Outclassed (again) on home turf...

bikaholic

... manicured in order to maximise home advantage.

This is the womens olympic mtb race I am talking about (the other being the BMX).

On TV, the bike race looked very pedestrian with poor bike handling skills being demonstrated (bikes controlling the rider instead of the other way around).

The armchair pundit in me was shouting at the screen, "No, don't do the running man - just sit down, relax and use your gears to get up that hill".

I was also thinking that too much time and effort was concentrated on feeding than pedalling. I am pretty sure that no one ever died of hunger or dehydration during a race. And, there was a lot of coasting where there could have been pedal strokes.

But on the whole, I was satisfied with the spectacle - partly due to the success of the track stars and our considerable medal haul already in the bank.

I wonder how others found it.

cooldad

Didn't see it (was out riding), will watch the highlights but I am willing to bet £40 trillion gazillion that their poor bike handling skills are somewhat better than yours.

MrChuck

So, to summarise, the world class athletes are doing it wrong?

I think that if you were shown riding on the BBC perhaps your bike handling skills wouldn't look as awesome as they do in your head.

And yes, obviously they could ride round for an hour or two without feeding and not "die of dehydration". But the aim isn't to show how that they can do that, it's to keep their performance as high as possible and get round ahead of everybody else.

chez_m356

you make it sound as if 'annie last' was the only ranked rider competing, do you actually know who any of the others are ? i'm sure they know a lot more about riding in an xc competition than anyone who uses this forum

poppit

I think Annie had a great ride especially as she's 21 so a lot younger than most of the other top riders. A few more years to build up her strength endurance and she'll be a world beater.

Roostoids

I thought it was brill. looking forward to the mens race tomorrow.

You could see how tired they became by the way they got more ragged on the technical stuff in the 2nd half. So you could hardly say they weren't trying hard enough.

Yes they were pumping the pedals on the hills but that's because they were stamping out an Olympic pace on them. Don't think many of us could keep up even for one lap!

Only bad thing about it was the lack of Emily Batty coverage :oops:

Greer_

bikaholic wrote:

The armchair pundit in me was shouting at the screen, "No, don't do the running man - just sit down, relax and use your gears to get up that hill".

They're racing, not riding. A lot of them make up time on the uphill sections because their downhill skills aren't as good or they don't want to go too quickly and bail/puncture.

ddraver

OP you are a spazwankle.


That is all....

paul.skibum

bikaholic wrote:

... a load of BS that shows how little I know about competitive mountain biking....

I havent actually watched the race yet but just reading Bikaholics summary of it (as paraphrased above) I want to know how you manicure a course to give you home advantage in mountain biking - is there something in the terrain that suits british people and not say the swiss or canadians or americans?

Also, since in any given course you have to go up x amount and down x amount, since the up hills and the flats make up the majority of the time spent racing this is the time for maximum effort, the downs are a test of not falling off and not getting a mechanical - you cant win a race on the down hills you can lose it though.

I seem to remember that a number of those downhill sections were reasonably techy and rocky, I'd like to see Bikaholic tackle them on a very light weight short travel xc hardtail with his saddle up his arse on lap 6 and do it as if he was Aaron Gwin on steroids.

Some people just make me angry.

lawman

Other than the technical DH sections, which were looking pretty gnarly in places, nothing crazy but a test for the girls atleast, no problems for the blokes I imagine, the course was poor imo, especially compared the WC in belgium this year, that course was frickin mega!! There was real potential to show how good mtb can be, and I'm afraid they just haven't done it justice. a few big rocks on a fireroad does not make for a real mtb course, and it sends out a very poor representation of what our sport is about.

paul.skibum

ddraver wrote:

OP you are a spazwankle.


That is all....

That was the point I was trying to make - only more succinct.

ddraver

I agree that they could have done much more to market the MTB riding in the UK to the world, but then it is the London Olympics (see elsewhere for this argument)

But this is what cross country racing is like. What is easy on a trail centre after having a stop and a chat is way harder.when you ve been breathin out your arse for 45mins previously

I would guess that a lot of the naysayers have never done a proper XC race. I'd reccomend it if you haven't, but.fair warning, you ll have your ego seriously dented.

lawman

I have done numerous xc races, and was once 4th in the midland super series for my age group, so I know exactly what its like, well to a point anyway

There is a very generalized idea that all alot of people of do is ride/chat/ride/chat/shit/ride/chat/ride/crash/cry/ride etc. This is not the case for alot of people. It is for the less able riders or those of lower fitness, the fact is I only stop to wait for others that might be way behind

cooldad

lawman wrote:

I have done numerous xc races, and was once 4th in the midland super series for my age group, so I know exactly what its like, well to a point anyway

There is a very generalized idea that all alot of people of do is ride/chat/ride/chat/shoot/ride/chat/ride/crash/cry/ride etc. This is not the case for alot of people. It is for the less able riders or those of lower fitness, the fact is I only stop to wait for others that might be way behind

Under 7's?
Alot

ddraver

Lawman I was nt speaking to you as such...no offence intended....to you

But you know the difference between a race and a ride!

lesz42

sure some of the keyboard riders here could keep up for one lap at least

YeehaaMcgee

ddraver wrote:

I would guess that a lot of the naysayers have never done a proper XC race. I'd reccomend it if you haven't, but.fair warning, you ll have your ego seriously dented.

lawman wrote:

I have done numerous xc races, and was once 4th in the midland super series for my age group, so I know exactly what its like, well to a point anyway

I've ridden with an Olympic cyclist many many years ago. I haven't bothered since. She just took off like a fricking rocket, and didn't seem to realise that the trail was headed upwards.
Seriously, just bonkers.


Aaaaaanyhooooo.
You know, there's a word for coming down a hill, or a piece of trail that goes down - descent.
there is no DH in an XC race. You just sound fuc*ing stupid when you call them "downhills".

paul.skibum

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

ddraver wrote:

I would guess that a lot of the naysayers have never done a proper XC race. I'd reccomend it if you haven't, but.fair warning, you ll have your ego seriously dented.

lawman wrote:

I have done numerous xc races, and was once 4th in the midland super series for my age group, so I know exactly what its like, well to a point anyway

I've ridden with an Olympic cyclist many many years ago. I haven't bothered since. She just took off like a fricking rocket, and didn't seem to realise that the trail was headed upwards.
Seriously, just bonkers.


Aaaaaanyhooooo.
You know, there's a word for coming down a hill, or a piece of trail that goes down - descent.
there is no DH in an XC race. You just sound fuc*ing stupid when you call them "downhills".

Yup - mate of mine used to race dh and xc in the 90's and despite years out of it he still has weird muscles in his legs I dont have - he just used to accelerate away from uphill, downhill, on the flat. I was lucky if I saw him moving for more than a few hundred yards before he vanished from sight!

oodboo

I was just about to head out so recorded it planning on skipping through it later. When I did put it on the wife really got into it and no fast forwarding was allowed. I think Annie put in a good performance. Now my wife wants to get her bike out more and would love to go and ride that course even though we live in Newcastle and there's much better riding a lot closer to home.

And this:

ddraver wrote:

OP you are a spazwankle.


That is all....

YeehaaMcgee

oodboo wrote:

Now my wife wants to get her bike out more and would love to go and ride that course

these Olympics are certainly making more people ride bikes. There's a lot of people on Facebook who never go near a bike suddenly deciding to go for a sbin. And even my mother has got back on her bike after many many many years, much to my father's grievance, it seems!

ddraver

^ and there are people in the road section genuinely whining about it! :roll:

YeehaaMcgee

Who's that blonde hotty interviewing people on the beeb coverage? Giggidy giggidy.

cooldad

I think she's the one who did the Mega on the Cycle Show a few weeks ago. Not that that helps much.
I would.

oodboo

Was Helen Skelton from blue peter covering yesterday, don't know if she's back for the men's.

oodboo

Puts telly on, hits rewind. Yep, Helen Skelton.

Chunkers1980

I wouldn't.

cooldad

Chunkers1980 wrote:

I prefer men.

YeehaaMcgee

Mm. She's one for the Tommy tank bank then.

mea00csf

well, just to drag this out of the gutter, I actually went to watch yesterdays race and was very impressed. I'll admit, i was sceptical about the location, but, from a spectators point of view it was perfect. We managed to see the leaders ride almost all the technical sections and up snake hill because the course was set up that for a spectator it wasn't too far between interesting sections.
The course itself, you couldn't really tell on TV how technical some of the sections were. For instance, at the bottom of the rock garden, the two berms weren't "complete", there were gaps of a bike length with a step down of about a foot and half, you had to jump it. Interestingly, only the top 5 or 6 took the faster "gapped berms", and that included Annie Last, the rest took the slower inner line over the strewn rocks. Being close in on the action you get a different view, The british girl was by far the best technically, but it was clear early on she was going to struggle with fitness up the hills. She apparently had been training in the alps on the downhill on her hardtail .
All in all, i think she did amazingly well. She was the youngest in the race at 21. Her goal was took make it to the race, as she had to step up to elite a couple of years ago to gain enough UCI points to qualify, even though even now she would still qualify for junior level races.

cooldad

Just to drag it back into the gutter - just saw her talking after the mens race - I would, most definitely.

cat_with_no_tail

She did the BMX coverage too. I would also go balls deep.