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  • Spoke

    BEHIND THE TENTS

    Mar 12, 2018 5 minutes
    Words & Images Jay French

    That time has come again. The travelling circus that is the UCI Downhill World Cup has been parked up for the off-season, and all eyes are now on the first round of the 2018 series. Team rumours are beginning to fly, the social media machine is cranking back into action, and it’s this machine that has got me thinking about how we view the World Cup from the outside.

    Is a career as a pro downhill racer the pinnacle of all jobs? How accurate is what we see when we’re staring at our phones as we commute to work, or sit in the stall avoiding said work?

    On the outside, the World Cup looks like a giant moveable party, the F1 of the mountain bike world. We see flash bikes, champagne, celebrations and good banter. Through “behind the scenes” Instagram stories and riders’ Snapchats, we’re shown a world of hijinks and tomfoolery. But

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