Looking forward to seeing him in action on the Summum, my old 26in one was a frighteningly fast bike.

wonder how long it took him to look that miserable in the picture.
I wonder if he had a performance clause in the contract. Unlike Rob Warner not everyone can dine out on one win for life

Does being mean about Danny make you feel better about yourself?

xc-steve
Does this mean I’ll have to sell my Foxy to avoid looking like a scene kid? That’s assuming he gets anywhere near the podium… I’ll be fine.

I’m not sure you’ll have to worry too much. Unless Hart can find form and start winning races he’ll be consigned to one hit wonder status. It’s understandable if he’s not an extrovert and want’s to let his riding do the talking but that only works if he’s winning.

He’s hardly been a no-mark, he put it on the podium twice this year, 10th overall (by a teeny margin), and always looked in contention for a win

Agreed, but he’s fallen well short of delivering on the massive hype and expectation generated by his Champery win.

True that but I reckon if you’re going to sign a top 10, podiumist, contender for a win, having him come with some old rainbow stripes is probably no downside. He gave himself a lot to live up to so no disgrace to fall short, you can’t always be the best in the world

He seemed to like the Glory but did anyone else do well on it?

Danny’s still the closest we’ve got to Sam Hill.

Although I’m keen to see what Mike Jones gets up to next year.

I think he is due a breakthrough season like Bryceland had last year, but its gonna take the right bike to do it on.

Sam Hill’s typing an angry response to chakaping as we speak

Harry Heath will be a man to watch on a factory team.

Northwind – Member

True that but I reckon if you’re going to sign a top 10, podiumist, contender for a win, having him come with some old rainbow stripes is probably no downside. He gave himself a lot to live up to so no disgrace to fall short, you can’t always be the best in the world

No of course not but unless he is delivering results like that he’ll be forever perceived as not living up to his full potential. Big ask and big expectation to be sure.

He’s hardly been a no-mark, he put it on the podium twice this year, 10th overall (by a teeny margin), and always looked in contention for a win

Yep, he’s always there or thereabouts.

Always gets some podiums each season, if he was a bit more of an extrovert he’d be in big demand for PR purposes too…I’ve read somewhere that he has mild autism which makes him a little shy, whether this is true or not I don’t know….I have watched some of his videos and interviews on Youtube and actually he has quite a dry sense of humour and deadpan delivery which is excellent….

….but its at odds with the whole ‘rad, gnarly, dude…making the horns of rock sign stereotypical DH’ thing….see Rachel Atherton for what sponsors like Redbull are after, she’s a great rider but I cant watch her being interviewed for wanting to smash my computer…every other word is ‘like’…’stoked’….’gnarly’…’dude’ etc etc…

In the DIRT-100 this month they rate the Mondraker DH bike and I think the team has ditched the zero-stem experiment that a few riders were having problems with.

Spagnolo consistently placed top-30 last year and Pekoll was top-15 on it and i rate Hart more than Spagnolo and Pekoll so I reckon we’ll see Hart doing what he always does on a bike….he’s definitely not a one-hit-wonder, he was up on times at the World Championships this year like Sam Hill was until he crashed…..coulda, woulda, shoulda and all that but I reckon Hart has World Cup wins in him and another World Championship….poor move from Giant, I think they’ll regret letting him go.

poor move from Giant, I think they’ll regret letting him go.

My entirely uniformed oppinion, but the Giant team setup seems a bit pants. They’ve had some huge names in the past, but rarely anyone delivered on their bikes. They had the Athertons for a year inbetweeen riding Intense/Mudyfox bikes 9where they’d just started to win WC rounds) and moving to Commencal (where they suddenly started getting multiple podiums at each race). Either the suppourt isn’t there or the bikes aren’t upto it, maybe the bikes are too good for the gernral public so the do well for privateers but don’t have that extra gear for the pro’s?

Didn’t Hart re-sign for Giant after Champery at some point? I wouldn’t be surprised if that was hefty sum in MTB terms with a fair bit of pressure attached to it. Maybe bad luck and injury conspired to deny him and World Cup wins thus far but I imagine the pressure would have been considerable, especially when you consider Giant are one of the biggest bike companies in the world.

I doubt the bike has had any impact on his performance. Full factory team support, Sram/Rockshox black box programme, custom geometry if he wanted it too no doubt.

I have to say I find it odd that he’s parted way with Fox too.

Alpinestars a big company and Danny likes Bwaaarps, I would imagine Miami will be getting the lions share of Fox big ups this year anyway.
I hope Danny does really well and puts some consistent high finishes as hes always showing the speed and hes great to watch. Once those little French kids get up to speed at every race I reckon the Brit dominated podiums might well diminish.

Fox aren’t exactly strangers to MX.

Maybe all someone like Danny Hart needs is the right bike? However much he liked the Giant it was still just a bog standard aluminium bike with fairly dated geometry. Maybe the Modraker carbon will give Danny that extra bit he is missing.

Funny people having a go at our national hero, do we have the slightest idea what it takes to be a top ten DH rider let alone podium or win?

Has he left RockShox too?

I’d assume giant want a series overall contender, which isn’t really Danny’s thing.

Wonder if brosnan’s contract is up this year?

Wonder if brosnan’s contract is up this year?

Meant to be going to TLD/SRAM on a Specialized demo.

Danny is on mondraker now, one of the worst kept secrets.. there was a photo on vital a few days ago and i’d heard he’d been seen in alpinestars kit about a month ago now, anyway, here’s a link/ video/ readup

Danny Hart on Mondraker

And some chat from Danny himself, quite interesting…
http://www.pinkbike.com/news/danny-hart-interview-2014.html