FOR TECH’S SAKE; ARE CROSS-COUNTRY EVENTS TOO EASY OR TOO HARD?
Recently, UKXC News published Cannondale Girls’, Maxine Filby’s, blog discussing the difficulty level of modern cross-country (XCO) courses. While I feel it wasn’t the most diplomatic of arguments, it got a lot of racers talking about the level in which cross-country mountain biking courses are pitched at, and it’s an important question to air.
Maxine was clearly frustrated that Round One of the British Cross-Country MTB Series was not a course in her favour and she strongly points the finger of blame at the organisers and the commissaires for having taken a large jump out of the course. There is a fine line between what is difficult technically and what is unsafe to ride. The jump in question had a B-Line (an alternative route to miss out the jump), but it is my understanding that this was removed for safety’s sake as it had begun to corrode thanks to the rain and the many riders practicing on it.
The Cannondale Girls’ rider goes on to praise the Second Round held in Plymouth. The course was very steep and the descents were very rocky, but they required more balls and momentum than skill. The fastest of riders were not putting that much time into their opponents in the descents because they were slow moving technical trails. Is this what we’re all now arguing to have more of? Personally, I loved that course. It was exhilarating to race, but one round like that a year will do me fine. I race cross-country because I like to actually race elbow to elbow with people, catch people up in singletrack, and make up time with genuine skill, I don’t like passively rolling down rocks in a queue and only making up time on people who choose a B-Line.
The fastest of riders were not putting that much time into their opponents in the descents… Is this what we’re all now arguing to have more of?
We are only two rounds into the series, one was very technical and one was not so technical, and it looks to vary like this going forward. In my opinion, this gives a fair balance to the series, thus giving the overall series winner the chance to stand on the podium as a well-rounded cross-country rider, not a fit roady or handy downhiller. We are after all, racing cross-country here, let’s not forget that. And don’t we want variety in our courses? Some should be technical, yes, but some should absolutely favour the fit too. It wouldn’t be a course I’d do well on, but hey, the girls who beat me would have put hard earned hours into getting fit, so they deserve an advantage as much as I for putting in the hours on skills. And maybe they deserve a win more than someone who simply has the balls to tackle a drop-off.
Which brings me on to course comparisons with other genres; I heard someone say “this is xc, not downhill!’, and they’ve got a point, you know. I race enduro as well as cross-country, and the descents in Round Two at Plymouth were far more technical than any enduro I’ve ever attended. If you laid them end-to-end, it would actually resemble the start of the hardest track on the Trans Savoie, and would give the Enduro World Series stages a run for their money, yet those guys do it on 150mm+ full suspension bikes with body armour, and full-face helmets are mandatory. Cross-country riders do it in lycra on a carbon hardtail.
Read the full article at Bikesoup.com/ForTechsSake
