Interesting thread.

All I’d add is that that over the summer BC ran a series of races around Manchester, 3 venues, 2 races at each, every other Thursday evening.

Manchester has a massive catchment area of bikers, both road and mountain.

There were between 40 and 60 at each race, which seems incredibly small to me. I’m a member of a mountain bike club with 240 members, there were 5 people that raced from the club over the 6 events. Most only did 1 or 2 races. In fact there were more people entering from my similarly-sized road biking club.

Anyway if it was a bit wet most MTBers would show up 😉

what were the courses like? – more or less fun than simply messing around in the woods for a couple of hours.

back when i were a lad, entering an xc race was about the only way to experience a new/fun/fast trail. and the whole ‘race’ thing encouraged me to ride quickly.

now, i’m spoiled, i live on an island covered in brilliant trails. i can ride those, enjoy myself at my own pace, and have a coffee+cake afterwards.

why bother entering an xc race? – often the courses are at best ‘not-as-good-as-a-trail-centre’.

i’d suggest that xc racing needs to offer new/more-fun-than-a-trail-centre trails. and/or access to trails that are off-limits at other times. theres’s a brilliant xc race around a golf course near chesterfield, it’s worth entering just for the chance to ride around the course.

it’s a challenge to try and keep up with the whippets, but brilliant fun to let them overtake and then heckle the shit out of them on the descents*!

🙂

(*i’d never try to overtake, but it’s good sport ‘encouraging’ them to go a bit faster)

Courses were really very good. One of them was a bit flat, but the other two were challenging enough. All of them had bits in that you couldn’t normally ride, though I’d accept that new trails wouldn’t be a draw for those races compared with what surrounds Manchester.

david baker.

tim gould.

caroline alexander.

and?

Gary Foord
Nick Craig
Tim Davies
Carl Sturgeon
Barrie Clarke

All did well on the international stage.

So XC is XC and DH is DH.

How many people would turn out for a continually technical “XC” evening time trial series do you think? Or has this been tried before?

LS – Member
david baker.
tim gould.
caroline alexander.
Gary Foord
Nick Craig
Tim Davies
Carl Sturgeon
Barrie Clarke

good list*, how many world champions out of that lot then?

rauridh cunnigham
josh bryceland
steve peat
Danny hart
gee atherton
rachel atherton
tracey mosely
manon carpenter

apologies if i left someone off…

(*how did i forget nick craig? – i’m an idiot 🙂 )

xc racing needs to offers new trails.

It would if it could, but it can’t. The sort of course that people want, and seem to think would give them a better chance only exist in small numbers. And ‘generally’ require so much work and effort and cost that the only way they can become viable is to turn them into weekenders.

My simple course will challenge riders on a weekly basis. If it’s dry and fast and your not fit you’ll come last. If it’s quagmire ( which amuses me @ the it’s not technical you just can’t ride it brigade)you might get a leveled out field. If it’s rock hard and icy those frozen foot deep ruts will be very technical. If it’s covered in six inches of snow it’ll be all those things.

And ahwiles you sound like a proper hippy.

LS – Member
david baker.
tim gould.

caroline alexander.

and?

Gary Foord
Nick Craig
Tim Davies
Carl Sturgeon
Barrie Clarke

All did well on the international stage.

Also to add to the list, which LS has thankfully corrected,
Paul Lasenby
Deb Murrell
Sian Roberts
Jake Elliot
Jon Clay
Fred Salmon
Adrian Timmis
The above may not have been quite up there with Baker/Gould/Foord and Alexander e.c.t but they certainly could hold there own in world cups and even more so pushed the top british guys at a national level. The above list were also more focused on the british series, hence didn’t target the world cups as much.

To be fair 3 of the 6 Southern XC venues can’t be ridden ‘normally’: Pippingford, Checkendon and Wasing. We’ve also had Mapledurham previously which couldn’t be.

And ahwiles you sound like a proper hippy.

yes, i am wearing courdoroy, how did you know?

re. XC timetrials: this year I ran a series of three tt’s. We had around 40 riders an event which we felt was a great start.

The biggest problem was lack of volunteers as people wanted to ride not help. I did plan to promote an xc race but it proved impossible (a tt could run with 2-4 volunteers which would have been no where near enough for a race). The tt format also worked well as a Go Race event aiming to give people who’d never ridden competitively a chance to have a go. It was a ‘safe’ way of comparing yourself to others without potentially being dropped or lapped. The entry fee was £5 which was only possible due to a supportive landowner.

This is one of the things that I think that smaller xc races will always become unstuck on. mtbing doesn’t have the same traditional club ethos as say road cycling or running (whether this is good, or bad is another question), but as a consequence doesn’t have the pool of volunteers that long established clubs can call on.

ahwiles, not quite sure your point, your comparing two different era’s (only Jake Eliot and Tim Gould were world champs, Junior and hill climb(which is one that you can count or not, not official uci sanctioned race)) But if your point is that we are better at downhill, then yes, thats part of my point!

The thread has sort of splintered into two areas, both connected, both interesting. There’s the why do we have no real depth of world class xc riders?
And why don’t people ride xc?

A few reasons keep popping up
1.about courses not being technically challenging, is this a real reason? By that I mean the people putting it forward have ridden a fair few cross country courses and have really found them boring and it’s not just a knee jerk reaction (as I said before I don’t hear people moaning about trail centres, to me they are not that technical, no more so than an xc course). And if it is a real reason maybe it should be taken notice of?

2. being held up on sections, I think the guy that commented on riding at 10 under the ben, a fair few posts ago, has a very good point, if you are fed up of being stuck behind people, get a bit fitter and pass them and make the move stick, so you don’t see them and get held up. A little OT, but this thing of being stuck behind people come up a lot in relation to 10UTB, I have raced it loads of time, yes there are times when you have to wait 10-15 second to get past but it’s 10 hour race it’s hardly the end of the world and not really in the spirit of event to be getting all het up about it. I can see at the start it can be a problem, but there is one simple solution to that start fast! There is about a mile and a half of fire road on the start loop it’s not that hard to get a head of at least a good percentage of the field.

3. Alternative’s to the xc format, they do exist along the line of what people have mentioned, but maybe more of these type of events would get people into the racing vibe and if that helps then maybe thats what race organises should look at. But also do take the point of that (and relates to point 1) there is extra risk with this sort of thing and maybe make it too hard to organise.

4.Cost/travel, although less people have mentioned this than I would have thought, for me it’s big one, £30 seems like a huge amount of money to spend on top of travel e.c.t for some one to have a go or for those that know they are going to finish mid/lower pack. Why I think cheap, local have ago races are great. I also do like the idea of training event/evenings just using the bike to get fit, finding a little loop and just bombing round it for a while e.c.t and getting fit in a fun way. No pressure to win or not loose, no cost, no one has to wait for anyone no one has to get left behind. I stole this idea from the xc racer forum, were they have this sort of think in the south west, sounds great.

5. It’s boring to watch, not sure why someone would really bother saying that, I find football incredibly dull but I would enter into a discussion about it, unless you had some constructive comments to help improve it.

I do think if people have genuine reasons why they have no interest to race or what would make them race or even just want to look at getting faster on the bike, it would be interesting to hear them.

my point? – see the first post:

Why are we so rubbish when in the early 90’s the uk was a force to be reckoned with in xc?

i just don’t see that there’s that much difference between british xc performance now and ‘back in the day’. If we ever were a “force to be reckoned with” – then we’re hardly “rubbish” now. I’d suggest that our national riders did alright back then, and they’re doing alright now.

i’m not sure if xc courses need to be more difficult/challenging – but certainly more fun/interesting (imho of course).

why did i stop xc racing regularly? – it’s a question some of us could ask ourselves.

i stopped xc racing regularly because i found more interesting places to ride.

The club thing is interesting. MTBing definitely suffers because of the lack of club structure, sat underneath a national-type organisation that looks after all club’s/riders interests.

There have been a number of threads on here about clubs in the past, a lot of people oppose the idea of a club for various reasons, but I would consider it a very strong part of a strategy for long term improvement at international XC. It isn’t good that riders coming into the sport (at a young age especially) generally have to join a road club to get access to riding fitness information and competitive riders to train with. It’s obvious how that ends up with any talent being largely channeled onto the road.

What are people’s experience with MTB club’s promoting competitive riding? I find mine doesn’t at all and I think that the over-riding ethos means that anyone new to the sport that might end up deciding to take racing seriously ends up drinking beer between laps at SITS instead, because that’s what others are doing. The club is very strong in other areas, but offers very little towards any furthering of XC competitiveness-type objectives.

Mmm, we did have a few world cup wins back in the day, Caroline Alexander, Garry Foord, Tim Gould and David Baker all won world cup rounds and all for some time were right up there in the world rankings/cup.
Plus riders like Nick Craig, Barrie Clarke, Deb Murrel were right up there in the world cup/rankings.

But out last world cup win from a british rider at XCO (Liam did win a marathon world cup about 5 years ago)was Caroline Alexander in St wendel in 1997.
Since then Liam Killeen did have a few very good seasons but is off the boil these days. Oli Beckingsale again had a few reasonable seasons but not a top contender. Only Annie Last is holding her own in world cup cross country. And at elite level that is it, there are not 5-10-15 british riders taking the start line as there were in the 90’s. The sport has moved on, and yes it’s harder to get to the start line of a world cup than maybe it was but…I think if you could look at the world rankings from the early 90’s you would find a lot more GB men in the top 200 in the world than our current 4.

I am not saying what the above riders do is rubbish before some one jumps down my throat again, it’s just we are not the force we once were in xc, it used to be at the start of each world cup there was a good chance a british rider would be right up there with a chance of the win. Now days you just see Laim and Oli around mid pack. And we certainly are not the force we are in xc as we are in DH or track and road for that matter.

paulrockliffe – Member
The club thing is interesting. MTBing definitely suffers because of the lack of club structure, sat underneath a national-type organisation that looks after all club’s/riders interests.

There have been a number of threads on here about clubs in the past, a lot of people oppose the idea of a club for various reasons, but I would consider it a very strong part of a strategy for long term improvement at international XC. It isn’t good that riders coming into the sport (at a young age especially) generally have to join a road club to get access to riding fitness information and competitive riders to train with. It’s obvious how that ends up with any talent being largely channeled onto the road.

What are people’s experience with MTB club’s promoting competitive riding? I find mine doesn’t at all and I think that the over-riding ethos means that anyone new to the sport that might end up deciding to take racing seriously ends up drinking beer between laps at SITS instead, because that’s what others are doing. The club is very strong in other areas, but offers very little towards any furthering of XC competitiveness-type objectives.

POSTED 1 MINUTE AGO # REPORT-POST

I am kind of reiterating what I said in my opening post, my local club has such a strong structure for road/track/TT and triathlon and very performance based, the mountain bike side of things is very a social tagged on side to the club. As I said before once your no longer a youth rider in the club there is nothing for a competitive or more fitness biased mountain bike rider. The message seems to be ride xc when your young then move to the road or give up and ride slowly. I am happy to admit that I am pretty bitter about the fact that I offered help to try and change this within the club and was kind of turned away and not helped at all.

BUT don’t for a minute think that this is the case for all clubs and have experienced much better clubs.

AH I like your thinking

As always but having an alternative line that could save you a minute compared to a chicken run that will cost you a minute, that would be excellent.

Clearly some will see it unfair but then that will balance out peoples choice of bike or skill.

Ive got something coming together will you give me a hand designing the course if you ever get a chance to come to Leeds.

We’re a pretty big club and have good riders in most categories, in recent years we’ve had podium finishes in

– Masters
– Vets
– Grand vets
– Youth
– Junior
– Sport
– Expert
– Elite

At a national level we’ve had wins in Vets, Sport and Expert, and a number of podium finishes.

We do also have plenty of chippers though, we often get 50+ riders at 24/12 and the like, there’ll be 1-2 teams of ‘serious’ riders, the rest are just beer swilling ‘have a go heroes’ (not that that’s a problem in the least).

Most of the people who take it fairly seriously do so away from the club. My usual ‘gang’ of riding friends are all people I know from racing, rather than people in the club. But there is a ‘core’ of good riders, and it does feel like we’re encouraged. They have done XC race training sessions, which I think have been fairly well attended, just held a bit far from me.

I thought of dropping a line through this v going round and losing a minute
http://forums.mxtrax.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=57907&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1291022010

cows in cars, I get a little bitter also. It’s a combination of things really.
Clubs I feel get poo poo’ed by the MTB community.
Roadies are labeled in a negative manor.
Yet it’s clear that clubs and roadies do put something back in. I know there are MTB clubs that do as well.
It feels like folk are having a go at me for being a roadie and running a club. Yet they want to race my races, but they’ll tell me how to do it and ideally in a way that will suit them and not the folk who have been in the sport for decades.
It’s a childish whinge, but that’s how it feels.
If only people would turn up and race, and not be scared because that’s what it boils down to. They’d see how tough and technical XC races are and how bloody friendly also.
Grrrr you can tell it’s getting towards Turbo training time.

sancho; i’m always there if team-leeds need me!

Just thought, now I’ve got a 9 – 5 and comapny car I can do all the FNSS and Summit Series next year.

Just one little thing stopping me (Rolf voice on) can you guess what it is yet? (Rolf voice off)

We need you man

Are you riding this Sunday, I need to blow the Norwegian cobwebs off, Im tired of meeting tall blonde beautiful women all day it gets tiring.

Just one little thing stopping me (Rolf voice on) can you guess what it is yet? (Rolf voice off)

Do you own an MTB!?

Do you own an MTB!?

Err no 😳

What do I win!?

I’m a bit late to this thread but it’s fascinating reading – it’s mostly stayed away from all the willy-waving as well which is good. Nice to see experienced races like bikerbruce and njee20 contributing.

XC races aren’t technical:
That’s a massive urban myth that hangs over XC and it cropped up again when the Olympic course was being publicised. Pretty much anything is technical if you ride it fast enough. I can bimble down most descents given enough time. Attacking them at speed and in control, lap after lap while I’m at 190bpm is a different matter and I suspect a lot of “trail riders” would find the same thing. I used to race at Beastway back in the day (used to help organise it actually) and even a rubbish tip in East London with a total elevation difference of about 25m can be technical.

My cycle club used to have a really strong XC section – regular club MTB rides out into the North Downs, regular attendance at local races (anyone remember the excellent Whipstakes Farm races?), me and a mate used to do all the SAMS and we did really well at Mountain Mayhem, Dusk til Dawn etc on several occasions. Then gradually family life caught up with most people, kids etc and they just didn’t have the time to commit to an entire day out at MTB events hence most transferred to road racing – go out early doors, thrash out 80 miles, return home by lunchtime without being covered in mud.

The answer is more local grass-roots stuff like the Manchester Series. That’s starting out exactly like Whipstakes Farm did. The first event there can’t have had more than 40 riders. Within about 6 years, they had to close down due to it having too many people, the venue couldn’t cope with it. 300+ wasn’t uncommon. You can’t expect to start a brand new series and have it full to bursting within 2 weeks. That’s what puts off a lot of potential organisers. As mentioned above, the anti-club structure of MTB doesn’t help either, it’s much more difficult getting marshals, helpers, volunteers etc.

If you want XC racing, get out there and support whatever is going on. From little acorns grow mighty oaks and all that. Sitting on a forum saying “it’s dull, XCers are all lycra jeyboys” isn’t going to help and you’d be surprised at grass roots events just how many people are there in baggies on a 5″ travel bike just having a bit of fun.

Sancho: i’m off to peebles on saturday with the new lady friend, she’s good on a bike, she just doesn’ know it yet…

oldgit:

If only people would turn up and race, and not be scared because that’s what it boils down to.

scared of what? 😕

most of my friends aren’t regular xc racers because we/they don’t see much point paying to finish mid-ish field, racing on trails that aren’t as much any more fun than trails we can ride for free.

anyway, we’re not the ones that ‘british cycling’ needs to attract, most of us are over 30…

you’d be surprised at grass roots events just how many people are there in baggies on a 5″ travel bike just having a bit of fun.

Reading this thread might make you think that doing that will get you sneered at by the ‘proper’ XC racers.

AFAIK all we need first aid wise is someone qualified, which we have several of.

interesting, so what happens when someone breaks their pelvis on

If it’s rock hard and icy those frozen foot deep ruts

can you get the casualty to an assessible point for the transfer to an ambulance?

we have 6 or more people with outdoors first qualifications lurking around on race day, we also pay have first aid coverage that can extract a casualty anywhere in the quarry, they are in three teams to ensure coverage and the ability to deal with multiple incidents concurrently.

Can I politely suggest you have a think about your risk assessment. 😉

lu – Member
re. XC timetrials: this year I ran a series of three tt’s. We had around 40 riders an event which we felt was a great start.

The biggest problem was lack of volunteers as people wanted to ride not help. I did plan to promote an xc race but it proved impossible (a tt could run with 2-4 volunteers which would have been no where near enough for a race).
lu well done, as you have discovered finding people to turn up in the day to assist is the hardest part. Good luck in the future, don’t hesitate to ask us for support.

offer new/more-fun-than-a-trail-centre trails. and/or access to trails that are off-limits at other times

we do that, 15 races to date and never the same course twice 😉

.about courses not being technically challenging, is this a real reason?

we never get this, the requests are always to move down to our “have-a-go” course after the practice lap

Cost/travel

£10 a race and we don’t sell out (200 riders)

What are people’s experience with MTB club’s promoting competitive riding? I find mine doesn’t at all and I think that the over-riding ethos means that anyone new to the sport that might end up deciding to take racing seriously ends up drinking beer between laps at SITS instead, because that’s what others are doing. The club is very strong in other areas, but offers very little towards any furthering of XC competitiveness-type objectives

both us and I believe HTN started as a pub based riding group that now runs the odd race, we are completely informal outside those in involved in race organising

As mentioned above, the anti-club structure of MTB doesn’t help either, it’s much more difficult getting marshals, helpers, volunteers etc

as we keep telling people, no marshals = no racing, some get it, too many don’t

you’d be surprised at grass roots events just how many people are there in baggies on a 5″ travel bike just having a bit of fun

this described the majority of our riders, and we work had to make sure they have a good time.

ahwiles, racing isn’t about the trails, it’s about yourself. It’s about personal development and the desire to be the best you can. But, that aside, as crazy-legs has said, pretty much any trail is difficult if you’re racing it as fast as possible.

does having more racers at competitors at local/regional/ national actually make us better in the world. i’m sure there are several sports where this isn’t true (current track cycling crop comes to mind where we are good at a world level but local level is relatively small) wouldn’t we better at football if this was true?

courses don’t need to be more technical – i believe they are pretty tech already – as njee said earlier you should see some of the gorrick racers getting in an ambulance riding threough a ditch!!

we are talkign about XC as the uci recognise it – any of these super tech XC courses suggested are either WC xc spec & there fore XC or too tech and there for not XC & doesn’t make us any better at WC XC level.

some cycling clubs haven’t got the first idea about racing – don’t encourage it – don’t promote and could even be said to discourage it.

…racing isn’t about the trails, it’s about yourself. It’s about personal development and the desire to be the best you can…

this thing called ‘racing’ sounds rubbish.

and i’m not suggesting that xc courses need to be really technical, i AM suggesting that they should at least be good enough to justify some of the entry fee.

What are people’s experience with MTB club’s promoting competitive riding? I find mine doesn’t at all and I think that the over-riding ethos means that anyone new to the sport that might end up deciding to take racing seriously ends up drinking beer between laps at SITS instead, because that’s what others are doing. The club is very strong in other areas, but offers very little towards any furthering of XC competitiveness-type objectives.

+1 not even allowed a club jersey as we can’t be trusted not to be naughty in it!!

grum – Member

you’d be surprised at grass roots events just how many people are there in baggies on a 5″ travel bike just having a bit of fun.

Reading this thread might make you think that doing that will get you sneered at by the ‘proper’ XC racers.
In all honesty the proper XC racer guys really don’t care what you are wearing or what bike you have got.

Brownbacks that was my take on it going round the course with two BC guys. Having one qualified guy was enough.
The course has excellent access as well. It’s basically a huge Equestrian centre with a health club on site.
I would imagine the cyclists to be at no greater risk than the horse riders, but surely anything serious is dealt with by the emergency services? in fact I don’t ever recall anyone being at the local crits.

Just making a point really about the ruts, in that plain old fields can bite back. That said I’ve still got a scar on my leg from crashing in the Vets Nationals back on December 19th that was frozen ruts.

Anyway I won’t go ahead without the say so, but if and when it’s underway we could adapt the course very easilly.

Actually just remembered. BC were more than keen to turn it into a non league or youth training course.

going round the course with two BC guys

I would ask how many XC races they have organised and use that as a barometer of their level of knowledge

racing isn’t about the trails, it’s about yourself. It’s about personal development and the desire to be the best you can.

That’s no doubt true for some people, but if you want to attract lots more people to races then making the courses fun seems like a very good idea. The brownbacks races are a good example of this, both in terms of the available trails and the way they change the course around to keep it interesting.