Video: Josh Bryceland's Practice POV from the Châtel E-EDR World Cup 2023

 ... *on a carbon frame made in China by slaves.

 ALL BIKES MATTER……Apart from recumbent and unicycles, f**k those weirdos.

 Cause nothing says carbon neutral like adding a motor to something that doesn't require one to function,

 I usually don't comment here, but man, I think people are really judgy these days. Everything has a carbon footprint, just because he rides a EDR Race doesn't mean he isn't caring about the environment. Maybe he doesn't break as much stuff as in dh racing? Maybe he was in Chatel anyway? We don't know.
The point is, that every little thing and thought about it, helps against climate change. If you drive a SUV and don't drink your usual coffee togo in a disposable cup anymore, it still will be better then doing both. And if you don't care about the environment, then don't do it. But don't be upset if others do.

 @Bikerider9: exactly, w my emtb ive gone from driving my tundra 15000km/yr to 5000/yr. Thats saving enough to power a small city because tundra

 If I recall his main complaint was about the amount of flying involved for a team and its support crew. He was also in his mid-20s at the time, which for those of us that aren't will mostly attest to, is still an age of seemingly attainable idealism.

 @Cerealmike: I don't think unicycles get enough abuse here or anywhere else. I don't like being a hater, but this is a visceral exception I'm prepared to make. Two wheels good, one wheel bad. Orwell said it.

 Did he even say that? That line came from Claudio in the commentary booth and iirc Rat wasn't too happy about it

 why are you salty dogs still butt hurt about a false rumor started by Claudio years and years ago. Get a life. GO for a ride!

 @BenPea: I'm quite tolerant to riding unicycles. That said, I'm also tolerant to athletes who win the world cup DH overall and then quit the competition to do some other riding. I'm even tolerant to those who are too bothered by what others are riding as I understand that to hate is often not a conscious choice.

 @giustino Interestingly and somewhat counterintuitively (and admittedly I wouldn't be surprised if a little data Voodoo is involved) but some cursory Google research on co2 emission by form of transportation suggests e-bikes might actually have a lower lifetime carbon footprint then meater bikes. Presumably some of this could be accounted for by the fact that humans certainly emit more CO2 with increased exercise levels and also would require higher dietary needs while the electricity is potentially near zero carbon post infrastructure. Either way e bikes are still a fraction of virtually every other form of transportation's CO2 output.

 @Cerealmike: Kirt Voreis' Sitter-bikes are sick AF.

 @mattg95: that’s right, in his Downtime Podcast interview they even discussed it, he mentioned that he never said that was the reason he was quitting World Cup, they were not his words.

 @yamaboy2000: The old 'Haters can't afford my Lifestyle' angle..........

 @mattg95: I believe another racer, Harry Heath, retired from racing around the same time for those reasons and it kinda just stuck to Ratboy because he was pulling out at the same time, he was more famous, and it kinda fit his appearance.
From what I'm aware Rat was simply burnt out, and people continue to e-judge him based on rumours of rumours they read online.

 @lostlunchbox: probably people who ride e-bikes use them instead of their cars for short solo journeys too, certainly see a lot of middle aged (and >middle aged) commuters getting about on them round my way.

 @lostlunchbox: lol there us no way the added co2 from actually using your legs comes close to making up for all the mining, refining, transporting and manufacturing needed to make a battery for a bike. Also it may be a fraction of the co2 of most transportation… with the exception of just riding a normal bike with your legs lol god its crazy how people fall for the e-bike marketing BS these days

 @nismo325: did you actually do any research or do you just have the wisdom of the gods? I also put mutiple disclaimers in there, but I guess you're the scientist.

 @alexhyland: for sure the studies/data involves the much larger e-commuter/leisure segment not just emtb. I would be surprised if seniors don't make up the largest market of ebikes.

 @lostlunchbox: I think it goes both ways and it also depends on where you are in the world. Over here in The Netherlands, yeah obviously most people use unassisted bikes for recreation as there are no big mountains to climb, hence no point wasting the money on pedal assist. On the bicycle lanes, yes for sure the proportion of assisted bikes is growing massively. And yeah I'm indeed pretty sure that a large proportion of those riders are people who'd otherwise pick a car for their commute, or companies who traded (part of) their fleet of vans for assisted cargo bikes. Or people who were previously riding mopeds with a combustion engine and it appears like those people typically pick such a heavy assisted bike that they pretty much rely on the assistance entirely. But I'm also pretty sure that another large proportion thereof consists of people who were previously riding unassisted bikes. So yeah in terms of CO2 reduction, I'm not sure whether it is helping or not. Especially if you also include the entire lifecycle. They obviously take more resources to produce, but do they even have a service life comparable to an unassisted bike? Most unassisted (commuter) bikes last a few decades. One or two years ago I bought a bike for my daughter which must have been from the late 90's. I did some maintenance, replaced some minor parts (tires, replaced the bulb lights for led lights wired to a better bottle dynamo) and it is running like new again. Unassisted bikes are easy and cheap to maintain for anyone using readily available parts. Assisted bike, not so much. The motor, battery and computer are big black boxes and even pinching a cable when mounting a kickstand can set up a customer for expensive repairs. So I wouldn't be surprised if a bike with pedal assist has a fraction of the service life of what we've come to expect of an unassisted bike. Obviously in places where people typically travel short distances (below 10km) by car then for sure the transition to assisted bikes is the low hanging fruit. But if a large proportion is already riding unassisted bikes, you very well end up with no net gain. Full disclaimer, I don't have any hard numbers especially as this is such a quickly evolving transition at the moment. I for one can't really be bothered with pedal assist up to 25km/h as I can comfortably get close already without assistance. Should I need to cover larger distances though, yeah those bikes capped at 45km/h might make sense. That said, my girlfriend was riding at such speeds but decided it was killing the fun for her. If you rely on traveling at such speeds, you'll just cram even more into your schedule. Being able to travel faster doesn't give you more breathing space. So she recently went back to riding unassisted and plans more time between meetings on different locations. After all, who sets the norm on how long a commute should take. Typically, getting stuck in car traffic or public transport is considered an acceptable excuse. We shouldn't get to the point that the time it takes to travel by unassisted bike is unacceptably long.

 @vinay: holy shit dood!!

 @vinay: do you know the carbon footprint for such a long text?

 @vinay: I love that you ended that monolithic paragraph with the words "unacceptably long". f*cking genius!

 @danstonQ: Most of the energy is probably being consumed by the Pinkbike trackers and cookies so regardless of comment length, the carbon footprint of my post was probably similar to that of your response. I'll leave it up to you to figure out how much that really is. Enjoy!

 Maybe it has the Shimano EP8 motor, that thing sounds like a box full of rocks when you're going downhill

 He had a go at hardline as well, hope he will go back there next year and maybe have a bike race

 Agreed, looked fun. Wonder how Chris Akrigg would ride that one though.

 he's been into bikes of all kinds, including bmx, moto and trials all his life - unsure how that ridicules him

 Well Blenky raced an Ebike too and he is still racing DH so nothing strange...

 @sewer-rat: because he quit DH for environmental reasons, but now rides a bike powered by a lithium battery (which use colbalt, dug out of the ground by slaves)

 @Jake-Whitehouse: Not to mention the sources of the electricity used to recharge the battery again and again until it becomes a piece of E-waste. That said, the UK grid uses a higher percentage of non-carbon fuels to generate energy than most of the rest of the industrial world. It's been a strange journey, but God Save the Rat.

 @Jake-Whitehouse: I doubt that's the reason he quit

 @singletrackjamaica: you doubt or you know? Big difference

 @nismo325: well he did tell me in person but I suppose he could have been lying...but I doubt it