How important is a competitive bike XC

I mean in your opinion?
In road racing a great bike really shines. In cross not so much, but what about XC.
Years ago I didn’t race XC much at all. I had a Giant hardtail, SID world cups, XT/XTR mix. Now I have a £1200 off the peg 29er.
I’ve no grand plans in grand vets, just want to put in a good show.

I think its more what you feel comfortable on. Comfort comes with experience and knowing whats best for you and the job at hand. Everyones going back to do it all bikes but I reckon you’d have more fun on a bike that you enjoy and is more capable and therefore may ride it harder?

Unless you’re lugging around a 15kg heap that handles like a dog, the engine is what matters most. Same tbh on road and cross to a major degree, a good rider on a bad bike will always tuck away a bad rider on a £10k dream machine.

Time trials on the other hand, money seems to buy speed.

I’ve only done 3 XC races, and one of them was HTN.

All I can tell you is that an Inbred, although not perfect, is definitely better than a Nukeproof Mega 😀

I’d rather race road on a budget bike than XC on a budget bike to be honest.

Poor disks and suspension would be worse to me than a slightly heavy frame and Tiagra gears.

^^ this, and what blazin-saddles said.

It’s a race not a game of top trumps based on price. One you spend approx a grand on a bike it’s more than up to racing, is just for you to supply the attitude and power.

One you spend approx a grand on a bike it

A grand is not budget for a lot of people!

However I agree with the sentiment that for the very large majority of people, a bike worth a grand will not be the limiting factor in a race situation.

Fast riders are fast no matter what they ride.
You only need to look at the performance of riders like Gee and Terrahawk and the results they can get riding fatbikes against riders of normal XC bikes.

It’s nice to have a nice bike but I reckon I’d be pretty much the same speed in an XC race on my nice carbon Epic as I would be on a Boardman 29er from Halfords.

I think “as important as YOU want it to be” is the answer. There may be the odd second lost here and there on the ‘wrong’ bike but not enough to influence your finishing result I would suggest.

However, if you become a paranoid insecure wreck at the sight of more expensive machinery than yours then you’d better get the credit card out 😀 😉

Think as long as it works and you’re confident that you can go fast on it then I don’t think it matters too much. Worst thing in a race though is not liking what your riding and having dodgy kit, like when you’re riding on the limit and you’re having to fiddle about trying to get the shifting to work.

Exception to that IMO is forks. Budget sus forks can be horrid.

Time trials on the other hand, money seems to buy speed.

aero costs money..

I’ll be racing this year on a 2014 (half price) Zaskar 29er so I’ll let you know how I get on against the uber bikes in masters.
And I haven’t raced xc since 1994 when I was 14.
Death awaits.

Time trials… it’s not that expensive to get the basics sorted. Beyond that it’s seconds here and there and you won’t be able to spend a few grand on kit that on its own will make you minutes quicker over a 10. The fast riders are still the fastest.

I’ll be racing this year on a 2014 (half price) Zaskar 29er so I’ll let you know how I get on against the uber bikes in masters.

Do you still have a masters category? It’s gone from Nationals and Southern series, no idea about others!

I’d rather race road on a budget bike than XC on a budget bike to be honest.

Agreed*. There’s also more potential for a cheap xc bike to not last a race distance, or at least need a complete overhaul after every race.

*Although try telling that to some of the new-to-racing guys in our club who think they can’t turn up to a cat4 only crit without carbon deep section wheels and an aero (road) helmet.

Did my last XC race on a long-travel 26in HT and I’m making my return next month on a long-travel 29er HT.

I won’t be kidding myself that the bike’s holding me back!

lol at the thought you’d need disc brakes to race XC.. as others have said, unless it’s an absolutely awful 1200 quid 29er it’ll be just fine.

Things I’ve noticed at XC races in the last couple of years:

29 inches is by far the most popular choice of wheel size.

Anyone still running a 26er will insist their bike allows them to make up ground in the twisty bits over the 29ers. But when pushed they’ll reluctantly admit they have never actually ridden a 29er.

The only riders on 27.5ers are sponsored. No-one actually buys them.

There’s always a super fit rider on a fat bike who passes you at warp speed and throws it round like it weighs nothing.

When you catch up with the fat bike rider at the end of the race you realise his bike really does weigh nothing and probably cost more than the deposit you put down on your house.

Some people REALLY don’t like being beaten in a sprint to the finish line by a singlespeed.

Lots of good points up there. Only thing i have to add is to ask if mtbel is actually GW returned from the backcountry.

lol at the thought you’d need disc brakes and suspension to race XC. ride a mountain bike. as others have said, unless it’s an absolutely awful 1200 quid 29er it’ll be just fine.

Different how? We (virtually) all deem discs necessary for casual riding, how is racing different? Not sure it’s worthy of a ‘lol’ 😕

I went from racing XC stuff on a 140/160mm 26″ FS (fun machine) to a 100mm 29r race geometry bike, I’m more competitive but not competitive…. It’s down to the engine

Do you still have a masters category? It’s gone from Nationals and Southern series, no idea about others!

Damn it! this means I’ll be riding with the young uns!

Only thing i have to add is to ask if mtbel is actually GW returned from the backcountry.

💡

Good spot that man.

Four years ago I entered a local XC race on what was my MTB back then: steel Dawes frame (I forgot the model… I bought the bike for £80 from Padstow Cycle Hire about 6 years earlier) with awesome mix of Altus and Deore, rigid forks, v-brakes, stock wheels, 7-speed cassette… I finished 4-th! 😆

I reckon different features are important in different disciplines. Once you’ve got a reliable bike with ok handling, in road I think you can get away with nearly anything. To be competitive in CX you might want to add decent tubs for a muddy day (and another bike). An MTB needs appropriate tyres and having good brakes can add enormously to your confidence. Weight and stiffness and other carbon-based niceties are way down the list. As has been said, sort the engine and the driver out first.

In road racing a great bike RIDER really shines

FTFY

A decent bike is much more important in XC than road as generally there will be more climbing per km, steeper climbing, none to minimal aero/slipstream advantage and much more time to be gained through cornering, late breaking and suspension performance over rough terrain.

Whilst doing well in xc has many factors and the bike is less important than the engine and skills, it still needs to be right for the task and have no aspect that’s going to noticeably slow you down. A £1200 xc focussed 29er hardtail is likely to be mostly right, so it isn’t really going to be a limiting factor, unless you are on top of every other part of your game.

But if you gunning for a new bike purchase…then yeah, really important 😉

Tyre choice is fairly important I think if you are at the pointy end of the race, rather than solely the bike itself.

I am pig slow and quite willing to admit it.
At the last Thetford Winter series race I did, I was passed towards the end of a section of fire road by a skinny XC whippet in team kit on a carbon hardtail, with some fairly slick looking racy tyres. He was quite young, so wasn’t perhaps a top ten contender, but it was clear he was way fitter (and more serious about the whole thing) than me. Within about 50yds of entering the next bit of twiddly singletrack I’d caught him up and was on his back wheel as he fought to keep the bike upright; he started holding me back and I managed to get past where the trail briefly split.
He caught & passed me again on the next pretty short section of fire road, but again I caught him within no time of getting onto the next bit of singletrack, and again he could barely keep the bike upright let alone ride it fast.

Eventually we got to a long section of fire road and he cleared off, but he must have lost a heap of time slithering around in the mud. If he’d have had some more suitable tyres he’d had been heaps further down the road.
And yes, you could argue that grippier tyres would have slowed him down on the fire road sections – but I don’t believe they would have done to the extent that he was having to slow on the muddy bits.

Fast riders are fast no matter what they ride.

Annoys me when people say this. It’s blindingly obvious, and no-one really thinks a fancy bike will make them faster than a properly fast rider.

However, a particular rider (ie you) will be faster on a faster bike, and that’s what the OP is asking about.

IMO light wheels are more important than anything else in XC. Lots of courses are pretty twisty and there’s lots of braking accelerating and changing direction quickly. I worked it out a while ago, saving a kg on your bike makes very little difference when climbing, a few watts – but on wheels especially it makes a lot of difference to your acceleration. Something like 30-40W worth, but bear in mind that’s when you are accelerating not cruising so it’s maybe 5-10%.

Anyone still running a 26er will insist their bike allows them to make up ground in the twisty bits over the 29ers. But when pushed they’ll reluctantly admit they have never actually ridden a 29er

I still run a 26er, mostly because I like it and it’s not snapped yet. I *know* 29ers are faster over most of the XC courses I race at as I’ve demo’d and timed myself on some of them, but they’re not faster enough for me to bother replacing my 26er since I’ll get bigger gains out of training and fitness at the moment.

If I get to the point where I’m consistently coming in 2nd place by a few seconds and going 29 gives me the edge then I’ll be swapping over forthwith!

Race what you got, when things wear out make upgrades where it’ll help, tyres, sus etc. and pedal harder 🙂

*if* you get to the point where your bike is holding you back then that’s the point at which you re-think.

I worked it out a while ago, saving a kg on your bike makes very little difference when climbing, a few watts – but on wheels especially it makes a lot of difference to your acceleration. Something like 30-40W worth,

Would love to see how you have worked this out.

oldgit – Member

I mean in your opinion?
In road racing a great bike really shines. In cross not so much, but what about XC.

In every instance, unless you are riding a heap, it will make **** all difference.

IMO

Cheer me dears.
Must say starting a season on a PX SL Pro and moving to a TCR Advanced SL later was really showed up the difference.

Not so much with cross, probably due to the bike being covered in pounds of mud.

My MTB Fisher X-Caliber was a price break bike to get Reba forks, I think the wheels were were the money was saved, that and a cast iron cassette. So I might look for some weight-money wheels for a bit of racing.

Road racing is my main staple then cross. So I don’t want to spend heaps on the MTB.

I finish top third on my steel SS in XC. I finish top third in cross on the same bike with thinner tyres and rigid forks. To finish higher than this I would need:

1) A better bike for either discipline
2) Better fitness
3) Better skills

but not necessarily in that order. I do think that a light carbon 29er HT would get me up the field in XC, but skills will not get me to the top ten! In cross, who knows.

For road racing, I already have the world’s most succesful cyclist’s bike and it is a joy to race. I’m still only just peri-Top 10 though (normally top third), but it makes the most of my skills and fitness! 😆

1) A better bike for either discipline

Maybe not a better bike but more suitable bike 🙂

Having said that some of our local summer CX races were won on a 29er mtb.

Perhaps, but I was 16/58 in my last regional cross race in some pretty sticky, muddy, conditions. I might not have lost the 15 places on lap one, half of which I clawed back during the race. At the moment, it suits my cross aspirations, but I am thinking of something more conventional for next season.

I would, however, like to race a carbon 29er HT, just to see where the skills limiter kick in.

My xc race bike is dramatically faster on the flat than my chunky mtbs, and it’s even 26. But it’s not down to the cost or weight so much as the riding position, wheels and most probably tyres.

Have we discussed how making it a better colour makes it faster?

yellow FTW