Doing ok in my recent races but it does seem all those above me are club racers – which I presume means they ride for road clubs.
I’m interested in progressing but have no interest in riding on the road. Is this going to prohibit my progression. I’m riding laps of trail centres and known trail routes and once per week a long session on gyms sprint bike.
Do any clubs concentrate on XC only (I’m in SW Devon).

Road riding gives you an extra dimension to training, you can do more with it as a training component. I’m not sure there are many seriously competitive mountain bikers who are not road riding to some extent.

you can recover better and are less beat up on the road, you don’t need a road bike but to get decent intervals your looking road or turbos.

Do chaingang once a week, it’ll do wonders for your top end!

Phil Pearce never had a road bike til earlier this year and he was winning Nationals the last few years. So, no, you don’t need one. They are easier to train on though!

Ben Thomas (national Marathon champion) also didn’t use a road bike until very recently. They’re not necessary by any stretch, but do afford some more consistency.

You don’t say what level you’re at – are you finishing 20th in open, or 5th in elite?

Whilst you don’t HAVE to do it, most do. I know a couple of elites, both do the vast majority of their training on the road. From a personal perspective, I rode MTBs for 10 years before I had a road bike – road riding transformed my fitness, not so much from a racing perspective, but just had much more endurance to spare for long days in the hills.

Our national-level XC rider is ripping the legs off me every time I ride with him on the road and already won his first Surrey League road race this year. It’s when he rides in the fast group on his 29er with nobbles (and not get dropped) that I think he’s taking the mick!

road riding transformed my fitness, not so much from a racing perspective, but just had much more endurance to spare for long days in the hills.

Similar experience, but I’m also able to maintain a threshold effort better in an XC race.

Give it a try, I say. You’ll probably end up enjoying it and finding more motivation to ride on the road when the trails are grotty.

Even Sam Hill rides road, with flat pedals of course.

Nino Schurter certainly does… even rode Tour de Suisse and Romandie with Orica Greenedge but I think he’s probably at the fairly extreme edge of XC racers 😉

the bikes not important but the training session. ie the effect on you.

riding on the road/ easy paths allows steady & consistent training. off road is much more difficult.

You could just do mtb and turbo sessions, but the turbo is even worse than riding on the road IMO.

Also just because they are club racers doesn’t mean the club is road exclusive, you mentioned Soggy’s on your last thread so I presume you’re talking about clubs like MDCC, Southfork(team not club), Taw Velo etc?

They all have road and MTB combined, it’s just that a lot of people, especially those thy race, ride both disciplenes even if one is their ‘primary’, and you’ll find both will often ride CX in winter too.

You don’t need a road bike to train or to get better but it really does open up training options and can help you work on aspects that are hard to do if you stay purely off-road, made a world of difference to me who I started road riding, launched me from low 20s in Masters to top 10 finishes and a few 3/4/5 finishes within 8-9months.

I’m just trying to get back on form this year after a shitty year last year and it’s the road bike that’s helping me get there more than the MTB…

the bikes not important but the training session. ie the effect on you

This, I believe is key.It’s the ability to ride a consistent effort (heart rate/power) that road riding provides. Many of the other elements of training can be achieved off road.

I remember a female downhill national rider keeping up with our fastest chaingang on her downhill bike. It was a bit funny when someone warned the group of a small indentation in the road coming up as she rode 6″ of travel!!

They may not ride road bikes, but unless they have great weather and trails they probably ride on the road or turbo. One of the reasons I first got a road bike was that I was doing most of my winter training on the road, with my hardtail. Trying to do a 20 minute constant effort on the trails around here is nigh-on impossible as they don’t go on for that far and in winter it’s more trudging through mud than riding.

I remember a female downhill national rider keeping up with our fastest chaingang on her downhill bike.

Your ‘fastest’ chaingang must have been slow as sh*te for that to happen or I call bull.

Most I know do and just by means of a personal example I recently returned to my old XC stomping ground after a four year absence riding exclusively road bikes and I’m beating 7/10 segments of my old PB’s despite now being the other side of 50.

Similar experience here, I ride with a couple of mountain bike groups. A winter of road riding this year has seen me move from mid pack to top 3 on the climbs.

I do feel slightly de-slilled on the trails though going into this spring compared with previous years where I just ride mtb.

As most have said road enables you to do specific training rides easier than of road. I know for myself it is almost impossible to do a steady rate heart rate ride at my local wood but on the road no problem. Another advantage is during winter it can be slight less hassle as not so much filth or mud to clean of.

Personally I feel if mountain biking is what you enjoy then best to use your current bike on road but possible with a different wheel set with slicks fitted (so you do not trash your off road tires). It also enables you to stay accustom to position and set up of the bike you are going to race on.

The one issue can be gear range (depending how fit you are), single ring front often does not offer a high enough gear so double at front can be useful.

I ride primarily MTB but recently bought a CX bike. The CX bike is great for fitness all around. It’s quick on the roads and certainly gives you a full body workout on rough off road descents. Saying that, its not what bike you ride, it’s where you ride it. A road bike on the road will give the same benefits as riding a MTB on the road. Granted it’ll be slower but that’s irrelevant in terms of fitness

What level are you OP? I’d probably scrape into the top 20 in the vets at a national, and I don’t have a road bike.

I occasionally do a pure road ride in the winter for convenience, and it definitely taxes different muscles and requires a different kind of fitness. But how useful that is I don’t know.

I’m still not convinced that riding an MTB offroad isn’t the best training for riding an MTB offroad.

Of course, maybe if I spent my life on road and rollers I’d be top 10 vets. But would it be worth it?

I remember a female downhill national rider keeping up with our fastest chaingang on her downhill bike.

I don’t believe you.

How SW Devon are you Wheely? Most of the Mid Devon MTB guys ride on the road too, but not race.
I’m in Plymouth (wont take much looking up if you look at my user name)and I ride with the Rockets and Rascals guys on Wed eve and Sat mornings on the road. It has massively helped me with my top end (chain gang back from Wrangaton or even just Yealmpton)and also helps with the climbing as you just don’t want to get dropped.
Has it specifically helped my MTB? probably not, but its got me riding more even if its because I don’t have to spend an hour cleaning my bike everytime I ride!
Welcome to join us. Will be quieter this w/e and some of the guys are off the Flanders.

D

Thanks for replies. To answer a few questions
In the recent local Soggy Bottom XC series i finished 11th (on a trail bike) then 4th then 5th on a recently bought Scalpel. This is in grand vet. I’m in my 50th year although not 50 yet. I feel I’m the fittest I’ve ever been.
Scalpel has been converted to 1×11 but have all the parts for change it back to 2×11 if I decide to ride on the road with it (got a nice Di2 setup as well allowing me to control all changes with just a single shifter).
I work in Plymouth (mon-fri) & live in Torbay.
I was considering getting another set of wheels with road-biased tyres. The Scalpel locks out well on front & back.
Interestingly I am quite content on my gyms sprint bike for 75 minutes or so once per week — headphones on and pound the beat.
I’m keen to improve after sniffing a podium this year — albeit in local racing.

I believe gains in road bike performance diminish at less cost than MTB so you could get £500(or less) and still realise 99% of your ability.

I find I am significantly tireder after an hour on road than an hour off-road so from a timecrunched perspective it’s useful. However that might might be because I’ve only just started riding on road so it’s fresher and I’m motivated to push it. Riding on road I see way better than turbo as your supporting muscles get a work out too and they don’t need to when turboing.

I remember a female downhill national rider keeping up with our fastest chaingang on her downhill bike.

Why was your chaingang riding downhill trails? Or does she ride downhill on a road bike just to level the field?

I’m going to turn the question on its head but worth thinking about

take your training plan and have someone look it over to see if there are any improvements possible
look at your revised training plan and then figure out what tool to get the maximum out of it

there are lots of great road rides around plymouth and torbay I’d bet, get on ebay and have a blast out in the lanes, as long as the training plan says so 🙂

Another thing I’ve been thinking about is riding a road bike you go significantly faster, 50-60km/h is fairly normal on descents without being sketchy. I think because your eyes/brain get used to going faster on a bike it has benefits offroad as technical descents don’t seem sketchy because your brain is saying your going slow even if you are at the limits of your off-road ability, so you naturally go faster.

I don’t think you’ll be going a lot slower on an XC bike with half-quick tyres on though.
Many of my fastest road segments are still from my Spark 920 with Rocket Rons (even though my overall speeds are slowly beating my MTB days).

If I went back to XC, I’d rather have a set of training wheels for my race bike than a Road Bike as for me, my position on my MTB is radically different and specificity is important I think.

I have a spare set of wheels on their way to me. I’ll stick the most Road-like tyres I can use and probably convert my Scalpel back to 2×11 to give me a better speed range. Then I’ll get in some decent road miles as well to up my aerobic levels.

Must be working, our rider won the expert race at the nationals last weekend. He was dead on last night’s fast club ride though. 😉