I think there was an article where Flooks mentions the bottoming issues his riders experience there.robz said:Fort William is one of the roughest courses on earth.
I think there was an article where Flooks mentions the bottoming issues his riders experience there.robz said:Fort William is one of the roughest courses on earth.
BMXman said:Maybe a better question is....How many of you have actaully raced a World Cup course and a NORBA Nat? How can you possibly tell from a video??....D
wordpterodactyl said:I race at Plattekill, considered by many to be one of the most tech/ difficult places to ride, and the "wide open" NORBA Mt Snow course beats my ass.
It's wide open for most of it and down the ski slope but the ski slope is sketchy because of the grass and it's littered with boulders. It feels like a jackhammer at speed, but you watch Hannah and the Yeti guys and they just fly over the stuff like it was never there.
Well Durango was a NORBA AND a WCHow many of you have actaully raced a World Cup course and a NORBA Nat
Hey Mani, I heard you upgraded. Get ready to be served.Mani_UT said:Well Durango was a NORBA AND a WC
And that course was FUN!
Personnaly I like the hand cut nature like style of Norba.. May be it's because I'd rather plow into a tree at 20mph instead of 40
I am.. Not by you thoughprofro said:Hey Mani, I heard you upgraded. Get ready to be served.
I generally like faster courses but Mt. Snow scares the crap out of me. Can't see the ground or think far enough ahead. You take a bad line there at warp 9, you could be in for a world of hurt.bigdrop05 said:MT. Snow has it goin on . I was there in 99 to only watch due to injury & saw every part of the course. I like that one,looks plenty fast.
Actually i like the slow & technical trails more now .Ragdolling at 50-60 mph would be absolutely NO fun .
I took a digger in a very wide open fast section and went down hard...like landing on cement.JRogers said:I generally like faster courses but Mt. Snow scares the crap out of me. Can't see the ground or think far enough ahead. You take a bad line there at warp 9, you could be in for a world of hurt.
Are you coming??? Sweeet! It's gonna be fun. New organizer really pump about racing = good hope that the event is going to be awesome!profro said:We'll see in Feb. at Bootleg Canyon. Lets meet at the canyon gap. !!!!!!
Last year I had a scarry experience, at one of the tenney races I hit a waterbar at full speed, my right (dominent) hand slipped off towards the front and I landed on my chest on the bars, At first I was like oh ****, then I realized I hadnt fallen yet and put my hand back on. That was probly one of my scariest riding experiences ever, I was really moving then. I have never liked water bars at all, mount snow spy optics series there was a really scary one near the top, luckily they fixed it for the sport and lower classes for the Nats. But I went off if following a friend whom also almost dies, landed sideways on my pedal and hit a rock, that was probly my second scariest moment. I hate water bars.nh dude said:word
i hate holes in the grass followed by water bars my right hand *almost* slipped off the bar this year. Those wc people go so fast it doesn't matter what under thier wheels
WheelieMan said:I can't comment on World Cup course difficulty having only ridden one in my life, but I have noticed that World Cup courses seem to have too many man made features like bridges, huge berms, etc... I prefer riding courses that reflect the geography of the area. For example, Angel Fire has a really sweet lava field (bowling ball sized rocks) in one of it's courses, but for some reason they left it out for the World Cup. But they added a giant wooden ramp/drop over a steep section that in my opinion completely ruined the flow of the course.
From the footage I have seen of Willingen last year, the course looked like it was entirely man made/shaped with jumps all over the place. Call me old-school but I think jumps belong mostly on 4x courses. A jump here and there is alright for DH but I feel there is such thing as too many. DH jumps should not be groomed and constructed out of the middle of nowhere, they should be formed around the natural terrain.
So I do like the direction that Norba takes with course design. Keep them natural and torn up!
Me and Ryan Bloch will be there for sure. Ryan has got some semi-pro podiums at nationals, so he'll be fast. Geritt Beytagh will probably be there too and I'm trying to convince Chris Herndon to show up as well. It should be a great time. Plus we'll have plenty of muscle there to un-stuck your car this time.Mani_UT said:Are you coming??? Sweeet! It's gonna be fun. New organizer really pump about racing = good hope that the event is going to be awesome!
I have no idea what you're talking aboutPlus we'll have plenty of muscle there to un-stuck your car this time.
ride_fast said:its funny because if you watched the oln coverage of the angel fire world cup Greg Minnarr is like talking about how smoth and easy our courses are here in america and how they dont even compare to the rougness and tecnicality of the European world cups.
can't quite agree on that one sticks.stiksandstones said:Here is the reason...I did not even read the thread-so sue me.
Back in the day the NCS series was famous for smooth tracks-but there was great racing. Then a bunch of cool, bad ass tough guys whined that the DH tracks needed to be more 'world cup', so some genius thought putting a lame rock garden, or slippery rock face would be extreme, cool and 'world-cup'. Ever since then DH racing has tanked.
It should go back to great race 'tracks', but course designers, promoters can not figure it out.
oh for shure. plus, any course is challenging when you racing on it because even if its easy to ride, you still have to ride it the fastest to win and you have to ride it better than every one else. that makes it hard i guess.Zutroy said:Yeah, but then you hear him talking about how bad his arms pump at Idaho......I think it just comes down to they are different and hard in differenet ways....it seems to be that way in Moto and even in auto race tracks.
We agree to disagree, no worries. But I am just not a fan of the rock garden type stuff for a race course that seemed to become the norm...but people like that crap and there was a 500 page thread on it. But at the risk of having some jackoff tell me I am some know it all, I was in meetings years ago with NORBA, promoters, some riders and there was a move to make the courses 'gnarlier'....I did not like the move then. I think it all kind of stemmed from a track like Nevegal italy, that was super wicked rocky, USA riders would get SMOKED, come home and complain that we do not have any preparation for the euro courses...that type of thinking made promoters change the tracks a bit. But this thinking also had to do with NORBA ditching slalom for 4x, we all know how that is going ("we need to do 4x racing here, to better prepare our USA riders for Intl. competition.....even though our americans were kicking ass even then and we didnt even have a 4x series).dhbuilder said:can't quite agree on that one sticks.
while i do agree that "back in the day"(the tomac and furtado era) the d.h. racing was great.
nowadays the bikes are much better. able to deliver more performance than most of us can take advantage of.
and even at my age, skill levels are ever increasing.
the stuff we rip over nowadays would have sent a terror induced chill up my spine just ten years ago.
although i do think more variety of terrain in both x-c and d.h. would be cool. the 1990 worlds x-c course in durango to me is what x-c racing is all about, not this dirt sidewalk skinny tire crap we see nowadays.
and courses more like the kamakazee are too few and far between.