In the Leogang Live thread, Pslide said this in response to my semi-joking statements about rider complaints on track roughness:
DH racing assumes several factors: Steepness, roughness, technical challenge, rider fitness.
Altering a course to make it "safer" would be like World Cup skiing DH courses being flattened to reduce risk of deadly falls. There are World Cup DH ski race courses with compressions that are known to cause serious injury, or serious imbalance leading to injury. The skiers must learn how to deal with it, or get out of racing at that level. Period.
On an 8" travel DH bike, at the highest levels of skill on the planet, they should know how to deal with the holes. End of story, IMO.
Are the riders getting too used to well-groomed courses? Are they blaming courses for injuries? Ultimately a rider chooses what risks to take. Making a course less risky seems like making a course less World Cup level, and more like an intermediate (Sport class) level course.
In the Leogang thread I made a joke about Willingen, and I made it because I remember very well how much complaining the riders did about that being a "giant BMX track". What's next, asphalt paved DH race courses? On road bikes? Oh wait, RedBull already did that, Myles Rockwell won it!
Is that the future? Paved courses with side cushioning all the way down?
Now, I don't mean to be rude, but to me, that's the silliest nanny-state reasoning I've read on RideMonkey.I think the issue is when a course makes you take stupid risks in order to win.
WC DH racing is already very high risk. They are taking chances to get the win. But there is a line when things get too stupid. Blind hucking into holes that could result in a neck or back injury is not the kind of risk they want to take - for their careers and for their families.
DH racing assumes several factors: Steepness, roughness, technical challenge, rider fitness.
Altering a course to make it "safer" would be like World Cup skiing DH courses being flattened to reduce risk of deadly falls. There are World Cup DH ski race courses with compressions that are known to cause serious injury, or serious imbalance leading to injury. The skiers must learn how to deal with it, or get out of racing at that level. Period.
On an 8" travel DH bike, at the highest levels of skill on the planet, they should know how to deal with the holes. End of story, IMO.
Are the riders getting too used to well-groomed courses? Are they blaming courses for injuries? Ultimately a rider chooses what risks to take. Making a course less risky seems like making a course less World Cup level, and more like an intermediate (Sport class) level course.
In the Leogang thread I made a joke about Willingen, and I made it because I remember very well how much complaining the riders did about that being a "giant BMX track". What's next, asphalt paved DH race courses? On road bikes? Oh wait, RedBull already did that, Myles Rockwell won it!
Is that the future? Paved courses with side cushioning all the way down?