Friday, December 16, 2011

I come from a land down under.

http://www.vitalmtb.com/videos/member/Australian-National-Round-1-Thredbo,10806/mporafr,9125

That video pretty much sums up why I like downhill bikes.Kits,nice bikes,good tracks,and shitty loose corners.The more I thought about how cool the Aussie DH scene is,the more I noticed our 'Merican scene sucks...hard.The lack of a solid race series is the biggest kick in the jeans.Remember when NORBA's used to be mini world cups?Having the NORBA title at the end of the year used to mean something,now the series doesn't exsist and has been split into about 50 other ones.It used to be all your events at one place over the course of a weekend.DH,Slalom/4x,XC,and short track.No longer is that the case.XC has their own deal now,still ran through USA Cycling and all the "gravity" stuff was pretty much left on it's ass to die.Luckily some people stepped in and took control.But the events are sporadic,hold little to no UCI points,and most of the time,lack a chairlift.

I just feel like a solid series back here in the States shouldn't be that hard to do.I'm not saying I could do it,i'm far to lazy to handle the logistics and whatnot,but here's my idea for a NORBA-esque US mountain bike race series.

-Do them at ski resorts.Not on some hill that used to be your local spot,or some ranch out in the middle of no where.You're not gonna draw in a crowd when you have to park your car two miles away from the racing and walk in on deer trails.I know it probably costs alot more to do this,but it makes the most sense.

-Enclude enduro/all mountain style racing.Lots of people like this stuff,think it's worth their money and already have the bike for it.

-Do the racing like this.Friday is open practice for everything,capped off with the finals of gated racing.Saturday is XC in the early morning,they like to be up that early anyway.Saturday afternoon/evening is enduro finals and Sunday is short track in the early morning with DH finals from early afternoon to evening.Sprinkle in some practice for everything over the course of the weekend and nobody's bummed on their race weekend.

-Make entry fees reasonable.I'm not gonna pay $80 for your shuttle/chairlift-less DH.Discounts for mutiple race entries,blah,blah,blah.

-Do an end all,be all championship.Not National Champs,but a series specific championship.

-UCI points.Seriosuly.How are we gonna get 'Merican racers to world cups if they don't have UCI points?Exactly.

So yeah.There's that.Maybe someone will do this at somepoint.Maybe not.Maybe i'll just move to Aussie land.

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