2023 TEAM RUMORS

Looking at their IG feeds, not sure that relationship is still on - compared to her days at Atherton where she almost seemed to post more pics featuring FMD sponsors than her own, Millie's feed now seems wholly focused on her sponsors, racing or advocacy stuff where her sponsors are well repped, and there is no visbility of KS to be seen at all.

I expected this season to be more of a break through season for her but she seems to be settling into a solid top ten rider rather than consistent podium challenger and other than providing a womans Nordic representation (not sure how important that market is for MTB sponsors), given how shallow the full factory sponsorship pool is within womens DH, I wonder whether she will have a full factory ride next year.

Suarez was 14th overall last year. Daprela was 11th and on any day as likely to go wreckers as checkers. Angel has finally started hitting some high level consistency and might provide some balance to the wildness that might leave Amaury or Daprela permanently injured. 
 
Anyway, I get the sense that with 7 World Cup teams last year, cost wasn’t a huge concern for Max. 

McKay Vezina possibly off Giant? Or just riding with some else who's changing teams.

Don't think it makes sense for him to blur someone else's bike, especially if no one else is tagged.  McKay to WAO ? 

Maybe it's a proto Giant?

They do have a new Reign on the way. Although it's aesthetically pretty similar to the current one from what I've seen. So I don't think there's be much use in blurring it out for a tailgate pick like this. 

For me, Tahnee is one of the more interesting characters on the curcuit, on one side she is the morst girly with all the screaming pink kits and and then she is probably the most vocal about being a rider, and female one that is, with public topics about having problems focusing on the grind required to be WC athlete, how does having period affects her training and mood, which are topics nobody really talks about. Last weekend my gf had bad period cramps and she had to take 2 pills and spent whole day pretty much sleeping, now imagine that happening on a race weekend, your result is pretty much screwed and there is nothing you can really do. She is right to bring such topic out.

And she had a really bad injury, taking almost all year to recover. No doubt its going to leave really big psychological consequence, I really hope she makes a recovery and gets up to the speed but I will totally understand if she will struggle, you don't want to mess with your brain!

Id imagine the seagraves have done pretty alright for themselves the last few years.  Kaos is one of the most stylish riders on a bike and tahnee is probably then most market saavy and is in one of the largest markets for any female rider.  Fairly well off before their successful careers.  Hard to imagine fmd folding up even if wcs become less of a focus.

Something new coming from FMD Racing?

That video is excellent! The story of the Seagraves and FMD Racing is far more interesting than just race results. This alone would warrant sponsorship and support. Look at what Jenna Hastings is doing with her YouTube channel. It may be very difficult for her to break the top 5 this year, but she will bring a lot of positive attention to her sponsors. 

Looks like Brendog is off TRP and on Hayes. And maybe off Fox as theses forks don't have stickers on... I'd live too see him back on Bos ! But that's not the style of the brand anymore...

And possibly off Enve also, unless they're proto rims.

Edit - just saw your post in the other thread.

Jess Blewitt gets her wings

New male rider on Pivot plus lots more rumour chat  https://pod.co/making-up-the-numbers/bernard-kerr

Dean Lucas hints to a new team for Jack Moir when asking Jack to thank his sponsors on their recent podcast.

https://an-off-track-experience.zencast.website/episodes/episode-44-jac…

VitalMTB to buy Outside magazine and to put sub-par mtb news on pinkbike 

watched jack‘s newest vlog today and during that came a YT-commercial, so that‘s my confirmation  

The other site all but confirmed Jesse is moving to Canyon. Sad they won't have two riders fighting for the top spot, but it would make sense for Jesse to slot in to this big chasm at Canyon. 

I'm relatively sure we're about to see the announcement of his retirement from racing some time this offseason.

Some real rumors going on the other site, looking forward to the @sspomer showing pinkies how its done 

I'm not convinced yet. I haven't heard anything new from my contact at Canyon since they told me Jack was off the team.

So either Jesse is going to another team or Canyon is trying REALLY hard to keep this under wraps.

Better start training hard Spomer! If you lose, you'd have to employ Levy!

Pink-vital decathalon?

bike model scrabble

long huck to flat

100 yard wheelie dash

A judged presentation for the corniest YouTube series

prototype spyshot at World Cup treasure hunt

Fat bike tire toss

hike a bike team relay (beer chugging optional)

Chinese team rumor whispers in a podcast format

Blindfolded Brake bleed followed by a dh lap

editor Arm wrestle for triple points 

Not sure if this one is already posted...

https://singletrackworld.com/2022/11/no-propain-factory-racing-team-in-…

Propain pausing to their factory team for '23, back in '24.

Seems to give more weight to the brothers onto Giant, wonder where Henry will end up.

And will Ben Reid run the program when they return.

The other site got a statement from Ben. It appears that he hopes to stay involved with the brand, but will work on other projects. From the statement, it's not entirely clear whether those other projects are with Propain or independently pursued.

I'd be curious to see how Propain will utilize this time to prepare for '24, aside from stashing away some of the money saved by not racing. Would it be more difficult to hop back in on the second year of a transition in race management, rather than going to a couple of extra races in the first year?

My interpretation of it was they lost the brothers to another team so without decent racers it wasn’t worth the trouble. They will return once they have a solid team to compete with.

Other site posted podcast with Bernard Kerr which supposedly contains some juicy rumors, I don't have to to listen to in now, can someone do the recap? https://pod.co/making-up-the-numbers/bernard-kerr

Side note: It's funny how much some people on here like to complain about "cOnTeNt bEiNg sToLeN bY pInKbIkE", while there's information or articles from PB being repostet on here ALL THE TIME.

Like, it doesn't work that way. You don't get to complain and then do it yourself.

What we can observe here is everyone making preparations to abandon ship, should the worst case scenario really come true and UCI-sanctioned DH racing turn into a dumpsterfire. Everyone would rather have the others be the guinea pigs for the experiment that will be the first season of DH under new management.

At this point, there's just too much uncertainty for these smaller-scale factory teams:

-Will the official UCI sanctioned WC DH series turn into a shitshow because of Warner Bros involvement?

-Will there be a monetization scheme in place? If so, how will that impact viewer numbers and ultimately the relevancy of the series? Will there even be people watching?

-Will RedBull organize their own series? Will THAT become the new de-facto DH race format? Will these two hypothetical series be exclusive from each other?

Too many questions unanswered to make serious commitments.