Everything You Need To Know For Round 2 Of World Cup DH Racing | Up To Speed: Bielsko-Biała

Here is everything you need to know to get you brought up to speed on the second world cup dh race of the year, at Bielsko-Biala

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right okay where are we this week Poland man can’t believe we have no hair in makeup did it all myself okay let’s dive [Music] in so the opening round at Fort William went hard two weeks ago oh mate don’t do that oh no I mean that was pretty fast if you were lucky enough to witness the Fort William World Cup event in person or watch the live feed via legal means or otherwise you will be aware that racing is as exciting as ever and there is a lot to look forward to for example this weekend we are going to a brand new track freshly built and as far as I’m aware they’ve never held a major event on it this excites me to a high degree as Fresh Tracks change and develop over the event which means line choice is plentiful and varied the construction techniques will dictate a lot of how it rides and develops but I’m hoping for some old school Tech fingers cross and we’ll show you how things are looking on the first day of practice with our Junior preview to catch you up or just to remind you of what went down on the legendary Scottish Hillside two weeks ago Valley Hall and ly bruny continued as they ended last season with impressive wins at the opening round brunes was impressive due to the healthy 2C time Gap over this the second place finisher on a track that is notoriously tight Valley’s win was impressive considering her team and bike change coming into this season which quite often takes a bit of time to get comfortable with the other standout performances in the elite categories came from Troy broen and Nina Hoffman who both pushed hard placed consistently in qualifying semi-finals and finals to finish in second position at the opening round it was also cool to see fin ises back on the podium in third alongside Lucas Shaw on his new Canyon in fourth and Dakota Norton steering his big old bars into fifth tany C geve delighted everyone with a first place in semi-finals and Then followed it up with a decent third place in the final and she stood on the box with Camille Balan and fourth who showed that the speed is still there despite missing most of last season Gloria scari showed that downhill might be the sport for her by rounding out the podium in fifth quite a few Riders returned to racing from Big injuries so it was great to see Amry pieron going ferociously fast on track after his neck fracture almost a year ago Beno kange almost getting on the podium after his arm fracture at the end of last season was cool and miam Nicole back racing after dealing with rough concussion symptoms and a severed thumb ligament pre-season we can’t forget about the Juniors who delighted fans with racing on the actual final race date along inside the elites which is a positive change from the format used last year Heather Wilson took the win in the junior female category against some stiff competition at her first ever race and ASA vermet did the same showing that his potential is definitely real with a super fast run that scored him the win it wasn’t all smiles for ASA vermet and Niko Mal’s Frameworks racing team during their visit to the UK well traveling south on route to the next round in Poland their vehicle was broken into and the race bikes and spar were stolen this is devastating for any team but it must have been extra painful for the Frameworks team who are a small fledgling company that have just started manufacturing their own frames designed by niik malali everyone who saw the social post wondered if they’d be able to get bikes sorted in time for the next race and I’m glad to say big boss Nico flew home sourced enough material to get the team racing and they will be on their bikes in round two in Poland talking of teams how about some news for the one Rider teams the privateers I’ve heard from a few writers that an expected change to the UCI points system has not gone into effect UCI points are awarded at sanctioned events around the world and are used to rank Riders on a global scale they are different from UCI standing points which rank Racers at the World Cup Series only crucially the worldwide UCI points are the criteria used by the UCI to determine if a writer is allowed to race a World Cup writers need 40 of these points and they are notoriously hard to get and maintain as they expire 12 months after you collect them World Cups are one of the events where these points can be gained and it used to be that every Rider that qualified and advaned to the final received points on a sliding scale when that semi-final was introduced last year it was thought that if a rider passed through the qualifying round and advanced into the semi-final that UCI points would still be awarded last year this didn’t happen as the points as is defined by the UCI rule book are only awarded in the final run and it led to writers like Adam Bron not being able to compete last year this year writers have formed Privateer teams and paid the fees to circumvent this issue but some writers are still going it alone I can’t actually find the source in the rumor that UCI points were going to be awarded for semis but it looks like it was just a rumor in other news it looks like the Narco race division team has had a rock start on the rocks in Scotland Greg manard was looking super impressive on track all weekend with his competitors remarking on his speed unfortunately this didn’t convert to a good race result with Greg having a bizarre and heavy crash on the upper sections of the track what we didn’t see on the live feed was that Greg had already taken a heavy slam and separated his shoulder further up the mountain my guess is that his shoulder injury caused the second spill when his shoulder gave way the surprising news is that Greg is intending to try and race in Poland this means that the grade three shoulder separation and Chip bone isn’t affecting him too much or that he feels like he needs to Race drive to compete can come from many places internal and external let’s hope it’s coming from the right place having seen the social posts of him testing out the shoulder on his bike I’ll be surprised if we see him on track in Poland but when he does get back between the tapes I am excited to see the goat competing for wins again round one of the downhill World Cup in 2024 was our introduction to the fox aerodynamic speedit this tight fitting integrated Jersey and pants combo is supposed to create a more aerodynamic body form to cut through the air and get to the bottom faster it’s a development from the Moto one piece kit that debuted this year which was changed to fit within the UCI rule that requires a separate Jersey and pants Riders who wore this speed suit definitely claims some great results with Nina Hoffman and Tanny crave landing on the podium while wearing the speedsuit however the winners still wore traditional kit which honestly is pretty tight fitting for most Riders already a technological leap and arrow it might not be but it’ll definitely get some Riders and teams thinking about what improvements they can make to their Arrow package going into Poland looking in more detail at the new track in Poland the UCI released a teaser showing some features of the track a blend of jumps BMS and Fresh open undulations in the trees on steeper sections of the Hill looks good and a mix that should hopefully provide some great racing the last time we had a new track and a new venue was in luden VL last year and that one had some drama when the junior event was cancelled due to adverse conditions that made the junior event too dangerous to safely proceed [Music] this caused an uproar as downhill is primarily a skill-based adrenaline filled sport that thrives on the challenge and shovel fools of adrenaline confidence bravado it turns out the main issue was actually medical access on the purely prepared B zones next to the track to evacuate casualties should there have been an accident it wouldn’t have been an issue if it hadn’t been a fresh track with soft and heavy rain what’s the forecast for this weekend Heavy Rain un qualifying and semi day wonderful I’m sure lessons were learned and we will enjoy some wild racing this coming weekend so stay tuned for all the pink bike coverage that will be gracing your screens in due course do not forget to adjust your pink bike fantasy league teams before the cut off on Saturday and also stop complaining about the value rebalancing you do realize everyone is playing with the same rule so it’s the savviest or maybe luckiest player that will still win no whining get the info get your team together and get good we’ll see you in Poland right are we done kids aren’t sleeping next door this time so I can actually enunciate