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awwww shit. IT'S ON

buckoW

Turbo Monkey
Mar 1, 2007
3,798
4,767
Champery, Switzerland
Sounds like Cathro chipped a bone or fractured something in his back..
 

SylentK

Turbo Monkey
Feb 25, 2004
2,353
888
coloRADo
Overall, I think it was mostly enjoyable. My feedback:

1) Commentators - Ric and Cedric aren't bad. It can just be better. (It's no Rob Warner). Like, can we have a 3rd person, maybe Eliot Jackson in the booth and keep Cedric to the fun comments, and have Eliot and Ric on the play-by-play? I do enjoy Cedric's racing experience comments. I'm also wondering if there is a French specific broadcast? Maybe he'd be better there? He has good english, but sacre blue/baguettes comments keep me scratching my head.

2) New Format - Unless I'm actually at the race, I really don't care about qualies or semis. I've only got so much time in my weekend. So I will only watch the main event. Like in MX, do you watch all the heats? I don't, who has got time for that?

3) Coverage was good enough. I'm talking cameras on course. Not sure why they didn't show the top for every rider. I thought that was one of the most interesting sectors to watch. Obviously, some production issues they need to work through. But who knew red/green on times would be a thing? I'd say the UI/UX team needs to rethink some things. Mainly, too much red and green when it doesn't mean anything. Red and green in racing means something. If not, use another color. Just saying. I can see they are trying to make it look good. Which it does. But not in this context. I'm not browsing your website, I'm looking for racing information quickly and color means something.

Looking forward to the next one!
 

slimshady

¡Mira, una ardilla!
Aside from the videograph's horrible errors (red times colored green and vice versa, poor choice of colors, not enough/too much stats on screen, etc) I think the camera placement better highlighted the track's slope/inclination when compared to the RB broadcasts.
 

SylentK

Turbo Monkey
Feb 25, 2004
2,353
888
coloRADo
N1N0 setting a record today that will stand for a long while with most XC wins.
Thomas Frischnect (sp?) on the verge of tears. Aww...

Schurter has more fitness in his pinky finger than I do in my entire body! :D Excellent work Nino, keep up the whips in XC racing ;)
 

Gary

"S" is for "neo-luddite"
Aug 27, 2002
7,805
5,714
UK
I thought the commentary was indeed not great for juniors. Cedric was sometimes getting carried away with excitement and losing track of what he wanted to say... :) I thought, it was already much better (and actually quite good) for semis and finals however.
What time did you start drinking at?
:cheers:
 

FlipSide

Turbo Monkey
Sep 24, 2001
1,392
835
What time did you start drinking at?
:cheers:
I watched the race before going for a ride.

By reading the negative comment online (that were probably based on the Juniors commentary?), I was expecting an unwatchable trainwreck. I found the commentary was fine for the finals. Not quite as good as Warner, of course, but I had a great time watching the race. I am confident they will do a fine job...we just need to give them a couple of race to improve a bit and it will be just fine.
 

canadmos

Cake Tease
May 29, 2011
20,822
19,913
Canaderp
Damn, that looks more serious than what he portrayed in the video!
 

jstuhlman

bagpipe wanker
Dec 3, 2009
16,772
13,175
Cackalacka du Nord
just watched the ladies top 3...vali was clearly stoked for rachel after cami's run, smiling and hugging her and spraying her with water. so sure, she probably was disappointed with herself later but she was clearly not a sourpuss towards her competitors...and shit, rach was MOVING
 

Gary

"S" is for "neo-luddite"
Aug 27, 2002
7,805
5,714
UK
I watched the race before going for a ride.

By reading the negative comment online (that were probably based on the Juniors commentary?), I was expecting an unwatchable trainwreck. I found the commentary was fine for the finals. Not quite as good as Warner, of course, but I had a great time watching the race. I am confident they will do a fine job...we just need to give them a couple of race to improve a bit and it will be just fine.
I watched the whole thing. Jnr finals, Elite Semis and Elite Finals (M&F).

Because Jnr finals is so small/short and it being their final (ie. meaningful) commentary wasn't actually too bad. Elite Semis commetary on the other hand was quite dire at times with very little buzz to it at all. Rik & Cedric repeated quite a lot of the same points, insights etc. throughout each presentation which didn't help but TBF WTF new would anyone have left to say commenting on 200+ race runs over 6hrs of competition on the same track with the same few camera positions? The drama of live finals is what made the commentary better as always as the race unfolds with faster and faster riders we're rooting for/expecting to see the next fastest times.

I also watched the full mens XC race live today and for that I thought Rik was pretty decent (Obvs not as good as Rob was) and his commentary worked well with Bart.
Any new presenter is going to have big boots to fill after all the Freecaster/Red bull races Warner did with various others. Rik is ok and Cedric is great in small chunks/interviews etc. But I can't really see Cedric improving massively at long stints of live commentary.
Reece was great again on camera. Josh Carlson is also good but why the fuck did they think it'd work well shoehorning his bits in DURING folks DH race runs? (They did the same with the XC and it did work a bit better there)
 
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Fool

The Thing cannot be described
Sep 10, 2001
2,810
1,535
Brooklyn
So, after round one, how are we feeling about ESO's assertion that more racing won't increase the rate of injury
 

ebarker9

Monkey
Oct 2, 2007
850
243
So, after round one, how are we feeling about ESO's assertion that more racing won't increase the rate of injury
I don't know, are there more people out than usual? It doesn't necessarily feel like it to me but probably hard to track.
 

fwp

Monkey
Jun 5, 2013
410
400
Just watched it last night
Rachel is still on another level despite training only 2 months. What a great story
What a talent in Jordan Williams, looked like all the guys besides loris had clean runs too, thats just scary.
 

canadmos

Cake Tease
May 29, 2011
20,822
19,913
Canaderp
Rachel is still on another level despite training only 2 months. What a great story
Not taking anything away from what she did, its awesome to see! But......she does have a pretty kickass looking bike park at her disposal pretty much. I think theres more to it than "training only for 2 months" :p

Even months ago or maybe it was late last year, she was in a few other videos from people visiting Dyfi and even then it looked like she could have dropped most of them. :busted:
 

Gary

"S" is for "neo-luddite"
Aug 27, 2002
7,805
5,714
UK
Ah.. So she had an advantage from riding her bike previous to beginning training.

FFS :blink:
 

canadmos

Cake Tease
May 29, 2011
20,822
19,913
Canaderp
Goddammit Gary, no Gary.

She has an advantage because she is just simply a way better rider than 100% of all the other females on the planet, at this current time.
 

fwp

Monkey
Jun 5, 2013
410
400
Not taking anything away from what she did, its awesome to see! But......she does have a pretty kickass looking bike park at her disposal pretty much. I think theres more to it than "training only for 2 months" :p

Even months ago or maybe it was late last year, she was in a few other videos from people visiting Dyfi and even then it looked like she could have dropped most of them. :busted:
Its Rachel Atherton she could drop 99.9% of park rats with zero training.
She spotted the field 4 years and came back and won. I doubt thats ever happened in any sport.
 

ebarker9

Monkey
Oct 2, 2007
850
243
It's a really, really impressive performance, especially with the new format. She came in with the least prep of any of the top women, having only put in a short period of training, only riding at one bike park, and no racing for multiple years other than last year's one off. She definitely looked to be tired toward the bottom of the finals run and that effort was still good enough to beat a younger, better prepared field.
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,654
20,484
Sleazattle
It's a really, really impressive performance, especially with the new format. She came in with the least prep of any of the top women, having only put in a short period of training, only riding at one bike park, and no racing for multiple years other than last year's one off. She definitely looked to be tired toward the bottom of the finals run and that effort was still good enough to beat a younger, better prepared field.

Vali seems to be equally talented yet less prepared
 

toodles

ridiculously corgi proportioned
Aug 24, 2004
5,594
4,898
Australia
So, after round one, how are we feeling about ESO's assertion that more racing won't increase the rate of injury
The injury list is pretty mental and some big names as well. Buuuuut - nearly all those were prior to finals, with less actual racing. I'd argue that if anything the modified (sped up) tracks and less practice time possibly more dangerous than the extra race run.

The average speed for the winning run must be some kind of record surely.
 

norbar

KESSLER PROBLEM. Just cause
Jun 7, 2007
11,439
1,671
Warsaw :/
To the guys that liked the feed. Did you actually hear the presenters clearly? Since I heard shit. Does the app have some sound compression issues on appletv or sth? I am pretty good at understandling quiet mumbling but this was a problem for me.
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,654
20,484
Sleazattle
To the guys that liked the feed. Did you actually hear the presenters clearly? Since I heard shit. Does the app have some sound compression issues on appletv or sth? I am pretty good at understandling quiet mumbling but this was a problem for me.
I thought the streaming quality was very good and a lot better than Redbull. Which is to be expected as I paid for it.

I do wish they would show the starting order during the race. They really only showed it at the beginning and I often like to figure the best case result for say someone sitting on the hotseat which requires knowing who else is due to come down.

Could look it up but I always watch the evening after the race and don't want to accidentally see results.
 
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slyfink

Turbo Monkey
Sep 16, 2008
9,419
5,164
Ottawa, Canada
Camille has been one of my favourite riders, and one of the anchors on my fantasy league teams for at least 4 years... awesome to hear that she's as big of a geek about riding and gear as we are!
 

Gary

"S" is for "neo-luddite"
Aug 27, 2002
7,805
5,714
UK
To the guys that liked the feed. Did you actually hear the presenters clearly? Since I heard shit. Does the app have some sound compression issues on appletv or sth? I am pretty good at understandling quiet mumbling but this was a problem for me.
crystal clear for the duration of every race I viewed (incl XC)
I don't have apple TV. Just the app on chromecast and my phone
 

slimshady

¡Mira, una ardilla!
To the guys that liked the feed. Did you actually hear the presenters clearly? Since I heard shit. Does the app have some sound compression issues on appletv or sth? I am pretty good at understandling quiet mumbling but this was a problem for me.
I watched it via the Russian hacker site I linked before, audio was OK on my Mac laptop (via Chrome browser).
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,654
20,484
Sleazattle
It's an accumulation problem, once you've heard Rick and Cedric spit the same nonsense about a blown berm 153 times you kinda wish they'd come up with a couple new lines...
I repeatedly learned from Cedric that world cup riders are fast and cranking is important. Which is strange as after years of listening to Claudio I thought releasing brakes was the key.
 
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OGRipper

back alley ripper
Feb 3, 2004
10,660
1,148
NORCAL is the hizzle
I do wish they would show the starting order during the race. They really only showed it at the beginning and I often like to figure the best case result for say someone sitting on the hotseat which requires knowing who else is due to come down.
Agree. Overall it was fine, but that was frustrating, and I was also annoyed at how they seemed to wait longer between runs for the top riders as compared to riders lower down. Felt like they were really milking it toward the end. I mean hey, we've got rides to ride!