the youtube series. first couple episodes have been good. the behind the scenes stuff with sofia episode three is pretty gnarly.
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I watched it all this weekend.
It didn’t paint Sofia in a great light, imo, really set her up to look like a sore looser. Maybe she is just that ultra-competitive 
I really appreciate their emphasis on the women’s side of the sport but the 2 episodes geared toward each gender totally abandoned the other gender’s story from the race. I really would have loved to hear more about the mens race at Tusher and Cheq. As well as the women’s race at Unbound and Leadville.
That said, the production and such seemed pretty darn good and it was fun to watch!
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Yeah, kinda gave me a new image of sophia.
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Agree. I would have like to see more of the women/men races on those episodes.
Otherwise, I binged it and it was good.
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i dont think it was a bad image. some people love that outspoken confidence. some people prefer quiet confidence. it was just cool to get a peak behind the curtain.
i can never get enough mtb content. i know they had to cut a ton of footage. bring on call of a lifetime special edition.
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Watched the whole series and really enjoyed it. I’m from the Hayward area and really enjoyed that episode. From my experience it is a terrible idea to make any conclusions about anyone by looking at how they respond to anything within 6 hours (before/after) of an event. That said…I thought Sophia represented herself as an extremely competitive person. I think most of her comments were self-directed (except the one about being cut-off) I liked her more at the end of the series than I did prior which is not to say I didn’t like her before. Some of the nicest people I know make her sound like a saint when they are in their competitive mind space.
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I am just guessing, because my take on it is probably similar, but her comments (which are a serious outlier for anyone in professional sports historically) were a bit off-putting not because of the competitive nature of them but because she claimed to ‘never have any interest in being a pro; but boom now she’s an olympian, boom she’s the best in the world’-paraphrasing here. It’s not a great look, no matter how great you are, or what you are trying to ‘accomplish’ by your comments.
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I think the biggest thing to me, was her comment about Hannah winning Leadville.
“I’m not mad that Hannah won, but if Hannah Finchamp can win that race, I should be able to win it.”
Later in the same episode(the 5th one, covering Cheq.) She made another comment about 'If I get the chance, I’m gonna take her out" made in regards to another rider that, Sophia felt, took a line that she was entitled to. I can get over comments made in the post race scuffle, but this comment was made in post race interviews, long after the race was over.
Now it’s entirely possible that Lifetime has edited this to look this way on purpose and we could easily be missing context.
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Series like these need heroes and villains. Quite possible. It’s entertaining tho.
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We binged It this weekend - thought it was really good. I’d rather watch gravel coverage like that (a nice edit after the fact) vs an hours-long snooze fest that costs $150 on flosports.
A little disappointed that there wasn’t more equal coverage across all the races between the men and women. I’m sure there were great stories on both sides.
I forgot about the aero bar nonsense at unbound - that was fun to relive. Good ol Pete 
Felt like I mumbled an Ouch or Yikes after several of Sofia’s comments. I get she’s intense and made of different stuff but it was the comment about Hannah at Leadville that was … Not a super awesome look.
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I’ve been banging this drum for awhile….none of these races (MTB or gravel) in the series lends itself to live coverage. Besides the fact that the action is a bit sparse, the technology to cover it well in a live format just doesn’t exist….or isn’t affordable.
I’d much rather see a tight, well done recap after the event……but I think they need to get it done sooner. They should be able to get out each episode before the next race occurs, IMO.
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For future posts, you copy and paste from here 
: Chequamegon
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I’d never even heard that word spoken before this weekend. And it was most definitely not what I expected 
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pronounced Sha-WHA-MA-gon
I heard it before I had ever seen in written, and when first seeing it written I could have easily thought it was a race I had never heard of before.
Also having Sofia come out and say, uh, her headspace wasn’t awesome and a week off the bike was well within order, while also keeping the game face on ahead of Crusher.
I would have liked to have both men’s and women’s episodes for each race though.
I also didn’t realize how much the not being recovered from the concussion messed up Hannah was at Chequamegon. That said she opted out of Unbound, so she had no choice but to race.
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It was gut wrenching to see Mo win at Sea Otter in the first episode. So sad.
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I had forgotten Mo won Sea Otter. Seeing her coming through lap 1 in the lead was tough.
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This series is filling the XC-sized hole in my heart (since it’s off season and all).
I’ll on episode 2 and I’m really enjoying it so far! Man, that Mo dedication was tough.
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Through E4 and it definitely seems like Sofia and Hannah do not like each other much….respect, yes. Like, not so much. Rivalries will do that.
But man I love Sturmy……we ran into her in Iceland at the COVID test center after The Rift. She had cramped literally in the last KM of the race and it cost her the win, but she had also stopped while leading to help a rider who had crashed badly. She was every bit as a happy and outgoing as shown in the series. We chatted for about 20 minutes….she is awesome.
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