Cross Country World Cup racing starts this weekend in South Korea.
Predictions for the season?
Will we see a 32 inch wheel take the win / podium?
Hot takes?
I will start
Mens overall: My pick is one of the young guns. Puntener, Riley, Aldridge etc
Womens Overall: Jenny Rissveds
I don’t think we will see any top rider on 32 inch this year, so no podium.
I think we will see a wheel failure from a major rider due to the ultra light wheelsets being used by some teams. We saw Blevens at a US Cup have a rear wheel failure recently
Being a Kiwi, I think Anton Cooper is in for a good comeback this year. Hopefully he can pull an Ondrej Cink and get a well deserved win after many years on the circuit after previously coming second to Nino in a sprint.
I’m also hoping that the Cape Epic has set up Sam Gaze well for a second XCO win and some more XCC wins.
Will be missing seeing Samara Maxwell, but i’m sure she will come back even stronger.
I’m personally rooting for Belvins to continue his hot streak. As an American it is fun to watch when he is going for the win. And definitely looking forward to see how Riley takes to the new bike.
Yeah there are a few new bikes in the mix, will be interesting to see if they have closed the gap to the old epic 8 which did so well last year.
Looks like trek have just copied it in the hopes of catching back up as their old bike was pretty outdated and putting their athletes at a disadvantage.
Canyon has had a huge update also, big change in their Geo
That bike is in a no-win situation. The odds of the Specialized team matching the performance of last year is slim to none (before the injuries). I’m not one to give a ton of credit or blame to the bike, but you know that people will be pointing to the new bike as a contributor if they don’t match the results of last year.
Totally agree. I don’t think it’s the bike handling (that was tongue in cheek). I don’t think it’s because it’s “too fast” either. They’ve been riding it for a while obviously. Just bad luck I think.
I think others came in hot + thinking SFT was gearing for a later peak for worlds this time around? Of course injuries have derailed everything.
At that point it’s not even a race of fitness and skill. Guys who managed segments of the slip in slide were being cut off and crashed out by people jumping on the course. At the least there needs to be a rule you cannot reenter the course until safe. It was carnage. Great for a viral clips for likes but this is World Cup, not a spartan race. I wonder how many got hurt.
During the women’s race the riders were walking the bikes through the rock section, but during the men’s race there seemed to be a path on the side that everyone took. Did they widen the rock section after the women’s race to create a path on the grass, making the men’s race easier?
Some places your choice is peanut butter mud or cancel the race. I’d bet the dirt there is just like that when it gets wet, and an alternate course unless you went to an entirely different location wouldn’t be any better if it’s wet. I agree there’s a safety issue, but I’m not sure having an alternate rain course is a feasible way to fix it. There should’ve been a better plan in place ahead of time, and if the dirt there was known to be like that, maybe a different venue should’ve been selected in the first place knowing that you can’t control the weather and you don’t have much schedule flexibility.
