Olympic/Professional Moutain Biking....

Fresh60mmForks

How to get into it? They always talk about how the olympics is inspiring people to take up sport, yet I've typed in how to get into many sports on google and NOTHING comes up...

I'm already a sprinter, been doing that for a while now. But I've been cycling all my life, mountain and road, I'm a pretty quick ride with balls of steel (Which has lead me to crashing into ditches) but you have to risk it sometimes!

I'm just wondering how to get into competitions for cross-trail mountain biking, or to be able to compete at a level where I could get scouted for the Olympics or something?

cooldad

I assume you are a troll or an idiot.

Fresh60mmForks

cooldad wrote:

Enter races.

You can't just enter a race, otherwise hundreds of people would turn up to race, there's certain criteria, and I'm simply asking for some advice, not OVERLY detailed, but a ground knowledge of what to do?

Fresh60mmForks

cooldad wrote:

I assume you are a troll or an idiot.

It's people like you who put people off sports, however luckily I'm not sensitive

And no I'm not trolling, I'm being serious :S

cooldad

Enter a race. Win race. Enter another etc until you are rich and famous.

Chunkers1980

Enter rubbish level race, win, enter better race, win, and so on until better race is the Olympics.

bails87

You can 'just enter a race'. Look on the British Cycling website for events. Enter races, win them, become rich and famous.

njee20

As above, of course you can just enter a race. If you want to do the National series buy a license, race sport, move up to expert, then elite, then if you're the very best there, possibly top 2, you'll get into the Olympics.

It's harder than you think, I suspect your 'balls of steel' will be of little use!

gingerrob25

Fresh60mmForks wrote:

I'm a pretty quick ride with balls of steel

Not sure you can be the judge of this for yourself ...

Also as others have said, you can just turn up to a race, you just need to enter yourself into an open level race

Stu Coops

What a complete knobber

YeehaaMcgee

You guys realise this is the MTB beginner's section, right?
How about you back off a minute and consider that this seems to be someone new to riding, who has a taste for racing, but no idea what to to do or what to enter.
Instead of pointless dissing, why not suggest various grass-route events he could join?

Gizmodo

Try this page http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/mtb/article/mtbst_Get-Into-Cross-Country-Mountain-Biking

At the bottom of that page you will see a section called "Get Involved" that has more links like "Find an Event to Ride" and "Join a Club"

Fresh60mmForks

Stu Coops wrote:

What a complete knobber

Can't quite work out what's funny, maybe you're easily amused. And sorry, who the heck are you?

Internet gangster I assume.

paul.skibum

Obviously the Olympics is kind of hard to get to - you are already a sprinter, I am assuming you werent at the olympics for that so you have some idea that to reach a competitive level it requires a little bit of work.

Tell us a little about yourself - where you live, what bike you ride, age etc may help us direct you to appropriate avenues to get into racing.

For example there are many open entry events held in the Crowthorne area (Gorrick races) with differing skill levels - this is a great way to try racing and progress through the levels to see where your talents lie. To get to World Champs levels you need UCI points to race, you get those by winning UCI sanctioned events, you get to those by competing in lots of other events.

This site - http://www.xcracer.com/UK-Mountain-Bike-Event-Calendar.php - provides lots of useful information.

pilch

Its good to have ambition, British cycling as stated above is a good starting point, you will find details of the majority of cycle races all over the country on there. They also have a development programme on there called Go Ride The other thing I would suggest is to join a club, I don't know how old you are but obviously if youth is on your side then that helps.

Many people have been 'cycling all their lives' but there is a big difference between recreational cycling and competitive cycling as a sport. To do well... even in local races takes masses of training and dedication.

If you want some idea of the effort you need to put in have a look at Joe Friel's training bible... according to Joe, like any other sport you wish to excel in, it can take years to reach your full potential - that's years of structured training, diet regimes, cross training and single minded dedication...

Riding on the tide of the Olympic high feels great at the moment, but the reality of the background effort to enable you to compete at that level is far from glamorous...

njee20

I'd say XCRacer is probably a better source than BC for race calendars etc, if nothing else the Gorrick events are not BC sanctioned, but are a fantastic way to get into racing.

pilch

Some more info for you