They took place last weekend in Châtel, France the first Snow Bike World Championships. And Veronika Widmann he risked a blow in the Super G race.
This new format has led to many negative comments from fans on the UCI social media page. Karim Amour even came out with a “UCI: we are in the 21st century, listen to people's comments!” (comments translated into Italian).
Danny Hart, however, goes against the grain and defends the format by declaring that he simply had fun. We remember that Danny Hart took home a 5th place in the Super G and a 4th place in the Dual Slalom.
Well today was definitely a fun experience on my bike, having never done anything in the snow before going into it with an open mind, and I had a lot of fun… – Danny Hart
TOP OR FLOP?
You may like the format or not, but what has infuriated fans is the fact that a rainbow jersey is up for grabs, that is, a jersey with a history, a jersey earned with a lot of sweat by champions of the caliber of Eddy Merckx, Mathieu Van der Poel and many others. Athletes who have sacrificed a life, a career for this shirt while, in this case, it was up for grabs with 40 athletes at the start where, many of them, didn't really know how to face such a competition.
The format itself isn't bad: just as skiing exists, it can be an off-season celebration for many MTB enthusiasts. But all seen as an event, a party in fact, certainly not an event where the UCI rainbow jersey is awarded. Sometimes we should put business aside and think a little about values, even if this is very boomer and some will turn up their noses at getting on the imaginary train of "modernity" (modernity deliberately in quotation marks).
However, the Snow Bike World Champs remain an opportunity to race bikes at a time of year where almost nothing happens in the racing world. And, frankly speaking, innovation often does not go hand in hand with passion: how much passion is there, for example, in the choices made in Moto GP or Formula 1? Yet they are the most watched sports worldwide.
UCI WORLDS SNOW BIKE VIDEO
The UCI, at the moment, is just trying to make MTB more attractive to the general public and this is leading to a lot of criticism from MTB enthusiasts and purists. And I include myself among these, but I don't publicly denigrate the work of the UCI but I look at everything from the outside like a veteran looks at a construction site under construction on a beautiful green field that was once the scene of games and fun... but fun from boomers.
