Why cant britain produce olympic or even world cup level XC racers

Nobody has suggested that ST becomes a magazine about XC racing. Nobody.

It’s been suggested that the mag has a round of up what’s happening on the XC scene.

Is that really too much for you to bare?

Is that too much to ask?

To be fair, he has said that he’d stop buying it if XC racing ‘crowded out’ other content. That’s not to say a single article would do it (as you seem to be implying), but rather if the focus of the mag shifted he would reconsider buying it. Seems wholly reasonable to me.

I don’t buy it at all, never have. Not bought any magazine (bike or otherwise) in years. My neighbour passes on copies of Roleur and Cyclist, I quite like the latter. But as a general rule I think magazines are a bit crap, XC focused or otherwise.

Didn’t know Kenta Gallagher was off playing at DH, seems to be doing reasonably well judging by Roots & Rain.

And heres me thinking all XC racers were utterly crap at anything remotely technical.

Tcha.

ghostlymachine – Member
And heres me thinking all XC racers were utterly crap at anything remotely technical.

They’re generally very good. I remember being passed by Adam Craig in a race about 8 years ago. I was on very narrow singletrack with no room to pull over when I heard what sounded like a major crash behind me, only the noise kept coming. It was Craig overtaking myself and the guy in front using the tops of the rocks lining the course.

Simple: The Weather!

We are amazeballs at DH, because the runs are short, and wet bike handing skills = winners

But for XC where you need to spent at least 28 hrs a day in the saddle to have a hope of training hard enough means our crappy weather pretty much knobble’s us. Getting wet on morning smashing out the DH runs is fun, but after another wet, cold, 6 hrs in the saddle grinding up some god forsaken windy hill in the middle of nowhere and our athletes are forgiven for knocking it on the head and just going to the pub instead……

You do know that Rissveds still lives for most of the year in Falun…….

And Switzerland is covered by snow much of the year…

I know. I was just going by the general view held on here.

Maxtorque has obviously never heard of one of these new fangled turbo trainers 😀

Didn’t know Kenta Gallagher was off playing at DH, seems to be doing reasonably well judging by Roots & Rain.

Got a lot of talent that lad. Remember the vid of him having a battle with someone in a cross race? Every lap the other guy got off over the hurdles and Kenya rode them. Don’t know if it gained him much but it was great to watch.

I Met Kenta on a BC training camp in majorca back in 2012, he did xc because he was offered money by BC to ride xc. When he no longer got yhe funding he went back to his roots i.e. Dh.

Changing STW to an xc racing mag will never and should never happen. However, from some comments in this forum people could find it interesting to read. Especially if it opens up a dicipline that previously they had never tried (or not knowingly). If a feature gets people to try out a local xc race, then fantastic: its poeple out enjoying their bike.

Trail types: xc races typically use man made trails but with no ‘trail centre’ finish. The organisers use natural features and soil, of course there are exceptions.

If this thread has demonstrated one thing, it seems to be the lack of awareness/knowledge/experience of xc races.

Training ise, phil pearce is full time this year and typically rides for 2-3hr a day. A lot of which is on the mtb and off road. Riding on the road doesnt develop the muscle groups you use on the mtb.