2024 UCI WORLD CUP - Fort William Downhill Recap. 

I hope your proud of this video, the editing and the unscripted chat is what this season needs. I will be locked in with these. Thanks for the hard work mate.

Spot on opinions Deano, bin the semifinal and broadcast the qualis. That would be a good idea for you and Frotha to livestream a running commentary so we can watch the race and choose which commentators we want 🤘❤️🌈🕊️🌏

So much wisdom in this video. Wish the UCI would listen!

Living in Switzerland I couldn't even watch it very disappointed, bring back redbull TV

Best race recap I've seen. I agree that they should bin the semi's. I'd buy a sub to watch these races if the finals was more riders, 60 or so. I was baffled when they said 'no one wants to watch 3-hours of dh'. I do... and I'll watch bits and pieces throughout the day if I can't plop my ass down for a 3-hours.

Great review Dean! Last year I paid for a subscription but this year I've made a decision to not do so for the exact reasons you mentioned : why would you pay more for less value than last year, which was already bad value for money? The team doing the job seemed just a bit amateur-ish and boring and long-winded. The only positive is that they pushed Cedric out of the English commentary (thank god ! Although now I feel sorry for the French viewers who have to deal with his screaming) and Gwin's analysis seemed pretty good. The highlights reel they put up after the race was not good at all. For your average fan the media coverage and build up to the race just felt very lack-luster and if I was the sponsors of the races, I'd be asking the question if my money was better spent elsewhere. (And we haven't even touched on the pathetic amount of prize money in it for the athletes.)

I would love it if you did a live race companion like Gypsy tales used to do with supercross. Throw it up as a podcast too. I listen to that stuff while at work

Bout the only thing Whoop did they was interesting was the group rider chat. That had some fun/awkward moments. After paying too much $ for bad coverage in Canada last year, I’m not watching live WC DH races for the first time in I don’t know how long! So thank you for your content Dean. I’m getting my fill from you and BK and a few others. The UCI is doing to DH racing, what the FIS did to snowboarding…

Since the UCI ditched the last remaining USA venue, I’ve not bothered to try and stack the requisite multiple broadcast subscriptions to watch WCDH in the USA. Seems the announcing and race coverage is just as dry as last year. And the insistence of going down with the ship with semifinals is foolish. Hard to imagine them screwing it up even worse, but they will somehow manage that trick too in Poland. Wouldn’t be surprised if BK retires at the end of ‘24, as he really got race rules shafted at fort bill (finished top 20, and he’s top 30 in the points chase? WTF?!??)

Great content! Hell yes to a live commentary \m/ The coverage from this weekend and in the run up from WB/Disco was appaling. We had one video with some homeless guy waffling but not actually saying anything then straight into finals. Do I like semis? no, do I want to watch as many racers as I can - absolutely. GIVE US MORE! Build the story of the weekend, the lack of that this weekend was a travesty. This lack of content feels like I'm experiencing a grief of loss alongside my excitement for the racing - so conflicted. We all know they want to just cut down to 30 riders but if they do that I'm checking out.

Aussie Lucas/Frotha comms would be mint mate 👌

Spot on! Was at the fort and same as last year agree semis was a waste of time, but it was also made worse by the crowd being drowned out by a mad loud dj set that no one was interested in. For that specific venue losing the 4x on the Saturday night has also had an effect on the event as a whole. One plus was seeing the junior finals getting their moment with the Sunday crowd with a couple of locals feeling the benefits of that for podiums.

I've fallen out of love with the world cups, but your insight is brilliant Dean! Keep it up! 💪

15/10 for the women is just awful. It's hard enough to get girls on DH bikes as it is and making the semi and finals so restrictive is just going to make it worse. The women's field has a lot of talent and is on the cusp of becoming even deeper, but the UCI is trying to stop it. The women right now need a minimum of 18/13 and even 20/15 isn't out of the question.

My take: Ditch the Semis. Riders don’t seem to like them, fans hate it afaik. And not getting broadcast is a huge fail for paying customers. I also agree on getting 60 riders through the finals. So much potential for more competition being stuck in qualis/semis. I mean Charlie Hatton, Greenland? Those guys are real threats! Such a shame. Finn is definitely coming for Bruni, you can tell! I feel bad for the Goat, he did bust his elbow pretty bad, let’s see if he makes it to Poland. Hopefully the new track is mint and we get a good battle. Would love to see Dak get a W for sure! Also see BK get up there! Ps. Sucks for Neko and the Fw crew to get there bikes stolen. Hope they get them back soon!

Went to watch on race day but wished we had gone the day before to see qualifying and semis. We would have seen way more action. I get the gap between riders is long enough to get tv coverage but as you rightly said show the story leading up to the finals.

A live watch party would be sick! Aside from all the bullshit, the actual camera work and quality of footage was really good.

I think the commentary could do a lot more to build excitement especially towards the back end of the finals. Sure the timings were going green at some crucial points and it wasn’t being hyped half as much as it was in my head. I think there was a fair few unknown facts about riders in there too. As far as footage/camera angles etc I thought it was fairly decent coverage overall though. Crazy idea but maybe get another bunch of hardlines and have a hardline WC 🤔😂

Awesome vid - it's cool to hear the perspective of someone in the know without any real bias!

great insight deano! well needed after such shocking broadcasting

I've been an avid watcher of the live races for years. Until last year where I couldn't afford to pay. So I kept up with the races through channels like yours on RU-vid. This year however, I think the momentum of not watching the races live was amplified and I just now realized Fort William had just happened. I had no feeling to look up the schedule this year and never thought about trying to tune in or even look for RU-vid content. I fear that this is kind of a case-in-point of the problem with the availability of watching the races now.

Well said Donny

Thanks 🙏 for doing this bro Semi 🚛 suck Loved Wyn tv 📺 and his privateer project ❤ Couldn’t find the livestream in New Zealand

i don't think they show more of the track. it would interesting to see they actually show more of the track than red bull did. they can also get ride of the drone shot from 500 ft in the air.

Great perspective on the circus that is world cup DH. I'm still on the fence as to the new format.

SPOT ON Deano !!!! They REALLY need to be DONE with the semis, And the UCI Needs a MAJOR redo .The coverage is TOTAL SHIT.. .... YOU AND FROTHA would be fucking AWESOME !!!! A MILLION THANKS for ALL you do ...🤘🤘

Pretty sure they filmed the semis just never broadcast it 😢

Also need to sort the commentary, there is no Warner Passion or research done on the riders, Red Bull was free and i feel they had better coverage. there is only one real man for the commentary and we all know who that is.

Nice one Dean! I would love to know why the UCI didn't broadcast semi finals, was it from looking at the data, or feedback - the negativity around them, all the comments seemed to be people saying they'd never watch them. What you were talking about doing the commentary, I had an idea I won't do because too dull, but using the live timing data to do a live commentary along with the semi finals (given the sudden surge in popularity), that might be popular - hard to compete with Gwin on the main feed to be honest and I think it'd be hard to sync to the race - worth looking at before you put too much time into that. 🤐 This is not fashionable to say, but I really enjoyed race day, I liked the coverage even if the top section was too high level at points, commentary was good, and the introduction of the press conference and Get To Know videos was excellent. Having lost a job a while back cancelled off all my TV subscriptions, glad I kept this Discovery+ 😯

Nice Recap, thanks. Should be louder though.

In reference to the TV coverage. Didn’t even know it was on so have not watched it.

Really enjoyed this should do ot for every round. Semis are shit go back to the old way

You need to reach out and tell Luke this directly.

They attempted to satisfy the complaints about not being able to get it in Aus/NZ/SA etc. but then you can’t even really use the platform and is expensive. What they have done is made it more complex by having multiple different platforms rather than one place available to everyone to watch. Even though it was showing on Eurosport, some peeps were finding it difficult to use the app and find the broadcast. It’s not really accessible for all. Then you have the joke about only showing the start and finish of 3/4 of all race runs. We wanna see the full run of all racers, top to bottom. Especially when the junior and women’s category is small. The footage was really bad. Couldn’t see shit with the helicopter views. Semi’s needs to go and televise quail’s and finals. So sad.

Well done Dean but how can you answer this thimbnail Q. properly with a sample set of 1 event.? At best, u can discuss a comparo between last and this year right...i'm here for that ❤. Personally (i am paying for the streaming this year, broke down dammit)! while its a touch better...maybe... STILL way too many broadcast issues, FFS, the audio level from the race broadcast dropped out with 3-4 racers to go in the mens finals...literally the fastest 3-4 racers left to go,..and no fucking audio...🤬🤬🤬 I swear its ALWAYS something with Discovery..... Personally dissappointed they are apparently NOT posting the live streams of the jr and semi final raves on YT. After they stream them..at like 3 - 4am pt FFS..

Give us a heads up somehow if/when you do commentary. That would be sick

Red Bull race coverage is the best 2nd monster energy series. Uci is ruining the sport

Is the Frotha not racing this season?

been to Fort bill 16 years in a row, this years was terrible ,we enjoyed the racing and still got some shouting done , but the commentary was terrible ,no crowd interaction, total silence between the races, mega load crap d.j drowning out what was being shown on the screens.felt like the fans were a burden and they just wanted the t.v coverage and be done with it, the team commentating had no clue who any of the riders were or what was going on (one roadie one xc girl) just waffling with no content. hope its a one off as fort bill always has a different vibe

Commentary tedious, they really need Warner back. Zero info about bikes and teams etc, really boring. Semi finals has to go, utterly stupid format. Quali then race Warner on mike.

The uci coverage is a joke. Terrible. In my country there were no way to watch. I dont understand this……. They are trying to amplify the audience while limiting the channels to access ??? Stupidity

Why even mention the woman 🤷🏼‍♂️ nobody watches them, like football they are only competing at a loss to tick the clubs/manufacturer’s diversity box, how many woman do you know not working in the industry that could name 1 female footballer or 1 DH mountain biker….absolute joke 😂😂😂