😆

Now I have my seat up my arse, clipped in carbon rocket my confidence has taken a knock after a pretty sizeable off.

If you feel unstable on your XC bike it’s set up wrongly. It’s not a pre-requisite.

I used to come off my 2001 Pace RC300 all the time over the bars. It had a 120mm stem and flat bars. I put a 100mm stem and risers on it, and it was perfectly balanced and I could thrash the nuts off it downhill. I did all sorts of steep nadgery stuff on it, without lowering the saddle either. It was brilliant, and just as fast.

My current XC bike is a Kona Hei hei (26 version) and that has a 105mm stem with low-riser bars on it – it’s similarly balanced and thrashable. The only thing that gets me out of shape is when it gets too rocky at speed. Steepness is not an issue, at least nothing you’d enconter on an XC course.

XC bikes don’t need to be as stretched out as you think, and the saddle doesn’t need to be as high. On steep stuff I usually get the saddle on my belly button, and trust my front wheel a little more than I would on my other bikes.