Josh Ratboy Bryceland confirms rumours that he’s not racing in UCI Downhill World Cups in 2017.

The reason given in the video above from 50to01’s YouTube channel is sort of complicatedly simple: he doesn’t feel like it, basically.

Which, when pulled out of context into a quick sentence, sounds a bit flippant and petulant but if you watch the whole video (which you should because its all very interesting) then you can see that Josh has clearly not taken the decision lightly and is still more than aware that he’s a sponsored professional athlete.

Here’s what he says (at around the 17min mark): “just stepping away from World Cups is all. I’m more motivated than ever to just ride and progress. I just felt a change this year and I’m not that down racing World Cups anymore.

“I tried my best all year to get into it. Because I’m a chilled riding style guy it doesn’t help people thinking I wasn’t putting effort in but no doubt going at it.

“Finishing in Val di Sole with a 15th I was so buzzing going down that track… just decided to move away from the World Cup.”

As we say, this is not entirely surprise news. Claudio Caluori let slip during a piece of World Cup commentary last year that he heard that Josh was quitting racing.

The vague reason given there was that Josh was concerned about his carbon footprint from all the flights that are involved in doing the World Cup series. This was clearly a bit of a red herring.

But who’s to say that this eco reason wasn’t maybe a small piece in the jigsaw? It feels like there isn’t one big reason why Josh is stepping back from World Cup racing. It’s more like a bunch of smaller reasons that all add up to this momentous announcement.

We can’t wait to see what Ratboy does next. Stay tuned!