How crap does the new Olympic mountain bike course looks.
tp://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/essexs-olympic-mountain-bike-course-takes-shape-28273
Bloody eejits, spending £800,000 for 3 weeks use and they still haven't agreed on if it can be used after the games. What a waste of money and make mountain biking look like joke having a course like that. Take out the couple of rock drops that have chicken runs and it looks like a family friendly sunday afternoon track. Mountain biking isn't just about who is the fittest like road riding it is about skill, courses should be technically bloody hard.
£800,000 could have built us a wicked new mountain biking venue in the south. Its not like we are overflowing with them.
Idiots!!
Rant over
Again?! Is it retard week on the forum?
It's not done yet, the velodrome looks a bit shit at the moment, as does the athletics track, but the Games is still over 18 months away!
Edit: more/better photos on [URL= http://www.bikemagic.com/event-features/london-olympics-2012-mtb-course-preview/9103.html ]BM[/URL].
The Olympic mountain biking is clearly a total balls up. British Cycling has (as ever) failed off road riding by not standing up for itself and demanding proper facilities, either a new one in the South or an existing one in the North which happened to win a prize for being great at world cups.
It's going to make a mockery of mountain biking in the UK and can only damage the image of the sport.
5.1 km long? F*ck me, that's not even worth getting your bike out for!
Oh, it's a joke - right?
...rigid singlespeeds for that course then!
We should do our own course.
Maybe you should actually READ the article :roll::
And before you say that the course won’t offer a technical challenge to the riders, don’t be so sure. Some of the work that has been completed includes several rocky drops that should pose demanding for the racers. There’s another rock drop that is still to be completed that looks like it should raise a few eyebrows when it’s finished. We can’t help feeling that this should be a fun course to race on.And that’s the crux of it; we came away thinking how much fun the course looks like to ride (let alone race). That’s not something we were expecting to come away feeling earlier that morning on our train journey to Essex. Maybe, just maybe, the organisers have developed a course that will not only provide great spectacle come 2012 but also deliver up a challenging test for the riders.
Ermm, the grandstands are temporary - nothing has been decided yet on the course after the event.
Does it matter if the course is short? Distance will be made up of laps.
I don't think it looks too bad considering it isn't even finished yet
How many times round 5.1km to make a decent length race?
Boring.
What a joke.
Looks like most of the previous Olympic XC courses. Give em a break its only XC its not supposed to be like coedy, natural trails or Freeride droppy stuff!!!
I was pretty pissed off when I saw the first few pics. Starting to like the look of it a bit more now tho.
As one of many riders in essex, it will be really great if they leave all the technical stuff open to the public afterwards.
Anyway, isn't it a longer course and with more elevation than Beijing was?
Turn that bridge into a double or even a table top make a couple of the drops actually drops instead of rocky slow roll offs stick a bit of northshore up there with some passing points and parallel seesaws put some big berms on the DH corners and it would be fun tittle track and would certanly be a chalange to the XC boys and their lightweight bikes. They would need Stumpys instead of Epics now that would really be 'a "new concept" for [XC] mountain biking'.
Perhaps they should change the format to a 15 mile loop, all riders should wear overloaded camelbaks and they could stop for a breather after every climb, ideally all riders should be at least 2 stone overweight and armour is optional.
That would keep a lot on here happy.
Should have built the course in a naturally hilly wooded area, would have made it more interesting for the riders and saved a few quid
Should have built the course in a naturally hilly wooded area, would have made it more interesting for the riders and saved a few quid
...at the expense of the 20,000 spectators per day they are expecting, all the TV crews, commentators, etc
Course looks good to me.
I do wonder if some of the moaners know what an xc mtb race actually is 🙂
Perhaps they should change the format to a 15 mile loop, all riders should wear overloaded camelbaks and they could stop for a breather after every climb, ideally all riders should be at least 2 stone overweight and armour is optional.That would keep a lot on here happy.
+1, it would need to take all day too.
I do wonder if some of the moaners know what an xc mtb race actually is
+1
How many times round 5.1km to make a decent length race?Boring.
**Slow clap** You certainly conform to with Ian's comment!
either a new one in the South or an existing one in the North which happened to win a prize for being great at world cups.
It's the London Olympics, it's not the UK Olympics, it never has been. I'm going to add that to the clipboard, as so few people seem capable of understanding it!
I think it'll be good, Afan wouldn't be, at all, neither would any trail centre, fun to ride and fun (or even plausible) to race are very different. Swinley wouldn't have worked. Dalby is several hundred miles too far away. There are more technical features there than most trail centres. The course isn't finished.
UCI regulations for XC Races
"4.2.012 The course for a cross-country race should include a variety of terrain such as road sections, forest
tracks, fields, and earth or gravel paths, and include significant amounts of climbing and descending.
Paved or tarred/asphalt roads should not exceed 15% of the total course."
"4.2.013 The course must be wholly ridable even in difficult weather conditions. Parallel sections must be provided
on sections of the course likely to deteriorate easily."
Ive already said it looks like a large Crazy Golf course
and that the rock gardens (piss my pants) looks like stone cladding
and i would not be suprised to see the berms made in peble dash!.
And all built next to a fake castle FANTASTIC 🙄
All you need to put Essex an the map!
It's not finished yet!
I'll try and simplify it for you, you seem to be struggling. Here is the London Velodrome:
[img] 
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Do you think all the track riders are whinging that it doesn't look up to much on all the forums? No, because they can read and have brains!
And all built next to a fake castle
No, it's all built next to a REAL castle! [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadleigh_Castle ]Hadleigh Castle[/url]
😆
I'll state again that i think it looks very promising
for a half built course it looks good. The bikemagic pictures give a decent impression of it. Just hope it remains as a permanent site so I can have a go afterwards.
I like the way that the course is shaped to give specators a decent view as well. Might actually be watchable on TV as well, as opposed to the usual imcomprehensible glimpses of riders diving in and out of a wooded section.
They're apparently going to do a test event next year, so come along to that if you want to be sure of having had a go! Knowing how most features look less technical in photos I reckon those rocky drops could be a lot steeper than they seem!
I with Grantway - it has the look of a Crazy Golf course. I'm sure it will end up having some challenging sections and the openness will be great for TV coverage but it's never going to be in any danger of looking natural.
What the hell have they surfaced the trail with as well? It looks a completely different colour and texture to the underlying soil - like they've surfaced the whole thing with fine gravel and sand.
Same stuff they used at Dalby at a guess, makes it all weather and that.
At risk of being hounded out of here with my first ever post, I think it looks alright!
BURN THE HEATHEN!
Joking, welcome, and I agree.
Of course it looks unnatural. They gave just built it, they didn't just find it. It has to be built with half a mind given to the possibility of heavy rain in the days of the events and ensure it's ridable. It's an Olympic XC race course primarily, not an all day trail centre
I just wish people would try and support this a bit more rather than just dismissing it in the basis of a few photos taken early in the course's life which will not be that representative of it once it's ridden and weathered in
+1
I think there are a lot of people posting who haven't got a clue about XC racing.Course looks promising so far and think it will be pretty good by the time they are finished
deffo.I think there are a lot of people posting who haven't got a clue about XC racing
LOL The History of the Castle The owner built it out
of old parts of other deralict Castles So Fake Castle has it
was built for a dwelling and never intended for defense use.
Go to the Castle all info on the plaque
So Piedi Fake Fake Fake Fake 
njeee what the Furrrrrrrrrrrrk the Vendrome is in East London
I know that i live two miles from the place But the XC
Ruhbarb & Custard track Ha Ha is in Essex around 30 miles from
East London 🙄
Castles were pretty much always built as a residences. In what way exactly is it fake then? If you take parts from one bike and put them on a different frame, does that make it a fake bike?
You're just here to troll aren't you
Houns - Member
> http://www.singletrackworld.com/2010/10/london-2012-olympic-mountain-bike-course-preview/
br />
Hell yes, I can't wait to give that a ride. 😀 My opinion on the course has completely changed over the last couple of days.
There are some technical rock step-ups, some technical rock slab descents (real ‘full fork travel’ jobs too) and some crowd pleasing features like an over/under tunnel/bridge combo. While it currently looks like an orange scar, that’ll soon wear in to look a lot more natural come August 2012.
[img]
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What the fffuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrkkkkkkkkk you on about
if i taken parts off one bike and put them onto another i would call that a bike?
A Real Castle is a defence Hadleigh Castle was not intended
has a defence or built to deffend in any shape or form it was simply a dwelling its not that hard is it.
Are you a moron? May I ask what a vendrome is?
Cynical or what, why can't you just be a bit more positive, just wait and let it bed in, and short laps will make it interesting, I think the course looks very promising.
Anyone fancy doing a cheeky night ride on it?
In the meantime have a drink and cheer up.
Now now, there's no need for that. It's clear that English isn't grantway's native tongue and therefore you should cut him some slack...njee20 - Member
Are you a moron? May I ask what a vendrome is?
Well yes, it probably is, but he's not really making much sense, and an inability to copy and paste concerns me! He didn't seem to want civil conversation, with the FURRRRRKKKs and what not, so I thought sinking to his level may get somewhere!
maybe oli and liam will take their road bikes to make it harder
I can't see either winning a medal irrespective of what bike they ride sadly!
Sorry, I was being facetious. Never mind the boy's inability to copy & paste, what about the totally random capitalisation, the complete lack of punctuation, the grammatical horror show...I could go on!
IanMunro - MemberCourse looks good to me.
I do wonder if some of the moaners know what an xc mtb race actually is
Let me think now, do I know what an xc mtb race actually is like? Well, I started racing in 1984 - that was at Crystal Palace - that was a very short course but early days, then in Epping Forest, can't quite remember how long those laps were, but certainly longer than 5.1km - raced in the Grundigs (and did ok), raced in the NPS (and did ok, won quite a few in my category), did loads of local races in Northumberland (Thrunton eg, one long lap) raced at Newnham, when the pipeline was still part of the course (and the tin mine) before it got sanitised, raced the Welsh enduros before they were called Merida, Salisbury Plain New Year's Day challenge, D2D, BigDog, Beastway (won my category two years), Thetford.
Mmmm, yes, I am confident I know what an xc mtb race is - question is, DO YOU?
Jolly good! I did suddenly wonder if you had a good point and I may have over stepped the mark. It seemed unlikely. 😉
raced at Newnham, when the pipeline was still part of the course (and the tin mine) before it got sanitised
Bit rougher and more cut up now than in those days. Cottage run and elfordleigh woods gain a few rocks and roots every season for an easy example of this. Pipeline is just a steep hill with a 'tractor beam' tree at the bottom. Funnily enough it still gets put in the BMBS races because the spectators like it. (not the riders, well rubbish way to loose all that height!) (oh, and I see Martyn 'second home is Newnham Park' Salt is the designer of the course too)
I can't see a problem with the course itself: remember this is very much a spectator sport for the purpose of the olympics, and there are many countries that will field 'eddie the eagles' just because they have a right to send someone to compete. 5.1k is a short lap for whippet/international level, particularly with that amount of climbing, but the interesting bits will come around sooner and more times, and ultimately for all the 'lay-people' that turn up or watch on telly, it needs to look muuuuuuuch more interesting than turning up to thetford on a wet sunday does.
It would be nice to leave it there afterwards though: if it does turn out to be too mimsy for the radmeisters on here, they can stick a nice café in the car park, a flat blue route round it and call it a family mountain bike centre like Haldon Forest.
Undercover cheeky forum night 'research' ride round about feb 2012 would be well funnny too 😀
I reckon that looks more techy than most trail centres, like I say, I bet those drops are steeper than they look.
Karinofnine, although it's clearly subjective I would place money on this being a better course than a 15 year old Newnham. As said, they still use the Pipeline and the Mineshaft, and various other features, I reckon this looks tougher than either of those. You don't appear to have done any XC racing for a while, you list a lot of enduros which due to their popularity are usually on rather dull courses. To compare this to D2D is laughable. I stand by the question, do you know what an XC race is?
As for a short lap, that's how things are going frankly, Champery's World Cup XC course is less than 5k, and there are 4 times as many riders on it. More laps = more interesting for spectators, more feeds for riders and chance to swap wheels etc.
29er anyone?
whoa whoa whoa,
everyone seems to have bypassed one of the best ever STW quotes
They would need Stumpys instead of Epics
"no, whey, duude theres rocks n stuff, gonna need another 25.4mm of suspension travel, fo sho"
Course will be fine, everyone should put their efforts into trying to ensure it remains useable after the event
I personnally think the course looks pretty good compared to some of the world cup races that I have watched in the past. Yes it may be short but that will make it better for the spectator and the television viewer. Video footage will also be more varied as I imagine you will get overhead footage along with your usual ground cameras.
I'll reserve judgement until the race but it looks to be coming along nicely.
Looks like it should have plenty of tricky bits in it (as they will come round often) and plenty of overtaking to keep it interesting for the fans.
How long is a typical road crit course, I'm sure I've seen them shorter than 1 mile and you can be averaging 25mph+
There's more to making a race exciting than making it 1 lap of singletrack where no one can overtake.
I think it going to be a good course from the pics and from what one of the riders said after I asked him his thoughts
"course is equal to dalby mate! its technical and great"
Also with Mr Salt to keep an eye on things, who was behind (with many other) Dalby which was voted the best XC event this year by the RIDERS!