Crankworx

Stoked to see Bruni put in a good run on the new bike. I'd love for it to be a four- or five-way race between him, Gwin, Minaar, Hill and Bryceland for the overall this season.

Semenuk seems to be the Roger Federer of slopestyle. Iceman they might call him. I liked how Rheeder went all in fir his second run, and I agree Rogatkin has balls bigger than his tires. Also, serious progression on each one of his runs!

I really enjoy Pilgrim's style, so relaxed and BMX-inspired... Wish he was given better scores, he has a ton of flow.

Too bad Soderstrom is so beaten up he had to take some time off the big stuff to properly heal.

Regarding the course, the cannon booter seemed to take a lot of momentum off for a lot of riders. That caused a lot of issues.

loving these 'photo epics' by pinkbike

itching to ride and enjoy some UCI DH!!

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/its-all-downhill-from-here-crankworx-rotorua-dh-2016-photo-epic.html

I just got done playing in like 5 feet of fresh snow.

There's a crankworx? That name sounds familiar..........

That slope contest was really fun to watch. There were a lot of great tricks thrown out there. Looking forward to watching the Italian kid Torquato Testa progress over the season.

Tough call between Semenuk and Rogatkin, but then again, it's "slopestyle," not "best trick." I suppose that's where the emphasis on style comes from. It's right there in the name.

i'd love to see another UCI dh at rotorua

OGRipper said:

Fair point. Semenuk's run was definitely cleaner and so more stylish in that sense, I guess. As a fan I was just more excited watching Rogatkin. He not only had best trick, he threw so many big tricks before the best trick it was ridiculous. And for him to go for the 10-friggin'-80 took huge cojones after a throw-away first run. It's so subjective, but I guess that's what you get with a judged contest.

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I agree with everything you said. Rogatkin does throw some big hairy exciting shit, but his runs seem a lot more of a brute-force effort compared with Semenuk's and Rheeder's precision.

I hope the rest of the season is as exciting as this contest was. I also hope Soderstrom comes back soon to shake up the podium.

Semenuk is just on another level, by far my favorite mtb rider to watch. He brings bmx trails flow to the slopestyle world which is a really cool crossover. What was interesting to hear was his comment about not planning on going to NZ until 6 days prior. I get that he doesn't want to do tons of contests at this point but to not do all 3 cworx events seems crazy. He is in his prime and on top of his competition...

I respect what Rogatkin is doing but the brute force video game tricks is kind of what killed bmx contests for me and isnt that appealing...I am sure there are many who will disagree though.

Links of this?

the front page of every mountain bike site in the world?

manhattanprjkt83 said:

I respect what Rogatkin is doing but the brute force video game tricks is kind of what killed bmx contests for me and isnt that appealing...I am sure there are many who will disagree though.

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Naw, I agree with this. A lot of people do, and the judges seem to as well.

I don't think anybody can dispute that Rogatkin is on another level when it comes to some of the insane tricks he's got in his bag, but Semenuk is rightfully being awarded top spot because nobody else can spin, barspin, AND [flip-] tailwhip both directions. Rheeder's pretty close, but if you watch closely, there's a few oppo-spin + truck/whip tricks that only Brandon can do.