I'm Chris, this is the downtime podcast and you're tuned in to our L'Atoil post-race show with Nico Malawi and Oli Morris. If you're listening to this, then the chances are you love mountain biking just as much as I do and you want to stay as close to the heart of the sport as possible. That is exactly what we're here to help you do. All season long, I'll be joined by Chris Kilmurray for

our pre-race chats and by Nico and Olly for these post-race debriefs. We're bringing new analysis and insight that you won't find anywhere else straight from the track. But here's the truth. We're nearly halfway through the season and while it's been amazing to see the new Patreon supporters coming on board, it's still not enough to cover the cost of making this series. is. There's no brand backing right now and this is the most expensive thing I do with travel time and making sure the whole team gets paid for their work. Honestly, I came pretty close to not doing it this year, but I love it and from the response we've had online and trackside, I know you do too. That's why I've been self-funding the series up until this point. Currently around 1% of people listening support via Patreon. If we could get that closer to 10% it would make a huge difference. So if you value what we're creating, if this show helps you feel closer to the sport you love, then please consider supporting us over on Patreon. You can join from just £3 a month. That's less than the price of a cup of coffee but it goes a long

way the more of you that chip in the more likely is we can keep this thing going to the end of the year so

head to patreon.com for slash downtime podcast that's p a t r eon dot com four slash downtime podcast and help keep the

show rolling massive thanks to everyone who's signed up already it genuinely helps but we but we do need more of you. So if you can, now's the time. Well, what a track and what a race. LaTweil delivered at the first time of asking, and there were a lot of smiles amongst riders as they tackled the course during practice. Let's find out whose smiles remain and who's faded as we got further through the weekend. As always, there's heaps to dive into.

So without further ado, here's Nico Malawi and Olly Morris.

All right, LaTuel has wrapped up an incredible race, an incredible track, and I'm joined once

again by Nico Malali and Olly Morris. Niko, let's start with you, a new track this week for everybody involved. I think a lot of effort has gone in from the organizers, many, many hours, a lot of shovel work, a lot of money's worth of wood. I heard 70,000 euros of worth of wood just in the final feature into the finish. Yeah, they've really put a lot of grafting to make this track, and I think it's paid off. Yeah, everybody liked the finish. Yeah, they've really like put a lot of grafting to make this track

and I think it's paid off. Yeah, everybody liked the track. It was, um, it was a modern downhill

track. It was, we haven't had a new track that was completely built to modern standards

recently. I thought they did a lot of, they did more earth moving than I expected. It would

have been cool to see a little bit more natural sections, but that's the direction

the sports going, putting some of those big features in.

I do think some of the berms were helpful to keep the speeds up and make it not feel

like it was just a fall line track for how steep it was.

I was important to like traverse across the mountain and then plunge down steep.

So it had a little bit more than one flavor to it.

But the riders were saying it was one of the most fun ones to ride.

Some say there's the most fun one they've ever ridden.

And because it was soft, even though there was a lot of those berms built up,

it got really rough being a shaped track. So really

exciting to watch. B-Zone was really clear too. The walking for us wasn't great on the side

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