2021 PRO thread

[Alfus]

Cx missed their Olympics boat before xc mtb was added. It's got the right spectator friendly format but not as exciting as xc for regular punters.

No way it's getting added to the program now unless Olympic games gets awarded to Belgium.

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WTF!!! are U serious??

[Karvalo]

Cx missed their Olympics boat before xc mtb was added. It's got the right spectator friendly format but not as exciting as xc for regular punters.

No way it's getting added to the program now unless Olympic games gets awarded to Belgium.

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WTF!!! are U serious??

Yeah. The races often unfold in a similar way but XC courses look cooler.

[BenSiskri]

I'd agree, and I enjoy CX as much as XCO; XCO has more variety it's courses, which tend to be far more spectacular (and look better on TV) - and I think an earlier point was correct; MTB XCO managed to get Olympic recognition within approx 20 years after becoming mainstream. CX has been around since the early 1900s; what were they doing all that time? It's a pretty insular sport, you'd have to say.

[smartyiak]

I'd agree, and I enjoy CX as much as XCO; XCO has more variety it's courses, which tend to be far more spectacular (and look better on TV) - and I think an earlier point was correct; MTB XCO managed to get Olympic recognition within approx 20 years after becoming mainstream. CX has been around since the early 1900s; what were they doing all that time? It's a pretty insular sport, you'd have to say.

Dontcha think a LOT of that has to do with people identifying with it. Almost everyone I know has gone "mountain biking"...even if it's borrowing a friends Roscoe for the day to hop on a rails to trails...they've been "MTBing." Whereas, the number of folks "taking their road bike out on the trails" is much smaller. And the number of folks who do that in the cold, rain, and mud is almost infinitesimal.

[Dan Gerous]

I love riding mountain bikes, it's probably the most fun discipline to do but as a spectator sport, it's probably the worst cycling event in my opinion. Cameras rarely cover much of the courses, most riders are riding on their own like in a TT, attacks and battles actually don't happen very often.

CX is much more interesting as a spectator sport, it's easier to see everything and apart from MVDP riding away from lap 1, attacks, duels or even bigger group battles happen all the time.

Does it need to be in the Olympics though? Maybe not, I personally don't care all that much for the Olympics, it's the generic pop music of sports. The smaller selection and inclusion of countries without proper talents mean the dept of the field is pretty weak compared to WorldTour/WorldCup races where strong countries have to leave home much better cyclists than the top ones of many countries. On the flip side, Olympic sports get a lot of financial boosts from federations which could help in countries other than Belgium and the Netherlands.

[Kjetil]

CX in the winter olympics would be a nice addition.

[kytyree]

I'd like to see CX added as well, it isn't a global sport, but then winter sports in general are hardly global. There are continents full of people who've never seen snow first hand.

[ave]

I tried to watch the MTB races in the Olympics, but quickly got bored. True, I only knew three riders in the men's race, and one in the women's, but it's just a procession.
Of course watching road racing is dead boring too, sometimes. But 6 hours excitment would be too much.

[LeDuke]

RedBull coverage of WCs is much better than the terrible coverage from the Olympics.


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[sychen]

Cx missed their Olympics boat before xc mtb was added. It's got the right spectator friendly format but not as exciting as xc for regular punters.

No way it's getting added to the program now unless Olympic games gets awarded to Belgium.

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WTF!!! are U serious??

Yes I'm serious.. I'm not talking about someone like you or me who watches and enjoys cross racing. Regular punters as in once in 4 years Olympics watcher will want to see people doing drop offs and rock gardens rather than some sand and mud. They don't care for quality of racing.. They want to see something they can identify and relate to. Cross is most parts of the world just isn't that.. Too niche.

They had a hundred years to get into the Olympics.. They missed the boat.

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[bikewithnoname]

Looking forward to seeing this thing in action this week:

https://www.hopetech.com/news/hbt/

I mean it's ugly as hell but has some interesting design

Rumours are that Team GB are also using a smaller pitch chain so they can shrink the chainring size and reduce drag

[nathanong87]

https://www.hopetech.com/news/hbt/

saw an article saying how they made it into a road TT bike too :O

it was supposed to debut this olympics, but will be for sale next year . Im going to show up to my local TT on this rig.

[Karvalo]

Patrick Lefevre has just gone off the deep end.

Did Sam Bennett have an affair with his wife or what?

[MrCurrieinahurry]

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[sychen]

Patrick Lefevre has just gone off the deep end.

Did Sam Bennett have an affair with his wife or what?

Oh uh... What did he do now?

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