Olympic MTB racing

jujupunx

Does anyone know if people can go watch the XC MTB event from free. The latest MBR magazine seems to imply that anyone can turn up and see the race. The only ticketed area is the grandstand. Is this correct?

Thanks

Colin

waby1234

Try the London 2012 site should tell you on there.

Jimx26

It was sold out last time I looked.

njee20

Can't just turn up, but it's sold out. Keep checking, tickets do appear periodically.

bowden769

Is it on telly ??

papertech202

bowden769 wrote:

Is it on telly ??

It will be on BBC , but may be on the red button as every olympic event is shown that way.

njee20

Or if you've got Sky I imagine it'll be on the Olympic channels 450+

rockmonkeysc

Why only XC? in the Olympics. There seem to be loads of variations of track & road racing in the Olympics but mountain biking is only represented by XC. Would be good to have 4x or dual slalom, I'm sure Katy Curd would get us another gold medal.

cooldad

Because road and track cycling has been going for a long, long time and is highly organised.
No one goes to a velodrome to pootle around for an hour or two and road clubs run races and time trials.
So rules, times etc are well known.
A lot of mountain bikers just play in the mud on bicycles.
So there's BMX and XC now, in time there'll probably be more. If it's organised.

paul.skibum

4X wont get into the olympics if it cant make it on to the World Cup circuit anymore. Slalom is a bit 1990's isnt it?

cooldad

Maybe if we all started shaving our legs they'd take us more seriously?

If they have a medal for playing in the mud I'm there.

Matt_as

Cycling as a whole seems to be treated as on big sport in the Olympics. Not sure who makes the decisions, whether its the IOC or UCI but basically for new disciplines to be added old ones seem to have to go. I am not sure if anything went to makes place for Mountain Bike XC but I know the track Kilo was dropped to make way for BMX and when new Women's track events were added this time Men's track events were dropped to accommodate them, which is why there is now an omnium, it seems someone has decided there can only be so many medals on offer or something.

jujupunx

Thanks for the replies, shame most people i've heard from say it's ticket only. Will have to watch it on TV..

Clank

Sounds daft but other countries sell off their unallocated tickets, so it is possible to obtain tickets. There was a piece about it in one of the broadsheets yesterday, including where to buy (in London) and the nearest tube stop.

rockmonkeysc

Save your cash and just go and watch a national level race for free. I would rather watch a round of the Halo BDS or even national XC than olympic XC.

Red.Devil.Ghost

More MTB in the Olympics would be good, agreed.

As for the track cycling, it was all changed to try and level the playing field a bit. Increasing the number of women's events was a good idea but the Omniun is really weird and mildly more complicated than bike racing needs to be.

Anonymous

The priority for them is ease of spectating and more importantly high visibility of official sponsor logos. One of the reasons stated somewhere why they wanted an open XC track with hard surface and good drainage is they did not want mud on the bikes covering the logos. Likewise few trees about for good camera shots. Even mountains and hills get in their way. Hence we've ended up with something that's far from MTB in any form, even XC. Baffles me why they didn't just go with Cyclocross. Seems to be more Olympic spirited anyway. Bunch of guys in lycra, doing some pedalling and then hiking about with the bike on their back.

The gnarly fun stuff is more suited to Winter Olympics style, but the rules say it has to be on snow or ice. Hmm... Mega in the Olympics?

Anyway, don't need the Olympics for MTB really, plenty of top events available. Only thing is the Olympics might help lift the image of MTB from being a bunch of hooligans on bikes.

Roostoids

I think it'll be a good show this weekend, looking forward to it actually.

It'll be an entry-level gateway for people to see what's possible with some skills and fitness, and some of them will want to take that up. While the circuit may not be overly challenging, it's probably on a par with most trail centres about, so people will have an idea what to expect when they/if they do head out for a ride.

The only bad thing about more people riding, is more people churning up the trails and mud (but hopefully more money for refurbing those trails).

Also, apparently the course will be made open to the public after the Olympics finish, I'm sure it'll be a big draw, I only hope they don't simplify it too much to appeal to the masses. It would be nice to have an Olympic course to ride on, compare lap times with the pro's etc,. A few chicken runs and I'm sure it'll be fine for all.

njee20

I would rather watch a round of the Halo BDS or even national XC than olympic XC.

Really? Why? I'd far rather watch the Olympics than a National XC race, why on earth would you not!?

Even mountains and hills get in their way. Hence we've ended up with something that's far from MTB in any form, even XC.

Huh? It's a typical XC race course... It's got more climbing than the majority of trail centres, and some technical features, interspersed with wider bits for overtaking. One big climb and a singletrack descent is fun to ride, but rubbish to race, and boring to watch.

YeehaaMcgee

njee20 wrote:

It's got more climbing than the majority of trail centres,

Please don't say that, or I'll start drying for you southern lot.
I've read it has a 70m elevation change

njee20

Highest to lowest point is 70m yes, but they ride up and down it a few times. It's 2.9 miles with 600ft of climbing.

YeehaaMcgee

That's still a hell of a lot less than any trail center I can think of.

njee20

Really? Like which?

XC course: 206ft climbing/mile
White's Level: 172ft/mile
Cwmcarn Twrch: 88ft/mile
Dalby Red: 37ft/mile

Etc?

Plus they're doing 7 laps, so that's just over 4000ft of climbing, which is significantly more than W2 in less distance.

YeehaaMcgee

It's only 20 miles?
Well, Coedy's Tarw and Dragon's back combined comes up as 31 miles, and just shy of 6000 feet of climbing - which per mile works out at less than your figures, but even I can manage that.
These are Olympians - I'm not remotely impressed.

EDIT, they're covering 2.6 times the maximum elevation change per lap? really?
really?

njee20

Indeed it is, the winning time for an XC race under UCI regs should be 1.5-1.75 hours - shorter than it used to be.

Not really about the distance though, XC never is, that's Marathon, sure most riders could comfortably ride the whole thing, just not in the time!

Edit: Course map in blue, lots of zig-zagging uphill, gets you a lot of climbing in!

YeehaaMcgee

Hmm, I'd never thought of it being a purely speed thing - for years (being a lazy freerider), I couldn;t even fathom finishing such a race.

njee20

Nope, they're about all out speed. Marathon is the long events, technically over 2 hours, but usually 100k or so.

VWsurfbum

njee20 I'm glad you have explained it like that, now all you have to do when ever people start whinging about this course is point them to this thread!
Nice!

bails87

njee20 wrote:

Really? Like which?

XC course: 206ft climbing/mile
White's Level: 172ft/mile
Cwmcarn Twrch: 88ft/mile
Dalby Red: 37ft/mile

Etc?

Plus they're doing 7 laps, so that's just over 4000ft of climbing, which is significantly more than W2 in less distance.

Hmmm, I did a 11-12 mile ride in the Malverns that had 2000ft of climbing and thought that was bad enough!

The "oo, it looks easy" thing always makes me laugh.
1. It's XC, not DH
2. It always looks easier on a screen
3. The 100m sprint is 'easy', my nan could do it! Doing it faster than anyone else is the difficult part.

YeehaaMcgee

bails87 wrote:

3. The 100m sprint is 'easy', my nan could do it! Doing it faster than anyone else is the difficult part.

That's a very valid point, but it still should be "mountain biking", and therefore technically challenging. It's nto the "cyclepath challenge".

I always forget about accumulated climbs, since a lot of my riding is predominantly UP a bloody big hill, then DOWN a bloody big hill

supersonic

It can be challenging at that sort of speed, though I'd like to see more technical climbs.

Just worked out the start of my local loop - out of my front door the first climb is 800ft in 2.5 miles!