2024 Gravity Season (races, freeride events, etc...)

[Sevenz]

Poland this weekend. Qualies and Semis are done. Holy shit this track is fast...



Alarm set for 5:15 Sunday morning to watch the juniors race.

Unfortunately, local Abby Ronca didn't qualify, but neither did Pom Pom, so the women's competition is fierce.

The men's field is simply insane. If a rider made any mistakes, they would be waaaay back. Top 100 in qualifying were separated by all of 13 seconds.

The 2 other Northeast locals racing tomorrow are my son Lucas DeDora (1st year Jr) qualified 12th and Kale Cushman (2nd year Jr) qualified 5th. Both are racing the full WC calendar under the Gravity Collective but my son is supported by Probuilds and Transition. Fort William Results (Lucas 17th and Kale 8th).

The other JR USDH talent are killing it so far this year also:
Asa (of course)
Gavin Tomlinson - Qualified 5th
Matilda Melton - Qualified 8th (got held up and had to pass a girl)
Ryder Lawrence - Didn't qualify in Poland but Finished 11th at Fort William.

There's a chance its a mudder tomorrow...

 

[Ian F]

Well, for better or worse, the mudder didn't happen, but it was still some great racing.

Tiz mostly worked for me again. Got through all of the women's runs and maybe half of the men's runs before the videos started getting blocked. But a couple of refreshes and I didn't miss too much. There were numerous pauses and the video quality wasn't the best. But better than nothing.

 

[serviceguy]

Poland this weekend. Qualies and Semis are done. Holy shit this track is fast...



Alarm set for 5:15 Sunday morning to watch the juniors race.

Unfortunately, local Abby Ronca didn't qualify, but neither did Pom Pom, so the women's competition is fierce.

The men's field is simply insane. If a rider made any mistakes, they would be waaaay back. Top 100 in qualifying were separated by all of 13 seconds.

On the flip side there's a line of new commentators and they're all better than the official one...

@Sevenz huge congratulations to your son, he did great!

I watched the race on Max on my desktop PC and the streaming was choppy at best, I missed several crucial moments because the pictures were more like a photographic sequence than a flowing video, was it just me? It's an ancient computer so that maybe part of it but I don't have the same issue with Red Bull TV...this just sucks!

 

[Ian F]

Hmm... I don't recall the stream being all that bad when Tiz wasn't flaking out. If your ancient computer doesn't have the right video card, then you might experience what you're describing, but I am far from a computer guru.

I saw some of the added commentary from Dean Lucas' YouTube channel, but given the stops, starts and jumps in the Tiz stream, it wasn't practical to follow since what they were commenting on wasn't what I was watching.

 

[Sevenz]

On the flip side there's a line of new commentators and they're all better than the official one...

@Sevenz huge congratulations to your son, he did great!

I watched the race on Max on my desktop PC and the streaming was choppy at best, I missed several crucial moments because the pictures were more like a photographic sequence than a flowing video, was it just me? It's an ancient computer so that maybe part of it but I don't have the same issue with Red Bull TV...this just sucks!

Thanks. He was stoked with his run. With the rain coming down he wasn’t sure if he was going to pull that gap at the bottom but pull it he did. I may be a bit biased but not sure many did that sector better than him…

He’s coming home today to race the Monster Pro Series National at Mtn Creek this weekend. Anyone interested in watching some great racing live should head out on Sunday. Asa, Neko and a bunch of other talent will all be there as well.

 

[serviceguy]

Hmm... I don't recall the stream being all that bad when Tiz wasn't flaking out. If your ancient computer doesn't have the right video card, then you might experience what you're describing, but I am far from a computer guru.

I saw some of the added commentary from Dean Lucas' YouTube channel, but given the stops, starts and jumps in the Tiz stream, it wasn't practical to follow since what they were commenting on wasn't what I was watching.

I'll try again with my work laptop and a re-run...I guess a new home computer is due regardless

 

[ebarker9]

I didn't really have quality issues with the Max feed just using the app built in to my TV. Only issue is that I watched it as a replay and it takes an absolute eternity to jump forward in time for whatever reason.

Can we talk results yet?

 

[Cassinonorth]

He’s coming home today to race the Monster Pro Series National at Mtn Creek this weekend. Anyone interested in watching some great racing live should head out on Sunday. Asa, Neko and a bunch of other talent will all be there as well.

I met Asa's dad marshalling a couple years ago. Totally undersold the talent his kid had. Very nice family all around, super happy for him and the entire FW team (aside from the stolen bikes).

 

[Ian F]

Can we talk results yet?

I'd say yes? It would seem that with the current viewing changes, results spoilers are probably less of a concern.

Watching some of the GoPro race runs, holy crap the track is fast and required full commitment. Dunne put down an amazing heater of a run, kept it upright and didn't make any time-killing mistakes. Sucks for Dak, but I'm guessing he knew he would have to ride the ragged edge in order to win and just pushed a bit too hard (I haven't heard any post-race interviews with him). Thankfully, Dunne kept it from being a French sweep of the podium... damn... Cool to see Amaury back to his old self. At least Luca would have kept it from a French sweep if Dunne had faltered.

While the track seems like a "main line with commitment" style of track, if you watch the GoPro runs closely, you can see minor changes in line-choice. Despite that, it seems like a track the racers all enjoyed riding. But it is definitely one that will punish even tiny mistakes with time lost and so many positions in the results. With the podium times spread by less than 2 seconds and under 3 seconds for the top 10... damn... a rider simply couldn't make any mistakes on this track.

For once in recent history, the Junior Men times were not even in the ballpark for the Elite results. While they definitely had a wetter and slower track, the Jr Women had an even wetter track and Heather Wilson's time would have put her on the Elite podium in 4th with here 3:28.864 time. Hopefully Teagan's crash wasn't too bad.

 

[Ian F]

Crankworx Cairnes this weekend. The Hannah siblings provided the GoPro preview of the DH track, although little changed from the last few races there. The new mom is still way faster than I ever will be... 😅



As much as I want to watch the DH race live, it's on at 12:30AM our time tomorrow (tonight).

 

[serviceguy]

Are you freakin'kidding me!?!?!

 

[ebarker9]

Anyone catch Leogang?

 

[Ian F]

I did. Good races. Good that none were weather affected.

Tiz was really inconsistent for this one. It seems that someone is watching the site and flagging the feeds fairly quickly. I barely got to see maybe half of the races.

It looks like WBD is trying something new with the broadcast having Josh Carlson as the main announcer instead of Rick. He definitely seems more animated than Rick. It will interesting to see what happens when Gwin goes back to racing (next race, I think?) and who will replace him in the booth. Rachel Atherton seems good in the booth for the women as it seems like she has retired from racing. Granted, there is no guarantee Gwin will actually qualify for his first races, as competitive as the field is these days.

 

[ebarker9]

I did. Good races. Good that none were weather affected.

Tiz was really inconsistent for this one. It seems that someone is watching the site and flagging the feeds fairly quickly. I barely got to see maybe half of the races.

It looks like WBD is trying something new with the broadcast having Josh Carlson as the main announcer instead of Rick. He definitely seems more animated than Rick. It will interesting to see what happens when Gwin goes back to racing (next race, I think?) and who will replace him in the booth. Rachel Atherton seems good in the booth for the women as it seems like she has retired from racing. Granted, there is no guarantee Gwin will actually qualify for his first races, as competitive as the field is these days.

Think I heard that Ric was sick, so Josh was a fill in. I'm assuming that it won't be a permanent change but it seemed like an improvement in the broadcast to me.

Rachel was pretty good, although she also was done a ton of interrupting. Gwin has said that he's targeting world championships in Andorra for a return, unless there's an opportunity to come back sooner. There were rumors that he broke his foot somewhat recently, so not sure if that will play into it.

Biggest takeaway from this to me was just the level of carnage throughout the weekend. Laurie G, Camille B, Finn, Dak apparently had a rough crash, Reece Wilson dislocated his shoulder before the final, definitely others that I can't remember. Then all of the crashes in the final. Wild one.

Also, this is ridiculous: