2024 Racing Talk

I realize that most rock gardens and features are man-made, but when they look like that...it just feels weird, and more-than-manufactured. The 2-lane rack garden just seems problematic as mentioned above, but also that section of wood rounds - it looks cool on camera, but has anyone ridden something like that? It just seems different for the sake of different. 

On another note, that video was painful to watch. I haven't watched many (if any) XC "course walk' videos, but that gave me no feel for the track. They just kept showing different angles of the few interesting-looking features on track over and over again. 

Man, I try not to write fully negative comments, but that video didn't really get me excited to ride. The DH course walk, where they go top to bottom, and it paint s a story of the lap, those get me back on my bike.

I'm all for gnarly XC trails. I see some cool steep sections but the man-made stuff is lame. It's not mountain biking to me. It's more interesting to have sections with different natural lines, part of the sport is to be creative and interpret the terrain not to be channeled into man-made features that are actually not that difficult. it's probably ridable by mot riders.  I'd rather see a big line that only a few very best could ride and that might save 5 seconds every lap.. Here I'm not sure the tech differentiates the very best ( but it would just slow down the weakest rider)

The Thagomizer is the most dangerous part. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer

Keep the mountain in mountain biking! This aint a slopestyle contest. Wait are we talking about XC or Rampage?!

I am with ya, the super manmade stuff is XC is just weird.

I love it! The strange preview vid is perfect too. 
The sanctity of XC isn’t important to me at all so fuck it up all you want! That wood-to-wood river gap looks like the Athertons designed it, and the flat drops to Dwell flooring are madness. Got that thigh-high vert right hand berm? XCMTB Kasso let’s do it! 
if anything, it makes me feel better about WB Disco—they’re trying to end XC too. It’s The Producers!

Oh please dude... Your average cat 1 junior these days would completely decimate an elite world cup in 2001. If you don't believe me...

In 1997 there was a world cup at Massanutten. The winning time at that race was 4:28 by Tomas Misser. That time would've gone into a smoking 13th place this year at the DHSE race in male cat 2/3 40+ on the same track. Face it, people are WAY better at riding bikes these days.

Watch any footage of early world cup dh racing and then watch any vital raw of a recent round and see the difference in rider level. Even watching video of racing 5 years ago pales in comparison to the level of performance and raw speed top level athletes are pushing in 2024. The envelope is continuously pushed and that's one of the best things about this amazing sport

The problem with these XC courses at the world cups is they give the elite riders way too much time to practice. Days of ripping laps and hours with line/technique coaches and such practicing the 4 hard sections. Really levels the playing field as riders with lower technical skill can be coached up over 2-3 days to ride the hard lines, etc. What would be great is if they got a course walk, then minimum on course practice and then race day. Giving the riders who have higher level of technical skill something to separate themselves on. You'd actually see 'top riders' riding B-lines, etc. 

I will say... When I think about why a venue would create these features. The proof is unfolding right in front of us.

As a fat lazy unskilled freerider, most XC doesn't really interest me (unless Blevins is in it and there is a jump line)... And these features have everyone talking. Though I'm under the impression XC has always dunked on DH's viewership. So I'm not sure the need. All I know is that (gestures vaguely) it is working. Whatever it is.

If they really had balls they would add the cereal bowl feature from RAD! With the hilariously springy dead mans plank as the 'spoon'

I would rather see forbidden spending their cash getting Conner to the races instead of brook. I mean I like brook but he’s not setting the world on fire on the supernaught. While we at it get alex store & Emmy lann to more DH world cups 

Some of those alternate lines look weird. Like the bigger log drop puts you on the inside so the next corner is now much tighter, so you take more risk/use more energy to go slower.
And the rock drops are the same length......so again why take the risk.
The point of A/B lines is rewarding taking a harder line with it being faster.

When I raced xc the National was at a notoriously flat/untechnical venue and they built a 'rock garden'. It was'nt particularly difficult just janky and awkward and had a very good risk of catching a flat.
The B-line was unnecessarily long to make sure people used the new section (leading to long queues).So I just ran it (too many winters of riding around muddy fields on road bikes) every lap, much to the annoyance of the organizer who tried to not give me my 2nd place prize until the commisaire pointed out it wasn't my fault the course was badly built!!!

I see they've put pads over some of the stegosaurus rocks and filled that stupid gap in the rock berm. I can't say I'm too surprised.

BUT,,,,Massanutten 97 was roughly an 1/8 mile longer track that came out of the woods, crossed the slope to the riders right, had a flat sprint across what is the current finish/expo area, and then passed that lift and finished ALL the way down at the base lodge.

Nice try. I was there.
 

 Thanks for saying I'm faster than World Cup pros.
I got 5th at Massanutten in 2001 in Pro/Ex. 

It's def working lol. I just watched an entire XC course preview because I wanted to see how they handled those features.

I guess that sets a scary precedent. 2025 XC is gonna implement a canyon gap a la hardline

Looks like they've filled in the gaps between the slabs so its not immediate death by rock/face impact if you get off line.
Still plenty of carnage in the official vid.
Amazes me that they get to this point thinking....yeah, this is fine.

Personally i see the point of man made features on an xc course.  Looks good on tv.  Separates the riders.  It was interesting watching the dh guys at the latest dhse send the man made rock garden that was on the xc World Cup course.

at the end of the day World Cup xc racing is exactly what happens when you need to film the event.  The courses are designed to imitate xc riding in a race able format.  And often the venues have to make do with what they got.  Looks like the organizers squeezed every bit of elevation they could out of this filmable track.

A few people will be sore after Crans Montana XC practice it seems:

The lack of mountains in Switzerland is a real bummer.

This video does a much better job of: showing what the track actually looks like; making it look like MTB; making me want to ride a bike. In this video you see an actual MTB trail, with a handful of awkward features you barely notice. Very similar to many trail venues out there in the wild.

I just don't like the clearly made-for-viewership features that are there to get pretty pictures, but more so to get short video clips for people who don't ride. I understand the marketing reasoning for it, as they are looking for numbers. But it doesn't represent MTB and doesn't get people on bikes. 98% of this track represents real MTB that you could do near your home, and showing that might get people to realize they could go out and participate. But that first video, where they showed a bunch of overdramatic short clips of the 3 trail features does no do that; it's all for the clicks, not for the sport.

I felt the same way about the canyon gap. And the Oakley sender. And various other features in DH and other competitions that amount to spectacles which increase the consequences of an error rather than testing skill.

The slow divergence of things that look good on TV and things that are properly technical to ride is perhaps worthy of its own thread...

From Rampage to Hardline to XC courses, figuring out what catches a viewer's attention and also fairly challenges riders seems to be an evolving field.

Some parts of this XC course really excited me as a mountain biker, but those are different from what seem to be the showy features. I'm keen on the off-camber roots, the sharp punchy climbs, and the loose chute. Those bits I feel really take bike handling skill. Jumps and whatnot sure take skill but sometimes it feels more like who can be more brave...

Or maybe my mid-20s-ass is just getting old early?

Sorry Athertons: the practice video shows what I called a “river gap” to be just a couple boards missing from a bridge—not even a bike length. No hard feelings. (Do Athertons have feelings?)

Pads on the StegoSpikes would distract me enough to guarantee a crash, still so scary!

KNEE PADS!!!

Most exciting thing from that video is dude manually cutting a set of alloy bars.
I'm genuinely stoked that there's an XC pro out there that's like "I'm not dying b/c of carbon bars!"

All mtb use bridges should have a 3rd railing board running paraleel that butts against the walking treads. Creates a catch/berm for any front wheel that slips so you can't slide off and slam the posts or worse.  I've only seen a few MTB specific bridges with it & only noticed how valuable it was when it saved me once.

No doubt.  But again it’s about having a race that can be filmed and spectated on site.  Snowshoe didn’t put together the best course possible on their mountain.  They put together the best course that fans could walk around and check out the different sections in a couple hrs of elite riding and make it back to the finish area for each start and finish. they could create a series that just used fantastic trails.  Could literally have long courses with no “laps” that didn’t even finish where they started.  It could purely be about authenticity and a pure vision of what xc riding is.  But then you’d have very little coverage for tv, very difficult conditions for spectators, and very little return for sponsors, hosts, and rider’s monetary value.

I don’t disagree that they should try to be primarily on quality single and double track and try to use as many natural challenging sections as possible.  And some venues are much better at achieving this without manmade features than others.  (Or have man made features that much better replicate real conditions).  But I also don’t fault organizers for trying to spice up their race tracks for tv and in person spectators.

lmao they really did start their raw practice video with a terrible crash. Lawlor and Spomer need to start asking for royalties, dang.

so many tense wheelie off to nose dive style rolls and then the Specalized team just comes in track pace, forcing the bike into the down slope, and powering out the corner. yesplz

again if their goal is to get full face owners to watch, its working lol

(wonder if it is possible to double that end of the log section. wouldnt be worth anytime but would make for a sick IG clip for blev heheh

bizutch if I sent you some shroom chocolates would you eat them?

I think he already did

I bet you live in an apartment & drive a VW.

Kinda interesting to see how, amongst the field of top-level XC competition, there seems to be quite a difference in bike handling skill. That course in Crans-Montana really separates the "dirt-roadies" from the "real" mountainbikers. Some are attacking the jumps, drops and rockgardens with confidence while others ride sketchy and seem overwhelmed by the difficulty. I honestly would not have expected to see so much struggle.

That seems to be the consensus from people who didn't immediately jump on the "Course is too rough for these bikes" train. There are some who are less skilled on bike handling (still way better than any of us) and instead have a huge gas tank, and others who don't have as much stamina but better handling. Schurter and Blev come to mind on the latter, they both do really well when the course is technical.