2023 Racing Calendar

World Champs has been geo-restricted in the US for years. NBC Sports has had that broadcast contract for a while now.
 
Ian F said:
World Champs has been geo-restricted in the US for years. NBC Sports has had that broadcast contract for a while now.
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I’ve always make sure to vacation in Europe to watch WC on Red Bull tv in the previous years. I guess since having to pay for crap commentary on GCN+ I was expecting not to use a VPN…ehm, I meant having to fly to Europe in order to watch the race on a channel I’m already paying for…
 
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My mistake... I somehow missed the switch from NBC Sports to FloSports. Not that it really changes anything. I am driving up to Kingdom on Saturday to ride, so I'll miss the DH anyway. If I'm lucky, I may catch a replay on YouTube. And I should be riding at Thunder Mtn the following weekend when the XCO races are broadcast.
 
serviceguy said:
Mount Bill approaching fast, any buzz to report, anyone?
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World champs is the most bittersweet race of the year. Racers push their absolute hardest to win those stripes, but as noted watching it stinks. In the past I've watched on my laptop via a VPN and the biggest issue was no rob. At least we're accustomed to no rob the whole year now.

Last year at fort bill we saw

1st. Amaury Pierron: 4:37.115
2nd. Thibaut Daprela: +0.469
3rd. Laurie Greenland: +0.916
4th. Benoit Coulanges: +0.936
5th. Matt Walker: +1.927

and Williams and goldstone would have been 5th and 6th.

worth noting no bruni, and vergier was 6th including a mechanical. So the big three Frenchies are all the favorites as far as I'm concerned but Andy kolb is really on it right now as well.
 
Ah, thankfully Gracia has been replaced by Neil Donoghue. I like Neil and so far enjoyed his commentary much better. Now, if we could get Rob Warner back instead of the ‘previous race results spoiler’…he’s done it again on the first racer coming down the course, unbelievable! World Champ good so far.
 
We'll see. The contract for World Champs may have been different than for the World Cups, so I wouldn't hold my breath on Neil commenting at Andorra. Could have been simple logistics of CG not wanting to travel to Scotland. He lives in Andorra...

I didn't watch the live show and at this point don't plan to bother watching a replay, but I'll avoid spoilers for a day or two if that's desired. Bit of a shocker with the men's race and absolutely zero with the women. Cathro posted an interesting video about one corner he felt was a deciding factor.
 
Watching Bernard Kerr on the ride companion saying that Cedric Gracia is one of his mtb heroes but should not commenting WC events was kind of refreshing, chanting the praises of Ric ‘spoiler’ McMaughlin a little less so…
 
I can give a Ric a bit of a pass on spoilers. The way the show seems to be produced, it's just one long-ass day on the mic for him with barely any breaks, so it's probably not easy to think about the juniors, women and men as separate events. When I've crawl out of bed at O-dark thirty to watch the Juniors DH races live, they really do all just run together.
 
Ian F said:
I can give a Ric a bit of a pass on spoilers. The way the show seems to be produced, it's just one long-ass day on the mic for him with barely any breaks, so it's probably not easy to think about the juniors, women and men as separate events. When I've crawl out of bed at O-dark thirty to watch the Juniors DH races live, they really do all just run together.
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Juniors finals are the day before Elites, and Ft Bill was no different. Not really an excuse there.
 
serviceguy said:
Juniors finals are the day before Elites, and Ft Bill was no different. Not really an excuse there.
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Right. I was thinking the XCO races where the U23 events immediately preceded the Elites. I remember watching that from start to finish and thinking, "damn... this goes on forever..." Looking at the Andorra schedule, they start at 0830 and run until 1700 plus pre- and post-race commentary that tends to fill in the breaks between the races.

When you watch the DH Elite finals, the "Live Show" on GCN+ just runs continuously from the women's semi-finals straight through to the men's finals, with only a short break. It's still a fairly long live broadcast for someone who's previous experience was scripted and edited 30-minute EWS videos.
 
I never got to watch world champs but I'm sure we've all seen by now that charlie hatton of Atherton bikes won with Andy kolb and Laurie Greenland rounding out the top 3. Two Brits and 2 Atherton bikes. No frenchies, no spesh, no trek. Unexpected.

So back to business as usual and bruni or vergier takes vallnord? Or we see this change continue?
 
Since it looks like the weather up here is going to be crap, I guess I can watch...

Winner? I haven't a clue...
 
Ian F said:
Since it looks like the weather up here is going to be crap, I guess I can watch...

Winner? I haven't a clue...
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I surprisingly found myself routing for Bernie Kerr lately, I was gutted when he crashed at Fort Bill but in the end his clone won so it wasn't all bad...
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Lots of us here like Bernard kerr. He messaged my son a few times last year via Instagram and was a big inspiration. Solid dude and he's never won a world cup so damn straight I root for him.

At the world cups the most approachable and happy to chat guys are dakatoh, brosnan and funny enough bruni. Some guys do the minimum and Luca shaw wouldn't raise a finger on two occasions to say hi. So I root for those guys who were cool.
 
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