http://www.bikeradar.com/mtb/news/article/2012-london-olympic-mountain-bike-course-improved–33642/?ns_service=mail&ns_robot=partner-Adestra&ns_campaign=1081&ns_source=Adestra&ns_mchannel=email-n&ns_linkname=2012+London+Olympic+mountain+bike+course+improved&ns_fee=0&ns_recipient=tobyfield%40gmail.com&ns_mail_uid=58&ns_mail_job=2101

Having already ridden the course, and written about it for this very website, I’m a little shocked by the news on there to be honest! I’d have said 2 things it didn’t need were widening, or more climbing!

Anyway, I’m not a pro-elite level roadie masquerading as an MTB racer… 😉

Tongue in cheek comments aside though, guess it serves to show just how big the gulf is between the “ordinary” trail riders of us on here, and the real top level pro’s. They want more climbing, and more passing places, as that’s what’s important to them! Odd world innit…

Sorry if this has already been posted/linked to, I’ve only just spotted it.

forgive my ignorance, what’s happening to the course after the ‘lympics?

is it being left as a permanent track?

Far more technical, hard and intresting as Pietermaritzburg, NOT !

The circuit is a joke for a Olympic event.

You ridden it? Raced many Olympic XC events?

I have ridden no Olympic events,but it does not look in the same league as the majority of UCI courses. I just hope the camera angles dont do it justice, looks very tame indeed, horrible on the eye being all man made as well.

Atlanta 1996 was a poo course, Sydney 2000 looked tech as with a few power climbs in it Athens 2004 looked good, Bejing 2008 was a great course. I will still try and go and watch the race, anyway gotta go, going out training for the 2016 event. Ciao.

looks kinda flat

I think it looks allright, especially as its in essex which isn’t noted for it’s hills
I hope it’s a permanent track as i’m only across the other side of the Thames and we could do with a venue to replace Eastway which was flattened to make way for the Olympic stadium. Karma and all that 💡

But then i’m not a world class athlete and most of my rides involve a pub stop 😆

I think it is going to be great to watch.

Just because its flat does not mean that the riders wont be working at their max.

I think its going to be close, with a lot of overtaking, forcing riders to take the harder lines.

Can’t wait to watch!

Initially I was very sceptical, but the aim is for a race and tbh one of the most ‘intense’ courses I’ve ridden was at the evening races near Amersham at Lotts Wood.

No where to rest, barely anywhere to even grab a drink and with only a (max) 50m elevation.

<div id=”mapviewer”><iframe id=”map” scrolling=”no” width=”500″ height=”400″ frameborder=”0″ src=”http://www.bing.com/maps/embed/?v=2&cp=51.6835243921078~-0.6423425376415204&lvl=15&dir=0&sty=s&eo=0&form=LMLTEW&emid=0429707d-6f66-b741-b1e1-1af1a0fa08b7″></iframe><div id=”LME_maplinks” style=”line-height:20px;”>View Larger MapDriving Directions</div></div>

It’s got more elevation than Beijing.

It is nothing like other UCI courses, that’s intentional. A world cup will have 180 or so riders, this has no more than 50. A world cup course is not designed to be televised. The primary focus of this was to have it televised.

All the riders I know who rode the test event said it was great, I reckon it’ll be excellent.

I think it looks great

The most boring bike race I’ve ever watched (this includes road cycling) on tv was the commonwealth xc race in the peak district, so it’s not about location

looks kinda flat

Jesus Christ!

DOES ANYBODY READ THE PRINT? Or do you only look at the pictures?

There’s 180m of altitude gain, over about 5km, per lap! Like I said, flat it ain’t… Which is why I’m surprised they’re set to put even more climbing in!

Dear Mr mboy , please don’t let yourself get …

🙂

There will always be the armchair experts ,who just don’t get it.
Be at peace with this 😉

I thought the commonwealth xc race was at rivington?

Might have been,still boring to watch though

mboy – Member
Jesus Christ!

DOES ANYBODY READ THE PRINT? Or do you only look at the pictures?

There’s 180m of altitude gain, over about 5km, per lap! Like I said, flat it ain’t… Which is why I’m surprised they’re set to put even more climbing in!

are you saying it looks hilly?

erny, it was (just been round it this morning as it’s on my door step) but singletrack keyboard warriors don’t care much about detail 😀

Anyway, putting all aside I would still like to go and watch the Olympic race in our country. Anyone know if you can just “hop over” the fence and go and watch as i did not get tickets ?

xc racing is pretty poor viewing most of the time.

ive ridden the lotts wood course (pic above) and also been along to watch the racing. its a fun little loop to ride, but boring to watch racing

its tight twisty with few passing places (from riding it) so the race gets quickly strung out, and the tree cover means that you really only watch the riders pass twice per lap from any given vantage point. It would be a nightmare to try to broadcast the race.

im sure the olympic xc riders know what’ll work best for a race and its likely to be different to the kind of riding i like to do.

either way im not expecting ‘edge of the seat’ tv veiwing of the event.

Anyone know if you can just “hop over” the fence and go and watch as i did not get tickets ?

🙄

All though I feel that the course builders have done a great job of creating what they have created on the largest mole hill Essex has to offer. It still looks pants! This country has so much more to offer!

This country has so much more to offer!

Do we really have to do this again!?

It’s not the England/UK Olympics, like it or not. It is the London Olympics, of which MTBing is a tiny part. In fact there are fewer tickets for the MTBing than any other event.

It’s a race course, it’s not designed to be ridden like a trail centre, it’s designed to look good on TV and give good racing. Where would offer a better race? Bear in mind it’s got to be <3 miles, so a big hill is no use at all, a race that goes up a hill, then back down, is very boring.

London Olympics? Are all the sailing events going to be held on the Thames???

It’s a race course, it’s not designed to be ridden like a trail centre, it’s designed to look good on TV and give good racing.

This.
This times a lot.

It’s not you and your chubby, baggy, over-Camelbaked mates driving out to the nearest mountain biking hotspot with your 5 inch travel bikes with super light rotors to save rotating weight 🙄 and then pushing up the first incline and ‘sessioning’ the ‘gnarr’ before retiring to the pub/cafe to eat and drink three times more calories than you’ve burned off while slagging off roadies for not giving you a kiss everytime time they pass you.

It’s a race.

Do we really have to do this again

No ,but by posting that ,the usual suspects will be along shortly 😉

London Olympics? Are all the sailing events going to be held on the Thames???

That’s an exception. It was deemed that there are no closer facilities that are appropriate. Ditto the kayaking at Broxbourne and the rowing at Eton Dorney. What would another part of the country be able to offer that Hadleigh Farm doesn’t? Serious question.

They wanted to move the shooting to Bisley, but that was deemed too far away.

It would be a nightmare to try to broadcast the race.

I wasn’t think of Lotts Wood, more making the point that you don’t need height for a good race – and having one that is good for spectators’ should be secondary.

[ It was deemed that there are no closer facilities that are appropriate]
This I feel would have been the appropriate conclusion for essex regarding mtb!

are you saying it looks hilly?

Dunno whether to laugh or cry!

I’m not saying it looks hilly, I’m saying I’ve ridden it and there is a hell of a lot of ascent and descent per lap. It’s not a trail centre, where you typically spend ages climbing a big hill, then 10 minutes descending it. It is constant up and down. 180m of climbing per 5km lap is ferociously steep. By contrast, I did a 35km ride over the Malverns yesterday with approximately 850m of climbing all in, and that was sharp. If it was the same rate as the Olympic course, it would have been more like 1250m of climbing I did yesterday instead…

Again, as already stated above, it is a race course, for elite level athletes, it’s not supposed to be a nice friendly trail centre, it’s supposed to provide exciting racing (which is quite different to exciting riding) and be good for TV coverage. The fact that most people won’t ride it yet will still slate it is by the by… If the most popular trails were actually the best trails, Llandegla would win by a country mile, whereas the reality is aside from a couple of black bits that add a bit of interest, Llandegla is so boring and smooth you need a road bike to make most of it at all interesting!

[ It was deemed that there are no closer facilities that are appropriate]
This I feel would have been the appropriate conclusion for essex regarding mtb!

Maybe so… But it is where it is. No changing that.

The fact that Martyn Salt and his team have done a brilliant job of creating a testing XC race track with the modest facilities and terrain present, is highly commendable.

Are all the people on here that say that the course isn’t up to scratch/in the wrong place the same dullards that post the exact same tosh on the Bike Radar threads etc?

Its Elite XC racing at the London Olympics, not fat pseudo middle class IT workers walking round anything uphill/technical at a trail centre.

I’ve just done a 25km ride out of cheltenham that I was fairly happy with and contained a good amount (in my eyes) of climbing – 840m worth. That works out at 160m per 5km. If this olympic loop is 180m/5km then i’m pretty impressed and I’ll take back any thoughts about it being too flat.

I did say originally that I thought the course builders had done a good job of creating what they had, with what thay were given. I will even go on to say that I would quite happily go and have a go round it after the olympics has been and gone. thou i feel they are going to sanitize it far to much. The chicken runs are allready there, alot of us mtb’ers are capable of riding the same course as a pro xc rider, even if we do enjoy weekend blasts around trail centers!!!

This I feel would have been the appropriate conclusion for essex regarding mtb!

Rubbish. Comparing the 2 is ridiculous, you can do mountain biking just about anywhere, sailing requires very specific terrain. Again, where would you have the XC, and what would it offer that Hadleigh Farm doesn’t?

The “chicken” runs are there indeed, but certainly on one or two sections, only the very best riders actually attempted some of the harder lines. In the test event, didn’t Julien Absalon win being one of, of not the only rider to clear all the difficult lines.

I wouldn’t worry about the sanitisation. Much of it does look open/wide/flat on camera cos there are sections that are, but you need to be technically very competent to be happy riding all of the more difficult lines. Not saying its beyond the reach of everyone, but it is beyond the capability of most. So to win the event, you will need to not only have the legs of the best TDF climbers, but also be very skilled and not afraid to take a risk. It will definitely make for good racing!

Wales, Wales, Wales, Wales. Yes you can cycle anywhere, but the m in mtb doesn’t stand for mole hill. £800 000 would have given the allready thriving mtb scene a very usefull boost

Right, what would Wales offer instead? Bear in mind it can’t be a course that disappears over a mountain and comes back 60 minutes later. You don’t want one big climb, that’s dull. It can’t all be singletrack, there’s no passing. It must look good on tv, so dense forests don’t work. You have to be able to get the worlds media in there, so nothing on silly back roads.

So you’d have to design a new course right by the M4… Why go to Wales?

As has been said, there’s more elevation here than plenty of other areas, including most Welsh trail centres…

When are Wales (Yes I know it’s a country not a city) going to put a bid in to host the Olympics?

Scotland has way better riding than Wales, so if we’re going to suggest inappropriate places with poor access, then we should at least start with the best 🙂

The Alps are better than both, as are many places in Canada, so why not go there?

When are Wales (Yes I know it’s a country not a city) going to put a bid in to host the Olympics?

Wales isn’t a country…

Edit: … eligible to bid for the Olympics independently.