So Fast

Anyone watching the world champs (if you do, please don't give it away yet)?

unless you ride or ski
most can't comprehend the balls these downhillers have, the crashes are spectacular.. Love watching Gwin and Hill

Ballz, skillz, and incredible f'in strength.

Gwin is like a 5'-10" pile of muscle.  You can see his strength when he rides in how little the bike moves for the speed he holds.

And yes, if you were to see that shit up close that they bounce through at 30 mph, you'd definitely have a lot of respect.  Most riders, and even good one, would walk down sections of the WC course.

They used to have a WC DH at Windham  Part of me wishes Whiteface would get their shit together and build a WC course.  Would love to see one there.  I honestly think they used to use Windham because of proximity to NYC though.  Not sure WF would fly.

That is impressive. Takes some huge balls

If you want to check it out, just check out Red Bull TV.  They cover all UCI races and the world champs.  It's taped so you can watch it on demand.

This is cool. I embiggened the video, made it responsive.

Never really watched any downhill except for a few Aaron Gwins at Plattekill and the time his chain broke and he still won.

That wooden bridge is funny, I don't think a single wheel touched it.

I am in awe that those wheels can handle it and stay round.

I went to watch one of the DH's that was held at Windham. They gap jumped a connector ski trail that went under a chairlift, landing in a narrow gap in the woods between 2 trees right before a gnarly section of trail with boulders and rock gardens. They were and are so much fun to watch.  IMHO, it is the mental commitment to the trail/obstacle/race on top of fitness and skills that makes DH'ing so impressive and fun to watch and sets those riders apart.

Moar! Friday and Sat Practice. Race is today. Trying to get motivated to get out for a ride before the rain hits us and watch this later.


Editor: fixed video

When you crash are you DQ'd or do you just lose the time?

It seems like they don't get back on.

Harvey wrote

When you crash are you DQ'd or do you just lose the time?

It seems like they don't get back on.

They have to get back on the course exactly where they went off if they go over the tape, which sometimes means hiking back up.

Usually after a crash you've pretty much lost it at that point, but most of the top riders get back on and rip it.  Usually the only thing that stops the big boys and girls is flats or broken bikes.


Thanks for fixing the vid.  This forum mystifies me.  I've never even heard of Nabble before I came here.  What did you do?  I'm using a Chromebook, so I see everything just fine posting using the embed tags.

We had one for two years. They did not like the course.. To hard.

Cunningstunts wrote

Harvey wrote

When you crash are you DQ'd or do you just lose the time?

It seems like they don't get back on.

They have to get back on the course exactly where they went off, which sometimes means hiking back up.

Usually you've pretty much lost it at that point, but most of the top riders get back on and rip it.

Thanks for the race info. Did they not get back on because it was practice?

Cunningstunts wrote

Thanks for fixing the vid.  This forum mystifies me.  I've never even heard of Nabble before I came here.  What did you do?  I'm using a Chromebook, so I see everything just fine posting using the embed tags.

Nabble sucks. It was a poor choice made after a few beerz one night in June 2010.  If I ever thought it would last this long I would have paid for some decent software.

On a phone your video using the nabble embed code it will probably be cutoff. Works ok on a larger screen.

Plan is to move to something WordPress based (Buddy Press), but it is taking forever because my developer works for free and so the project gets zero priority.  It took him 4 years to make the rest of the site responsive, I finally had to get him to do it by writing him a big check.

Here's how to do video, not elegant but it works:



Note the √ next to HTML and the line breaks <br> added.

Harvey wrote

Thanks for the race info. Did they not get back on because it was practice?

Yeah - probably.  Watch the race if you have time, it's different than the practice.

In case you didn't watch the show and want to see the winning run. Bruni repeats from last year. Watch how fast he goes through that rock garden!

Rachel's onboard win. 10 seconds over second place.

Cunningstunts wrote

In case you didn't watch the show and want to see the winning run. Bruni repeats from last year. Watch how fast he goes through that rock garden!

What do I know but looked perfect.

That is insanely fast. Going through those trees, even with the padding... one mistake... ouch.

Yeah - they are in a different league, that's for sure.  

It's easy to say, oh, it's only 30-40 mph... umm... I never even touch those speeds.  Might get close to 30 on some stuff and through the trees it's very, very scary.  Over 15-20 and my eyes are wide open!

You don't really know unless you ride bikes.  It's the same with the WC DH skiers.  Skiing at half the speeds they go makes me uncomfortable.