Interview by Dominic Lennon
Pictures courtesy of www.gordong.com
Well it is finally here, spurred by Glen’s random appearance on Farkin.net's forums we jumped at the chance to interview the "God Father", a man who has seen all there is to see in the industry and can give an honest opinion on how things are in the MTB World.
Farkin.net: Howdy Glen and on behalf of the Farkin crew we want say thanks in advance for parking your ass ( I must say Dom, so good to see you have a seat that fits my fat ass, its nice to sit on a tractor this big.) for a while to conduct this interview
Glen Jacobs: No problems at all fellas, I love what you guys are doing at Farkin, real pro stuff, it’s the first site I always go to, its real, its now and that’s all.
F: Ok so let’s get this sucka rolling. First up, tell us about yourself Mr Jacobs what you’re doing now, what you’ve done and what you’re planning on doing...yo and keep it short we haven't got all day!
GJ: Ah ...you know I talk a lot ay, I will only keep it to a couple of lines.
Well firstly, I am in the process of finalising many different projects I have on the table, these include 4 International patents, trail design and consulting, filming, rider development, Cairns MTB park and other stuff. As for my future plans, I think I can answer further down in the interview.
F: Now onto the politics…what is wrong with the World Cup circuit at the moment? I know you really need pages to answer this question but in short, in your opinion what needs to change to get this series back to a 10 race event?
GJ: A lot of work, a hell of a lot of work, BUT it’s ok, because if there are any Farkin Uni crew out there doing marketing courses, it’s this simple to understand.
With any new "Boom product" or sport, (in our case, Mountain Biking,) it starts with growth, rapid growth, it then peaks, starts a decline, then bottoms out, after an undetermined length, it goes to refresh and stabilisation or plateaus, as some call it
Well, we are in the "bottomed out" region, the shock has crapped itself, the linkages are shot, and the forks are twisted with no rebound. We have really "Bottomed out" and are banging along on the bottom at the moment, can’t say how long though.
But dude, I’ve seen it in moto, BMX, skate and other stuff, it all comes back, can never predict how long, if we all are seriously dedicated to our sport, then we can all give it the nudge it needs. All we need to see is a new way our sport is promoted, filmed, and shown to the world, the sponsors then will come.
I have some plans from a visual aspect, which includes some other companies, marketing companies, sponsors, lots of innovative image access and a whole lot of initiative. If this gets the go ahead, there will be some big changes soon, including a rebirth of Downhilling.
F: We know you have travelled the world as the man behind the dual compressor or dual courses for the UCI which are now Four Cross’s. Why recently has there been so much unhappiness about the quality of these courses? Is it the wrong man doing the Job? Or is it the strangle hold the UCI puts on the course designers?
GJ: Simple answer, there is "NO WAY" that any multi rider course can work "CONSISTENTLY", if there is no racing on the course prior to racing. Yep sounds strange, but it is nearly impossible to build and tune a course and make it work "THE FIRST TIME". Then it is raced on live television and in front of tens of thousands of spectators and media, and you cross your nuts and hope it works. Most the courses I built on the international scene were designed in the week prior to racing. Sure we had some huge successes, thanks to years of background knowledge, but hey, I had some nasty disasters too, they may not have looked bad, but from where I was sitting, not pretty
Eric Carter once said to me, "Glen I wouldn’t want your job for all the money in the world." Palmer said, tell them to go get #u*#, let them try doing what you’re doing in a couple of days. We would all stand at a track when it was nearly done, and say that’s great, so much fun to ride, then it sucked racing. Other times it would look like a roach, and was a prick to ride, but a great racing track. You can never tell if a track will or will not work at that level of fine tuning, and racing. There are so many variables to a new course, ie:
1. Soil texture; rocky earth or soft mulch hill?
2. Will the race be in perfect conditions? Most event sites are in Ski Mountain Resorts, where the weather fluctuates intensely. Will we have dry dusty conditions or wet boggy soft situations? I have been in dust storms, earthquakes, hit by lightning, dodged a tornado and nearly washed away by severe thunder storms.
3. Gradient is important. The perfect grade for any of our MTX courses are between 5% - 15%
4. Quick return route for competitors
5. Spectator access
6. Media advantages
7. Availability of water
8. Availability of drainage
I would have to build them in the following circumstances:
1. Soil from the mountain or other imported gunk, the perfect mix of soil was most times impossible or too expensive to source.
2. I was told to build a track that didn’t look like a BMX track or Super X track.
3. I had to build a track for everybody, the lamest of chicks to the fastest of the top pro’s. Nice jump, but only 20% of the riders can do it, which way does the sport go, make it big and spectacular or safe and dumb? There are ways of doing both, but hell it takes some soil and time.
4. The track shouldn’t make slow riders look slow.
5. No doubles, triples were allowed to have gaps between them, there goes my limited soil.
6. Lots of workers or a handful,
7. One situation I had 2 days to prepare the course, because of the organizers being unorganized, another I had 2 months to do the course, the average was 5 days.
8. Lots of machinery or none
9. Not one hill was the same, soil, gradient, length or weather; this is a great challenge though.
10. Will the jumps and obstacles compact in time for racing, or will they blow out if dusty or turn to sludge if wet?
11 .Jumps and obstacles have certain lines, if they can’t be used because they are wet and boggy, where is the next line? Most likely only one line, oops, there goes racing.
12. In view of these points, as we are holding a multi competitor race scenario, what are the best lines for riders in these variable conditions, low flat courses?
13. Could a good course be built, if there is no race testing? Sure there are pro riders practicing the course, but they never would go at race pace or test secret lines, before the actual race.
But I did have a free reign on creativity and development from the UCI, that’s a great thing. The people at the top of the UCI, like Martin Whiteley were really trying to achieve something great for the sport, and I know that it would have been even a harder job than mine dealing with an old institution like the UCI.
That guy really did a lot in this country for the sport, and tried to replicate it internationally.
The answer is this:
1. Hold World Cups or any major event on a course that has been raced and proven before. How can the world’s best riders and world’s biggest race series be held on a track that is "tested out" for the first time on live television with massive amounts of spectators watching. It makes our sport look dumb if it doesn’t work. The downhill is inspected up to a year prior to a world cup being granted, why not the same concept for MTX, Quad Compressor or 4X?
2. The course designers must be proven to be quality and professional. As our sport is in its infancy, these are rare to come by, but there are some great natural designers out there. The new UCI guy will have the similar problems to everybody else, (even though he seems a lot better than the ones before) unless there are changes, he will have a hard time also.
3. The courses must be hard, solid and all weather; basically they must be permanent or semi permanent courses.
4. Never make a course in a few days, if there is no other option because of a snow covered site, a pre race must be held.
5. Soon there will be permanent mountain bike event areas throughout the globe, with the whole infrastructure designed purely for mountain biking, nothing else. This is where it will start coming back strong.
F: The pro riders have recently taken quite a pay cut to compete on the World Circuit. I know most of these guys and gals race because they love to and goddamn, travelling the world racing and riding factory DH rigs is my idea of a farkin good time but… where has the money gone? What are your thoughts on some of the big name sponsors pulling out of MTB events?
GJ: Again, fairly easy to explain! Apart from the "Boom Product" I mention at first with new sports and products, the downhill has never and will never be shown how it should be. It is designed by free and independents, not skilled in the whole media and spectator aspect. Downhill is one of the worlds most exciting sports, but is NEVER shown in its entirety, NEVER shown professionally, and NEVER given its full capability by expensive over bearing officials and media. Plus the sport needs to click up a few gears.
On a national level, there are so many races and venues I have been too, and they are the dumbest, shitholes I have ever laid my eyes on. Don’t get me wrong, I am not writing us all off, but look at it!
Dirty old banners depicting the event area, old hand written signs showing where the race is, no sound systems , just a ute with some dumb music coming out of it, no feel at all, and the finish line is drawn across the track by a bit of spray paint or a shoe line in the dirt.
The site is laid out that nobody, not even riders, (let alone the handful of spectators) know the way to the start or finish line.
Then we get some officials with the enthusiasm or attitude of a service station operator or some kids mum or dad as the official representative of the club slamming down any great idea at all, because it’s all about their limited view.
Hey don’t get me wrong here either, because there are heaps of workers and parents that make our sport what it is, but we spend 10’s of thousands of dollars on our bikes, and we don’t have groupies or bikini girls or photographers hunting us down at each event.(a quote from Santa Cruz rider Dennis Beare)
We should all look a little more at where we are going, if we want permanent bases and event sites, why haven’t we got them, we have been planning ours in Cairns now for 9 years.
If a footy club didn’t have a permanent site, they would have to move the seats, goal posts, toilets, grass, parking, sound systems and cafes every time they wanted to hold an match. That would really take drain on the volunteers in the club, and the sport would die.
The future of Mountain Biking, sponsorship and teams all rely on a couple of very simple solutions, they are not far away, and will come from here, in Australia, then the money comes, locally, nationally, internationally.
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