There’s A New Generation Coming For The Top Spot | Bielsko-Biala Story of The Race With Ben Cathro

Stop number 2 of the 2024 World Cup DH season is done and dusted and Ben Cathro has some things to say about it. This is the story of Bielsko-Biala

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[Applause] [Music] when the weather changes at the races things always get spicy when the weather changes at a race which is taking place on a brand new track with fresh soft dirt well things can get a bit too hot to handle spoilers ahead for those who haven’t watched round two of the World Cup in Poland allow me to give you find viewers a quick recap of the event and see if we can answer some burning questions that I have like why did Valley fold up top did loris’s Wild moment cost him the win and would locky Stevens McNab have won if he had stayed on his bicycle we’ll get to that but first of all let’s go Heather Wilson Heather bust into the junior category back in Fort William and really threw a spanner at the apple cart which rock the cat majorly upset the pigeons um yeah as Fort William was our local race a lot of people thought that once we arrived at round two the established Junior females would be back on top it was definitely close but Heather showed composure aggression strength and skills which surprised a lot of people including myself what’s also surprising is that her time would have placed her fourth in Elite despite the Junior’s racing in wetter conditions great result taking two wins from Two and she now has a solid lead going into round three the junior males followed the same formula with Asa veret also backing up his round one win with an extremely confident run in the Slick conditions you could see the rain coming down and the shine on the ground as he went to work on that polish Hillside the most impressive thing was his composure and precision despite the greasy conditions I did not see him break traction anywhere which was a stark contrast with a lot of his competitors the only loose moment on camera was the double stump drop we analyzed during our inside the tape video go watch that if you haven’t already it’s actually really good ASA hit the Gap but instead of pulling up high and deep like a few others he actually squashed and skimmed the stum which was super quick with a little squirm on the exit he said himself the conditions did get a little bit worse for the Riders after him but it was still a solid win in the elite female category it was the consistent Marine cabaro who kept her cool and danc the balance with speed and sketch to smoothly get to the bottom of the hill faster than everyone else and I’m not better that I swapped her out of my pink Bank fantasy team to rebalance my budget damn it Ben her consistency was uncanny with her posting the third fastest sector on the first four segments of the track that doesn’t sound like a race winning formula until you see that the other Racers were more erratic with no single Rider going fastest in more than one sector after being smooth and consistent for most of her runs she then lit up the lower woods and committed hard into that steep to claim her first fastest sector and the win in Poland now the elite man was a whole different barrel of heck it wasn’t the winner from the last round he wasn’t even a past winner it was the king of practice the wild man the inside the tape ghosty winner Ronan dun that sent it down the Polish Hillside to take his first ever World Cup win while diving into the stats I realized that Rodan is one of those writers whose Public Image and results sheep don’t actually align he’s an absolute Wild Man On Track who goes at sections with what appears to be Reckless abandon usually this type of writing and paron leads to a sporadic and poor result but look at this weekend third and qualifying fourth in semis first in the final last year he legitimately qualified for every single final without protected status and finished the year just outside the top 10 he placed 11th at the opening round he won Hardline at the start of the year and now he’s won his first World Cup and is sitting in second in the overall Ronin Dunn is a wild man but he’s also reliable right recap done time for the stories what happened to fastest semi-finalist in series leader Valley hul I am glad you asked someone get me my analysis crayons crayons let’s have a closer look at this Crash from Valley you can see her coming in up the top section around the corners looking clean and here we go washes the front hits the deck that was a hard hit she was lucky she didn’t badly injure herself so let’s back things up and see if we can figure out what went on over the crest and in here Riders are breaking super hard hard for the next corner you can see her getting on the brakes and a big hole has developed there look at those Forks they are down in the travel so there’s a big hole over that Crest she’s getting super hard on the brakes and that’s causing her Forks to bottom out when that happens there’s a big force that goes through the bike and then after you clear the hole this is what happens so look at those Forks they’ve changed so let’s get the drawing out again those Boulder Bashers are at full extent iion now the front end is now unweighted which means the tire cannot grip as she’s initiating that turn and it’s a perfect recipe for a loss of traction Let It Roll slowmo there it goes it’s still sliding it’s still sliding she tries to dab but she’s going so fast there’s just nothing she can do to save it down onto the ground so lucky she didn’t do a collar bone slides around the corner and that’s it just a tiny mistake a slippy bit of track a big hole and she is down so that was an unfortunate miss out for Valley but what was really impressive was how she just cracked on after crashing mudding her gloves Fury in her eyes and then she posted the fastest sector on the very next section of track that is how a champ deals with Misfortune I’ve got two other stories for you CU I couldn’t actually decide which ones were best so Loris F did the one two three this weekend with first in qualifying second in semis and third in finals he did have a big old mistake in his run and one of the best saves I’ve seen in a while I guess the rumors are true he really is several cats wearing a human suit what I want to know though did he lose enough time with this mistake that he would have won no I have to pre-warn you here this is the jankiest dart fish I have ever darted um but we do get a result so let’s let’s see what happens so here we go it’s verie versus dun so they come around that pad dun scrapes it and then Loris washes the front and then he disappears he goes small he goes big he comes back in again you can see dun is way out in front he rails around that turn Lis is nowhere to be seen the DAR is just really struggling and then he comes to the line and the difference is only 48 and that is not enough for lores to have taken the win but I’ll tell you what it was interesting fair play dartfish there’s absolutely no way that should have been possible so nope he wouldn’t have won still flipping good save though the final story for you is the absolute breakout performance from llan Stevens McNab this kid spent two years chasing Jackson Goldston and Jordan Williams hiding in their shadows in Junior and then he moved up to Elite and just had terrible luck with injury after injury that put him out of action for most of last year after smashing win after win back home in New Zealand this off season he’s coming into this year firing on all cylinders he kicked things off with a career best seventh in qualifying a career best fifth in semi-finals and a career best first place at intermediates two and three before washing out a high speed on the innocuous turn that also took out Nathan ponon and almost claimed Marine cabaro let’s have a closer look at why and then Muse about what would have happened if he had stayed on let’s get a closer look at Loy coming in he tucks the front and hits the ground just so sudden lots of Raiders did it but was it just a simple tuck of the front let’s back that up and have a closer look so he comes into the section he comes a little bit high and then when he hits the corner it does look like the front tuck but I’m not so sure was it just the line let’s have a look he comes in yeah a bit High has to turn tight but the back end steps out and then the front steps out so it wasn’t just a simple tuck of the front so he comes into the corner let’s see if I can explain this a little bit better so at this point his inertia is wanting him to go straight on and when you turn what happens is you create this centrifugal force that is felt by the rider and bike and you need an equal and opposite centripetal force and that is the grip from the tires as he enters the corner and the back wheel slips his Mass briefly resumes its initial Direction which removes those forces and then as it grips those forces are reintroduced but now the front wheel is at a piece of track where there is not as much grip so that centripetal force that grip that is demanded of that front wheel it’s just not there and what happens is the front wheel washes out so the momentary slip of the back wheel reduced the demand for grip and then suddenly reintroduced it when the front wheel was in a place where there was no grip available but if this hadn’t have happened would he have won so here’s Ronan done sector times on screen now luy on his race run he wasn’t fastest at the top that was ronin’s then he was fastest at the second sector fastest in the third and then he crashed and Ronin was the fastest at the Finish but if we take luy’s semi-final times and replace them this is what we get so he was faster in sector 4 he was all close in Sector 5 and he would have been just behind but to Finish First in a race first you must actually finish so Loy needs to find that balance so he can stay on the bike to the bottom and this kid could win a World Cup in the future so that was an incredibly interesting race on a very fun and exciting track which once again proves that the pink bike comment section is the habitual residence of all the biggest brains in the industry it’s becoming a bit of a Trope but if they consensus says no Then the truth is probably yes most of the time anyway I’ll see you in Leo gang is it that way Austria to Austria