Crans Montana: Adding the DH into XC

They will be fine. Other websites are showing the vast majority riding the features no problem

Of course an average rider could ride it at their pace on a trail or enduro bike. On a short travel xc bike, in the in the middle of group whilst blowing out of your arse is a completely different matter.

Modern xco races are a better watch than enduro or even dh.

The rocks will be lethal in the wet and the ‘cheeses’ of logs look dodgy too

As my parents would say “it’s character building”.

Watched a bit of Vital MTB coverage on YouTube and not only are there chicken runs on all of the features, while they may look a bit intimidating, they’re not all that bad – even on stiffly set up 100mm bikes and disco slippers, they’re all well used to running dropper posts now anyway and these riders are pretty handy.  After 6 laps of breathing through your eyeballs racing may be entirely another matter, but at least it’ll be the same for all the riders.

Rebecca Henderson has felt the need to speak out

https://www.instagram.com/rebeccahenderson.27?igsh=MWRiMWkwd3RiNWphdg==

It’s quite hard to quote from Instagram, but here goes. So by the power of Google Lens i can do it In think her moan about the course not being ready seems fair to me

rebeccahenderson.27

I don’t want to be political or controversial but I will say, we are at a AA crazy time in this sport.

With the schedule more condensed then ever we are riding new courses that are for various reasons not ready when the first official practice starts.

In all my time in this sport I’ve never seen this scenario. Due to safety concerns sections are being closed for maintenance and changes during training, again and again.

It used to be the course was ready for the first official training and occasionally some minor changes. Not using the riders for testing in the first training sessions to find the limits and then scale back from there.

To me the magic of XCO is the athleticism of the riders and that is the real show. Of course I love the technicality and challenges of MTB but it shouldn’t be the absolute central focus and if it can not be done safely and the full course can be ridden in all conditions pushing the limits and safety of the riders doesn’t feel right. We still have the wild and wonderful world of downhill racing showing what’s possible on two wheels

Lets hope something special happens (like the sun comes out) so that we can ride these climbs and off camber natural sections. The weather is going to be a huge factor and will decide if it’s a XC or CX race.

I really do love this sport and only want to see it progress in the best way possible

The Stegosaurus rock section with two chutes looks just like it has “hospital food” written all over it. I wonder if it’s in a section where the riders will be bunched or strung out a bit. A fall onto those upright rocks in the middle of the chute would be grim for a start followed by a pile on as riders follow.

Insta has a few bits of video from wet practice with Isla sliding down a mud slope on her back….

I do darkly recall XC getting technical in the past and there being a fatality and the tech was wound back in again… but here we are.

I disagree with folks who say that average or normal riders could ride this on an enduro bike. I admit, this is all based on internet knowledge, not having seen the trail with my own eyes. But stuff on video looks so tame, compared with in the flesh. So I’m quite certain that enormous rock drop is even more terrifying in the flesh. And in the wet, I certainly wouldn’t want to be trying it, no matter what bike I was riding.

to defend the course, I saw riders rolling the B line to the side of the larger drop.

im torn on this. On the one hand, I’m really glad that a mountain biking race is not simply road biking off road. So I really like there being a technical aspect to the race. But some recent races have seemed quite OTT technically.

I’ve been looking at all the marketing of this event on social media. Kriss Kyle and Nicolai Rogatkin have posted on insta… Warner Bros are really trying to broaden the audience.

Watched the racing today and Lecomte rode a great race to a win. For the mens race, Pidcock is obviously talented but I just can’t warm to him….  but win he did.

Pretty worrying to see the yellow flag out on the A line for the Stegosaurus chute. Whilst the racing was pretty eventful, the number of crashes was pretty high.
Rissveds head injury
Brandl suspected broken jaw during the race
Last lap rider being assisted lying on the rock feature for two laps.

Where is the balance? Interesting course vs OTT gnarr. Be an interesting post race team review.

I thought the course looked ok in the race. The man made extras were clearly OTT and other than the log drop snd it’s c line didn’t seem to differentiate much.

Apparently Pidcock hadn’t ridden the course before the race. So he was changing lines because he didn’t know that say the water fall A line was actually slower until he lost time on it during the race

Just watched Puck Pieterse do a lap on you tube

I watched the ladies race and it was very clear that the tech was not Puck’s strength. Every lap she would close the gap a bit on the climbs and the cyclocross on and off bits. As soon as it got technical she was loosing buckets of time to the 2 in front of her.

rock section options all merging right at their bases (when riders from A&B (and C??

The C line went behind the rock berm and rejoined on the next straight after the rocks ended.

Personally I really enjoyed the race as it was nice to see their technical skills being as important as just fitness and power.

It was a fascinating watch. Was hoping that there wouldn’t be any injuries given the tech and weather – but there was one guy in the XCO laying in the rock garden with a couple of the lines shut off with yellow flags as he was attended by medics. Hope he is ok.