (https://tianyizf1.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/ibtglzyrus9f6h.gif), etc., etc.
Limiting this through the rules is much harder than just giving the teams a spec part which is sealed with a tamperproof seal and has a limited amount of capabilities. It makes things cheaper first and foremost, then through the limited set of capabilities it can make a series slower.
Using spec parts in MTB wouldn't do much if anything, as you have riders that either care a lot or don't care at all what they ride and how it's set up (the latter category is probably getting smaller though). The amount of data acquisition at the top level is still a small percentage, when in motorsports you have dynamics and chassis engineers developing and running simulations in junior categories (it's a money thing of course). Using spec parts would just make the sponsors unhappy and in the current world, sponsors from the industry are basically everything we have.
Not on insta, so linking a screenshot from another forum:
B. Pierron out of hospital and straight into the clone wars, that thing wraps around the back of his head.
That family definitly doesn't skip arm day.
mods feel free to replace with insta link if preferred
Unless the Commencal - Muck+Off thing gets even more interesting and we see a certain rider move away from the team...
Will we also see the Unior team on Demos next year?
Also I heard from a viable source that Gwin pulled out of Maribor WC due to injury caused in practice at Mountain Creek Nationals this past weekend.
Should be Interesting, wonder if any more top guys will have issues with covid tests in the future.
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