Im sorry to interrupt all this roadie love, but two insanely crazy things just happened in the world of downhill mountain biking:
-Sam Hill left Specialized to go ride for Nukeproof, of all companies, which is the house brand of Chain Reaction Cycles (maybe confirming that he is no longer a podium contender in the eyes of specialized?)
-Aaron Gwin, the DOMINANT rider from Trek World Racing, and who just signed a new 3 year contract with Trek, SWITCHED TO SPECIALIZED just weeks before the teams were supposed to submit their rosters to the UCI!!! Specialized must have bought him out, for no small price I’m sure, and now Trek is pissssssed!
please read the following article for more detail.
And please watch the video in the article for the official specialized announcement (please note: Troy Brosnan, at the laptop, is the Junior world champion who will now be racing with the big boys for Specialized)
I don’t know mountain biking but translated into roadie terms this is like:
1-Andy Schleck left Radioshack Leopard Trek to join (some pro continental team) maybe confirming that he can own up to the fact that he sucks
2-Mark Cavendish, the DOMINANT sprinter from OPQS, who just signed a (multi-year?) contract with OPQS, SWITCHED TO (some other world tour team)
If this is a good translation then this is probably a big deal
this is actually really good for the sport of downhill, because the fact that this is such HUGE news shows that there really is money to be made as far as sponsorship, fans really care about this kind of thing and are paying a lot of attention to which companies sponsor which athletes, and also that the sums being thrown around by the companies to secure athletes must also be substantial. I don’t think downhill is up to roadbiking money levels yet obviously, but still in some ways this is a step in the right direction.
CRC and other online retailers are trying to make a big push to compete with the big, established cycling brands and a commitment to pro-racing is part of their business plan.
Competition/capitalism is good, even if everything is made in the Chinas.
I think it’s no surprise that they are focusing on MTB either, given the demographics and room for growth.
PS Im gonna keep posting mountain biking stuff in an effort to delude myself that anyone here actually cares. Hope that’s ok.
And @ Eric, I think as the news comes out it seems pretty clear that its Trek World Racing that is being the immature one in this whole deal, threatening legal action on extremely tenuous legal grounds and making themselves look like a big crybaby.
Yeah calling a letter of intent a contract and threatening legal action is pretty immature of TWR, but Gwyn is still a dick for signing that letter and then jumping ship at this time of year. Especially when Trek had based essentially their entire program around him and he had been doing so well the last few years. As far as I can tell the only thing Spec had to offer him over Trek was more money… don’t even think of saying a better bike.