The athletes who are winning the XC races at the highest level are themselves at the highest level of technical ability, the highest level of physical fitness, the highest level of mental fitness and the highest level of hunger to win.
XC racing includes all facets of mountain biking from technical climbing, speed, technical descending as well as consistency. "To me, XC racing is the purest form of mountain bike racing that is around. U23 racer Reece Tucknott states that it's the purity of XC racing that he loves. That sense that XC is 'pure' comes up pretty often when talking to riders. Interestingly enough, Cooper uses his skills honed in XC to tackle enduro races, with a number of podium finishes. XC encompasses everything that's fun and tough about mountain biking, on all types of terrain," concluded Cooper. "The difference being, especially back in the day, they did it on raw trails and on primitive bikes that had no margin for error. But maybe there's more difference over the past decades? There's just a difference for when you're on the clock. To me that sums up a group trail ride, a cross-country race, or an enduro race too. This is a perfect point, so much of what any ride any of us does, is climbing at a pace we can manage, then bombing the descent as fast as we can. Then repeat."ĭon't miss our highlights from the U19, U23 and Elite XCO National Championships! "It's interesting that 'enduro' is the cool new format," states Dylan Cooper, of RideTechnics, "with XC being uncool to some, when really 'enduro' is just what XC riders have been doing since the beginning - climb up at a pace that suits you, then pin it down the hill on a challenging trail at a speed that makes it fun. But right before the World Cup starts, let's see if we can't show that XC shouldn't be a dirty word. 'XC' has a dirty name, many think it's tame or boring. But at the root of it - isn't trail riding just cross-country? Why has cross-country earned a name that gets derided? I reached out to some of the current (and past) crop of Australian cross-country (XCO) talent to get their opinions on how XCO represents mountain biking, and why perhaps much of the greater perceptions are wrong. Our equipment is a lot more capable, and in a sense what the majority of us can ride on a typical mountain bike is different now as well. Mountain biking has changed in combination with mountain bikes. Cross-country racing really was mountain biking - against the clock and other riders. Laps were longer, and technical support on the course was based on what spares you carried.
'Cross-Country' racing at the time was a lot longer than it is now, with races well over 2 hours, compared to the 1h20-1h30 which you see most World Cup races being completed in. The difference being: it could go up, down and along pretty well - or really it just went down. When I first started reading Australian Mountain Bike magazine in the mid 90s, bikes were reviewed and then moved into being a cross-country or downhill bike.
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