“In this period I was a winning machine.” I’ll never forget Nico Vouilloz telling me this a few years ago. We were sitting outside a restaurant in the middle of a press launch and the thing that still makes me laugh today is how matter of fact he was about. There was no bragging or bombast, it’s not his style; he spoke softly and merely stated how things were. His records in world-class DH will probably never be equalled. While the commentators may point out that Minnaar, Peat and Gwin all have more World Cup wins, what is missing from that picture is that Nico retired at 26. That’s the same age Bruni is now. Nico took 16 World Cup wins, 5 overalls and 10 World Championship titles in just 11 years (at that time you could compete in the junior field at 15).
He was always famous for how utterly maniacal he was about his bike setup and performance, and that his feel for how a bike can and should work is still unparalleled. There is a story a top EWS rider passed onto me a few years ago of Nico not winning because of a problem with his rim. The story goes that on the Monday morning after the wheel designer had an email from Nico waiting for him with a full CAD drawing of the rim he needed to win next time. These days he has turned that focus to bike design for Lapierre’s mountain bike and e-bike ranges. I was lucky enough to sit down with him and what was supposed to be a quick bike check of his Lapierre GLP2 race ebike turned into this…
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