Hello,

Suddenly the off-season seems like a blip, over in the blink of an eye.

And here we are again, lining up for the first downhill World Cup of the season in Fort William, Scotland, with practice today, quali and semi on Saturday, and finals on Sunday.

This year we’ve got some fun stuff coming up, including the return of our Notes newsletters from every downhill and enduro World Cup race, with top-class imagery by our yearbook photographers Sven Martin, Boris Beyer and Seb Schieck.

But first, we hope you enjoy a flick through some of our favourite 2023 shots below, and keep an eye on our Instagram for daily posts and interviews from the Fort.

Cheers,

James
+ the Misspent Summers team

GRIT AND GOLD: PRE-NOTES FROM FORT WILLIAM DH WORLD CUP R1 2024
First, a quick recap on last year’s DH World Cup season:

• In case you need reminding, 2023 was Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) first year organising and broadcasting the UCI World Cup series’. They created a new umbrella brand for World Cup racing – MTB World Series – bringing XC and XC Marathon, Enduro and Downhill into one mega-series
• Other changes implemented in downhill by WBD included: new commentary team; no course marking tape (small poles instead); higher entry fees; big LED finish arch displaying results and rider profile photos; semi-finals in elite DH; paid-for elite finals broadcast; elite semi-finals and junior racing broadcast free on YouTube; a reworked points structure; a three-person series podium (it had been five-person since 1994)
• Some random season highlights: Jordan Williams’ first elite World Cup win in his first-ever elite World Cup in Lenzerheide; Rachel Atherton’s comeback from her 2019 Achilles injury and motherhood to winning the season opener in Lenzerheide; Andreas Kolb and Vali Höll Austrian double win (elite men and women) on home soil in Leogang; Benoît Coulanges and Marine Cabirou French double win (elite men and women) on home soil in Les Gets (also, the tightest elite men’s top-five ever, with just 0.655s separating the podium); Kiwi 1-2-3 in junior women’s World Champs in Fort William; Charlie Hatton’s first world-level win, at home in the UK, at Worlds in Fort William; Oisin O’Callaghan’s win in Snowshoe – the first-ever World Cup win for Ireland
• Some er not-so-highlights: Amaury Pierron, Aaron Gwin, Myriam Nicole, Camille Balanche and many other big-name riders crashed out hard, ending their seasons prematurely or missing big chunks of the racing
• Junior racing was stacked with raw talent and future promise. Colombia’s Valentina Roa Sanchez took the junior women’s series title followed by France’s Lisa Bouladou and New Zealand’s Erice van Leuven, in that order. The USA’s Ryan Pinkerton dominated junior men’s, wrapping up the series title at the penultimate race; France’s Nathan Pontvianne and Canada’s Bodhi Kuhn took second and third respectively. All three step up to the elite category for 2024
• Elite women’s racing was dominated by Austria’s Vali Höll, who won half of the World Cup races (4/8), giving her the series title with 2,422 total points. (Höll won the World Championships too.) Germany’s Nina Hoffmann finished the season with an unforgettable bang, exploding her front tyre off the rim on the final jump of the year in Mont-Sainte-Anne, but managing to keep it upright across the finish line to take second in the series with one race win and 1,913 points to her name. France’s Marine Cabirou, with two race wins, took third in the series with 1,734 points
• Elite men’s was about as exciting and unpredictable as it’s ever been, with different winners at almost every race. Despite a massive crash at the penultimate round that looked like it could scupper his title hopes, France’s Loic Bruni held it together in the final race to take his second elite series title with 1,698 points. Canadian superhero Jackson Goldstone was the season’s exception to the rule, becoming the only elite male to win two World Cup rounds in 2023, and in style: he schooled his opponents on home soil in Mont-Sainte-Anne, taking the win by over four seconds, putting him second in the series overall in his first elite year (and despite a battle with recurring health issues) with 1,616 points. The final series podium step went to Bruni’s friend and French compatriot Loris Vergier, with 1,533 points
• Santa Cruz Syndicate won the team series followed by Specialized Gravity in second and Canyon CLLCTV (Collective) Factory Team in third
• We recorded it all in Hurly Burly 7

Continued below…

Next, a few random recent pre-season notes:

• Greg Minnaar, arguably the greatest downhill racer of all time, was rumoured to be retiring at the end of 2023. But then the Fresh Prince of Big Air seemingly changed his mind. Minnaar left his longterm Santa Cruz Syndicate team and went to Norco, where he’s been instrumental in setting up a new-look racing department – or, er, division – Norco Racing Division
• An hour-long Minnaar documentary, Not Done Yet, aired on Eurosport and on-screen in Fort William on Wednesday and is now available for viewing where Eurosport is available for viewing. It’s a look back over the GOAT’s lengthy career and a no-punches-pulled first-person account of a seemingly unsatisfying (to put it politely) 2023 season. Watch on Discovery+ here
• Remember when Minnaar turned up at the opening round of the 2004 World Cup on another brand-new set-up as part of the Honda G-Cross team? That race was in Fort William, and Minnaar silenced the critics by winning the race. Fast forward a decade or two and six more Fort William wins, and could history repeat in 2024?
• Bikefax scoop: no news coming soon
• Amaury Pierron, Aaron Gwin, Myriam Nicole and Camille Balanche are all back from injuries that sidelined them in 2023. Reece Wilson is also back after two long seasons recovering from injuries
• USA sensation Asa Vermette looked ready to set the junior category on fire (he’s been schooling the elite field at home for a couple of seasons already) as he is finally old enough to race junior World Cups in 2024, but he recently fractured his hip. Despite that, he will be racing Fort William and is already looking frighteningly fast
• Does 20×10=2025?
• Jackson Goldstone blew up his knee at Red Bull Hardline in February and it looks like he’ll miss the entire season (get well soon). That left an opening on the Santa Cruz Syndicate team, which has subbed in Ollie Davis to replace Goldstone

More below…

This week in Fort William:

• Recap the 2023 World Championships from Fort William in our notes here
• Watch yesterday’s rider press conference here
• The downhill racing schedule has changed over the winter, with junior finals now on the same day as elites
• On Saturday there is barely a moment to breathe: practice starts at 08:30 sharp and rolls into elite qualifying then junior qualifying then elite semi-finals, all finishing by 16:30
• Sunday starts with junior practice, then elite practice, junior finals, junior awards ceremony, elite finals and finally the elite awards ceremony
• Full schedule and the official race book here
• Great news if you’re travelling from Edinburgh or Glasgow: there are buses from the cities and dropping you directly at the venue. Read about it here
• This year’s haul of flashy new stuff brings automatic suspension settings (via RockShox’s Flight Attendant, which several riders appear to be using, including Vali Höll), cable-and-shifter manual suspension settings (Intense Factory Racing), fully golden forks (Fox’s 50 year anniversary bling), partially golden forks (RockShox’s shiny BoXXer stanchions), and a box-fresh YT Tues
• Truck off: never mind the bikes though – team trucks are where the real action’s at. Our in-house lorry spotter Archie reckons Specialized win rig-of-the-week but Norco come a close second with their skate-inspired design and unique truck branding
• Colours of ’24: Archie’s also counted the most common main team kit colours. And the exciting news is… despite some bright splashes and two Canyon teams decked out in pink, black is back. Archie estimates a 5:1 black to pink ratio with splatters of blue, red and purple
• Onesie whoopsie? Several riders including Tahnée Seagrave are sporting Fox Racing’s sleek new Speedsuit, which is basically a one-piece skinsuit but technically two pieces (it’s like a big stretchy pink Lycra dungaree with a matching t-shirt underneath to make it look whole). Will the organisers deem it a one-piece, which is against the UCI rules, and banish it from the hill, or embrace it and continue to ride the viral wave on Instagram?
• Various riders have stopped by Fort William in recent weeks, making use of the good weather and early season lift laps to set up bikes and, er, get some pre-practice on the racetrack. This isn’t new – in previous years there have even been smaller races at Fort William just weeks before the World Cup – but should the course be closed longer before an event to level the playing field for anyone living far away, say?
• Talking of the course, it’s in mighty fine condition after some quality work by the trail team. It’s looking fast, fast, fast, with some of the rough stuff smoothed even more than for last year’s worlds, several wide-open line choices in the middle woods, and perfectly sculpted jumps on the lower motorway section
• The track start now drops directly off the top lift station’s cafe terrace, sending riders straight into the action via a steep ramp
• Martin Maes, who won Fort William as a junior in 2014 and 2015, is riding an Orbea e-bike with the battery and motor stripped out and the suspension travel upped to 200mm. What’s under the cover though?
• Five-time World Cup series winner Aaron Gwin, who recently announced his new Crestline Bikes team and part-ownership of the company, is still on the mend from his brutal 2023 arm injury and is sitting out the first four World Cups. The good news is he’ll be joining Ric McLaughlin in the commentary booth. Gwin added depth and experience when he commentated some rounds in 2023 – we can’t wait to hear more from him this week
• Junior finals will be aired on the MTB World Series YouTube from 12:25 CET (11:25 BST) this Sunday 5 May
• Elite finals will be broadcast on Max, Eurosport and Discovery+, and streamed where those channels aren’t available, from 13:45 CET (12:45 BST). Find out where to watch in your country here
• Err, what about semi-finals? There doesn’t seem to be any plan or scheduling for a live broadcast of Saturday’s elite semis (the race book shows live broadcasts in red in the event schedule). Perhaps there’ll be a not-quite-live free YouTube vid for a fill of downhill without splashing on a new TV subscription. Or is this semis being quietly phased out?
• It’s going to be an action-packed weekend and the first time a Fort William World Cup isn’t organised by Rare Management, who ran every race from 2002-2023. With Warner Bros at the helm, it’ll be exciting to see what’s new