UCI XCO World Cup 2022 Season

[Hairy]

The last few years, the XCO racers have delivered on some great racing .... 2022 should be no different.

[DieselnDust]

Quote

 

lots of rider to team changes.

Pick for the season are going o be tough. Pidock isn't in ti for the whole 9 yards.

MVDP will only be back in May...

Vader is at Jumbo Visma so which XCO will he ride and which road events. He spent some time on his TT bike yesterday.

 

Will Loana be back on form

Will Evie dominate

Will Pauline find her mojo again?

IS Emily done and mid packer now?

Will Mariske have a great season now that travel is less restricted?

 

so many questions, so much time to mull over it

[jcza]

44 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

lots of rider to team changes.

Pick for the season are going o be tough. Pidock isn't in ti for the whole 9 yards.

MVDP will only be back in May...

Vader is at Jumbo Visma so which XCO will he ride and which road events. He spent some time on his TT bike yesterday.

 

Will Loana be back on form

Will Evie dominate

Will Pauline find her mojo again?

IS Emily done and mid packer now?

Will Mariske have a great season now that travel is less restricted?

 

so many questions, so much time to mull over it

Not a mention of Neff, Frei or Indergand......I'm disappointed. 

Edited January 18, 2022 by jcza

[babse]

49 minutes ago, jcza said:

Not a mention of Neff, Frei or Indergand......I'm disappointed. 

and snuck Mariske in there like we wouldn't notice 🤭

 

Lacomte on her new canyon, Frei and Evie will be up there. 

Neff to save her best for world champs!?

[kosmonooit]

What about Sparkle Watts? will she find some form and results? She must have been very disappointed with last season, no results to speak of fresh out of being a World Champ and World Cup winner

I worry about all these U23's that come into the Elites all guns blazing, win everything for a while and then it seems all over before their Elite careers have really begun ... burn out? Will Loana go the same way? She was def. lights out at the end of last season.

Sensational Blanka Kata Vas  with the Spez Works team has been closely managed this CX season I think to avoid this scenario, she took a few months break (obligatory) - hope to see her mix it up on the MTB, Remember she was 4th in the Olympics. But maybe road will be her focus.

Edited January 18, 2022 by kosmonooit

['Dale]

The year after the Olympics always makes for a 'natural' reshuffle in the order of things.

I imagine Pidcock and Mathieu still dream of rainbows.

Edited January 18, 2022 by 'Dale

[Hairy]

5 hours ago, DieselnDust said:

lots of rider to team changes.

Pick for the season are going o be tough. Pidock isn't in ti for the whole 9 yards.

MVDP will only be back in May...

Vader is at Jumbo Visma so which XCO will he ride and which road events. He spent some time on his TT bike yesterday.

 

Will Loana be back on form

Will Evie dominate

Will Pauline find her mojo again?

IS Emily done and mid packer now?

Will Mariske have a great season now that travel is less restricted?

 

so many questions, so much time to mull over it

The first race of the season is going to be an interesting one for sure.

I love how the ladies racing has become so competitive the last few years.

[kosmonooit]

3 hours ago, 'Dale said:

The year after the Olympics always makes for a 'natural' reshuffle in the order of things.

I imagine Pidcock and Mathieu still dream of rainbows.

Piddles is talking of  triple .. he has a good chance in Fayetteville since Woutkop won't be there and MdvP is still licking his wounds from last mtb season.

[Spafsack]

Woutkop😂😂😂

[DieselnDust]

8 hours ago, jcza said:

Not a mention of Neff, Frei or Indergand......I'm disappointed. 

Well Neff is training in SA now getting in the (s)miles. Shes here with the whole Swiss ladies team so must be a state sponsored covid avoidance camp. Will they make a turn at the WP Champs on Sunday....???

Neff looked strong in Tokyo but fell away a bit thereafter, so where her form will be is anyones guess.

Sina clearly on the ascendency. Great Cape Epic with Stigger although not against any really strong competition so hard to gauge where they're really at. Tokyo was also a case of the French underperforming more than the Swiss overachieving.

Rebecca MacConnell was clearly improving through 2021 so she's due her first win.

if Yana can keep it on the bike and not have a repeat of her kidney stone episode she should be back to her best.

Kata Vas.... she's a really dark horse here but I'd have her in my fantasy team for sure

Mona Mittenwaller, on Cannondale this year so she gets an automatic add.

Jenny is never far away and is busy with intervals already. I wonder if shes riding Cape Epic... Her form was also rising last year after the 2020 debacle. 

And the crowd favourite girl next door Emily Batty. Last year as her first year as a team co-owner and racer so lets see how shes goes now that she's had a proper base block and not running around trying to sort her life out,

All in I would gladly give up 9 Sundays to spend the afternoon watching the XCO this year. We're in for a cracker of a season.

N1o going for 33 to equal Julien, Pidcock strutting in and out like he owns the place. Alan gunning for his first podium - nobody puts more pressure on him than he does to himself. Simon Andreassen is looking to be in good shape.

Hopefully no one is taking a booster vac shot before or during the season and dropping the resulting 30W - that thing is like Eskom loadshedding

Edited January 18, 2022 by DieselnDust
corrected Koller to STigger

[kosmonooit]

Christopher Blevins and Hayley Batten now on Team Spez - should see some results there.

[Headshot]

I suspect the women's racing season will be the one to watch but then again, the men's has also got more interesting in the last couple of years. I presume AH will be flying the flag as usual. I wonder what was up with Kate Courtney last year - she hasn't delivered on the promise she showed a couple of years back...

[DieselnDust]

I suspect Kate and her trainer didn't take into account how much energy broken bones take to heal which resulted in a bit of overtraining on her part. This is a view shared with me by a coach of a now retired XCO racer last year. I can certainly align with this view having had first hand experience!

You think oh ok the bone is healed but the body has used a lot of energy in that healing. I recall being very fatigued for a few weeks after my collar bone fracture in 2020. Fortunately it was end of season so return to sport was a more gradual affair and riding DC was more about endurance training than getting race fit. In Kates case i twas an in season break and she continued to train and race.

She always looked fatigued at the races so there may have been other logistics induced challenges that drew energy from her

[Hairy]

The broken bone fatigue is an interesting angle.

[kosmonooit]

Mens has def. become more open once Nino got beaten, But ladies elites last year was dominated by Loana (less so at the end of the season), lets hope for not knowing who is going to win and several lead changes in each race.

A very exciting young rider is 19 year old Puck Pieterse, who has been at the front with the elites in the CX season, her bike handling skills are incredible. Apparently she will be doing mtb this seadon, so watch out for her name in the U23's.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/20-minutes-with-your-favourite-cx-racers-puck-pieterse/id1532785341?i=1000547775226

[kosmonooit]

42 minutes ago, Hairy said:

The broken bone fatigue is an interesting angle.

 

Probably a combination of  broken bone fatigue and winning fatigue, compounded by the weight of expectations. There must be a head space struggle to deal with that, when you not on the podium and everyone expects you to be,