Interview: Raymond Dulieu - DH1

This is an interview with Raymond Dulieu, founder of Freecaster and DH1, that never made it into the magazine. I had originally wanted to feature the interview in the October issue of IMB, but Raymond was too busy to answer my questions. In fact for the next two months Raymond was too busy to answer any questions, but eventually he got round to it.

I believed in the principles of DH1 and the idea behind it so was keen to help promote it. After a lot of prompting I received the answers on Tuesday 13th December. The new issue of the magazine was due to go live on the following Monday. After answering my questions I never heard from Raymond again, despite requests for any PR material, DH1 logos etc. to run with the interview.

Supporters of DH1 such as Santa Cruz, Scott and the Kovariks supplied photos for the article and by the Friday the article was ready to be part of the new issue. Late Friday evening French magazine Velo Vert tweeted a link to an interview they had just done with Raymond in which he was quoted as saying:

"If it is confirmed that red bull will now finance and produce a full HD coverage of the UCI world cup I'll have to consider wether we haven't then ultimately achieved our goal of secure excellent coverage for DH MTB and DH1 might then have served its purpose. In any case for red bull to consider MTB is greatly do to Freecaster fantastic work to put it back in the public eye."

At this time there was no confirmation that Red Bull would be streaming the World Cups, but twitter ignited with users claiming that DH1 had indeed been cancelled.

In March this year Red Bull did in fact announce they would be streaming the World Cup series and Wolrd Champs online for free. There was never any announcement from Raymond or DH1. The last post on the Facebook Page Ray was so keen to promote read: "bargain for those who act fast :-)" with a link to four brand new fox forks. I think it's safe to assume these were meant to be given away as prizes across the DH1 series. 

DH1 never ran as a series, but below is the interview with Raymond. Think of it as a "What could have been?"

*****

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” – William Shakespeare

Downhill racing is bigger now than it has ever been, but why? Is it because of the teams; is it because of the riders, is it because of the bikes? Well, maybe just maybe it’s because for the last six seasons every race on the World Cup circuit has been transmitted live and for free across the planet to anyone with a computer and Internet connection.

All of a sudden races went from being viewed only by those who were lucky and in some cases brave enough to be able to make it to the venue, to being viewed by everyone from the comfort of their own homes. Downhill had become accessible. Raymond Dulieu is the man behind Freecaster, and is the man who made this possible.

So what does all this have to do with Shakespeare? During the run up to the World Champs in September there were rumours circulating that this would be the last UCI event that Freecaster would cover and there would be no live coverage for races in 2012. The future of the sport suddenly looked very bleak.

We can now confirm that Freecaster will not be covering any UCI events for 2012. Rather than sitting back and looking at all that Freecaster had accomplished it was soon announced that that they would be setting up their own race series, DH1, with six rounds, dates and locations in-sync with the UCI and most importantly of all, live coverage at every race.

Ray took time out his very busy schedule to talk to us about Freecaster and his new race series.

How did the idea of Freecaster come about?

Freecaster was originally conceived in 2003 as a host site for video content. At the time most web sites didn't have flash video players, YouTube didn't exist and there was an opportunity for a service to deliver high quality rights cleared videos to web sites. We launched early 2004 and immediately grew very quickly. Not only were we the first one on the market but we also had Braun shavers on board as sponsors. Their support allowed us to cover our cost from day one.

How many people are involved in putting the live stream together?

Every live webcast needs an on-site producer, a commentator, and a cameraman. Then in the office we have a satellite operator, a streaming engineer and an IT engineer so a minimum of six people. It’s quite a small team for the size of the task.

Photo // Courtesy of the Santa Cruz Syndicate

When did you first start the live race coverage, and how did the first few go?

We started live streaming in 2006 with snowboard events and immediately followed through with mountain bike coverage. We're always dependent on the television pictures we received and it's been a struggle in mountain bike from day one. There are never enough cameras on the course, except for at the World Championships.

With an audience as big as you're getting you must get as nervous as the riders come race day?

We’ve learned a lot over the years and it seems like we’ve got our infrastructure dialled this year. The issue is more for the web site server than the live video feed as that goes through 40,000 Akamai servers to ensure that the live stream is always delivered no matter how big the audience gets.

You must have been to your fair share of races over the years?

Unfortunately I haven’t been to as many races as I’d liked to, as I had to look after our business. Covering races is just a part of what we do at Freecaster. We can produce live streams for fashion shows, music concerts and large conferences. That is what allows us ultimately to finance our activities in DH. It’d be unfair for me to pick a favourite track but for 2011, I'd have to say Champéry provided the most thrilling race of the year.

How early on did Rob Warner become involved and start commentating?

Rob came on board in 2008 if I remember correctly. He and I met at the Red Bull X-Fighters in Madrid where he was working for Channel4 (a British television channel). I had no idea who Rob was at the time so it was a lucky strike for Freecaster!

Do you think his enthusiasm has been key to Freecaster's success?

Absolutely, Rob's personality gave the shows an identity and I'm really grateful for that. I hope we can do even more together over the 2012 season with DH1.

Obviously live coverage is just one part of the Freecaster 'package' if you will. What else do you produce at races?

The live coverage is a key product but we also put together a course walk to explain what riders are facing. This year we swapped it for a course ride with Rob riding the course on a Santa Cruz V10 Carbon. We also put together bespoke interviews pre and post race; we publish side-by-side clips that show how riders compare, and of course we produced a lot of material for the end of season DVD.

Freecaster 2011 DVD trailer from WFO Media on Vimeo.

Let’s talk about your new race series, DH1. When did you first start to think about this project?

I decided to launch DH1 after this years World Champs when it was clear that we had no opportunity to find agreeable terms with the UCI for 2012 and beyond. DH1 will offer Pro Riders more events to race on and HD multi-cam LIVE coverage. We will race World Cup level tracks and I hope that in the aftermath of the 2012 season, media and riders will agree that yet again we've had a positive impact on the sport of downhill mountain bikes.

You’ve worked out a new race format as well haven’t you; can you tell us a bit about how this will work?

Amateurs will be able to register on a first come first serve basis for a limited number of race places. Most events will welcome 200+ riders. They will compete on the Saturday and the top 30 will then compete on the Sunday morning. The top 10 finalist of the amateur race will then compete on the Sunday afternoon against 20 seeded pro riders.

Maribor in Slovenia has already been confirmed as the host for the first round of the series, are you looking forward to returning there?

Maribor has always been one of the rider’s favourite downhill tracks. Also it is conveniently scheduled just before the iXS race in Leogang and the World Cup race at Val di Sole.

Two more races have also been confirmed in Oz-en Oisans and Les 2 Alpes, France, how close to revealing the final three destinations are you?

I wish we could reveal the final courses sooner but as we launched DH1 in September, it was pretty late for some towns who had already committed their budgets. Bromont was foreseen for June but they still haven't confirmed whether they can finance the race and currently the organisers would like more time to make a decision. The same applies for the two other venues but I'm confident that early 2012 all dates will be confirmed.

Now, the two French tracks have never been raced as part of a world series before, do you think they’re up to it?

Yes their tracks will be of the highest level or else they wouldn't be part of DH1. The course in Oz en Oisans was used on the Nissan European Downhill Cup in 2011 much to the satisfaction of the riders and was designed by the same crew who made La Bresse, one of the best tracks of this past season. The course in Les 2 Alpes has been designed by Marc Beaumont and Mick Hannah and will allow us to cover the entire run with a helicopter. Expect to see the same sort of coverage that you normally get at an event as big as the Tour de France.

Photo // Red Bull Content Pool / Sven Martin

Are we likely to see the UK host a round in 2013?

I'd love to have a UK round in 2013. The issue is to find a date that is not conflicting with the iXS European cup and that makes sense for the teams as to not increase their travel costs. The UK is on par with Germany as the largest downhill market whenever I look at the Freecaster stats, so really we have to seriously consider holding a DH1 round in the UK.

What other venues would you like to see hosting a round?

The main issue is that the teams need to have a sufficient budget to travel to places but ideally I'd like DH1 to race in New Zealand, Costa Rica, Chile, Indonesia and of course the USA. Also sponsors still look at whether a race is organised in their market rather than looking at which location can provide the best races and the best pictures.

What kind of support have you received from race teams and riders?

The feedback is great and without the support from the riders or the teams I would never have embarked on this adventure.

And how has the response from the fans been?

Equally the support from the fans has been great. We’re up to 16,000 fans worldwide on our Facebook page. The more ‘likes’ we can get the better as it’s a really useful marketing tool and gives us almost instantaneous communication with our fans. I’m hoping that we can reach the same kind of numbers on our Facebook page that we used to get on Freecaster on race days.

Thank you so much for your time, and good luck for the future!