Rio BMX and MTB **spoilers**

Pross

The timing of the first puncture was more unfortunate than the puncture itself. Having to do half a lap before changing the wheel meant he was never going to get back.

DeVlaeminck

The rocky bits looked technical enough to me - technical enough to put me off the idea of ever taking up MTB racing anyway - a couple of those falls looked nasty. Not exactly a spectator sport though for me - don't think I'd tune in if it wasn't the Olympics - ended up fast forwarding the second half - think if I was i charge of what cycling I'd scrap the time trial and XC and stick cross and DH in .

the_chief15

DeVlaeminck wrote:

The rocky bits looked technical enough to me - technical enough to put me off the idea of ever taking up MTB racing anyway - a couple of those falls looked nasty. Not exactly a spectator sport though for me - don't think I'd tune in if it wasn't the Olympics - ended up fast forwarding the second half - think if I was i charge of what cycling I'd scrap the time trial and XC and stick cross and DH in .

DH won't make the Olympic program, it's too venue limited.

ddraver

Dh suffers from the same problem, it never looks that good on the telly

I genuinely cant understand why people think cross is somehow better than XCO, they re so similar as to be the same. What people mean is I own a cross bike rather than an XC bike

DeVlaeminck

I'd also scrap the nonsense that everything has to be in the same city - if they have to travel to get to a DH course let them - bit yes if they insist on everything being in the same place I guess that is a problem for some cities.

As far as cross vs xc - I don't know why but it just seems a bit more spectator friendly - a bit more fast paced and often more of a bunch race - the xc I've seen seems more 1s and 2s slogging round a circuit for too long but that may just be the last two Olympics. I thought the technical stuff might be exciting but it just seemed to slow the race. I can see the appeal for those that race it but not so much for watching.

The_Boy

DeVlaeminck wrote:

if they insist on everything being in the same place I guess that is a problem for some cities.

No more so than sailing...

above_the_cows

ddraver wrote:

The steepness and technicality of XCO NEVER comes across on screen (same with CX and DH) which leads to Bean's issue above. It's only when you been and tried a Real XC, CX or DH course that you realise just how hard the riders are working (a problem with many other sports)

This is why I was desperately searching for info on the course. I wanted to know how steep the climbs were etc as it makes it more interesting if you can get a sense of what they are doing beyond what you just see on the screen.

For example the fact that today's Vuelta stage finishes with some stupid climb with 20%+ gradients in it means I will (try) and watch the end because I can get a sense of the difficulty beyond just looking at the telly and thinking 'that's a hill'.

I should have got more of the skinny on the MTB course from my physio before he headed out there with the Dutch boys, I just thought I'd be able to find all that shizz on the internet like you can with road races.

ddraver

You make very good points AtC. I'm not sure why they don't ever really give the distance/height gain details (sometimes they do on the Red Bull shows but they re usually incidental comments at the start of a headcam preview lap with Rob Warner swearing on the hills)

I guess because it makes a difference if it's 15% on grass or 20% on tarmac so the absolute percentage doesn't really help. The other thing I can think of is that no one has ever measured the gradient on the particular tracks. At Montgenevre most of them were the walking paths!

Go hire and bike and have a crack at Schoorl (which is nothing compared to a proper XC course to be fair)

TheBigBean

The problem is that roads are a bit more consistent. To exaggerate to make a point, no one provides gradients for speed bumps. A lot of the really steep sections were about 10m long, so it would be tricky to provide all the data. Especially as the approach speed and amount of grip available would be more significant factors.

Think of a steep ramp up to a building, can you ride up it on your road bike? Well it depends whether you get a run up, how long it is and whether it is made of sheet ice.

I'm not saying that more info wouldn't be helpful just that gradients alone probably won't help you.

PuttyKnees

XC could definitely do more to make itself more attractive. I scoffed initially at the idea that the information wasn't available, but yeah I searched as well, pretty much nothing about the course, the elevation, the course conditions, how difficult sections were, or even a usable map of the course. Pretty rubbish really. It has been forced over the years to be more cross-like - shorter courses, more televisual etc, but it does really rely on there being human drama. The TV coverage was pretty pants - the commentary in the UK was uninformed and unexcited and it tended to miss anything exciting happening. I bet it was a good course to watch at though - I've watched at Hadleigh lots of times and although I don't like the nature of the course, I can stand in a couple of places and track the course of the race with ease. Almost every other course I've been to is basically watch the start, watch the riders come round once a lap, go home without really seeing any mountain biking.

graeme_s-2

DeVlaeminck wrote:

if they insist on everything being in the same place I guess that is a problem for some cities.

The equestrian events at Beijing were held in Hong Kong, 1200 miles away. I'm sure if they wanted to they could make an exception for DH MTB and let them hold it where there's a hill to ride down.

TheBigBean

Presumably they could grade the sections like they do with rapids. e.g. "He's coming up to the class 9 section now. This will test his...."

With the qualification that I've never watched a race before, I expected some of the following:
- Wider tracks on the less technical stuff to enable passing and route selection.
- Narrower tracks on the technical stuff. Possibly several narrow tracks running parallel. The sort where it's tricky, and if you slip off the edge, you end up losing time.
- Some show piece big airs where they gap something. They don't need to be hard just enough to scare the viewer.
- A technical drop off. A good 6ft or so.
- A tree trunk lying across the track rather than tiny logs.
- Randomly and regularly distributed tree roots that aren't symmetrical across the track.
- A water hazard.

Pross

I was surprised they didn't have on bike cameras given they did in the track racing. Helmet cam footage would show the technical elements off the most. I'm not a fan of man made courses though. Sometimes it's a necessity like at London but I was surprised Rio couldn't come up with something more natural given the surrounding countryside. Also, I'd have to disagree that DH would 't be more exciting, having timed runs decided by fractions of a second would almost certainly be more exciting to the general public than 90 minutes of what looks to the untrained eye to be a procession of small groups of bikes and very little fighting for places.

bobmcstuff

/\ According to the commentators roots are much more common on the European tracks (which ties in with my memories of mountain biking in the UK...).

Richmond Racer 2

Pross wrote:

I was surprised they didn't have on bike cameras given they did in the track racing. Helmet cam footage would show the technical elements off the most. I'm not a fan of man made courses though. Sometimes it's a necessity like at London but I was surprised Rio couldn't come up with something more natural given the surrounding countryside. Also, I'd have to disagree that DH would 't be more exciting, having timed runs decided by fractions of a second would almost certainly be more exciting to the general public than 90 minutes of what looks to the untrained eye to be a procession of small groups of bikes and very little fighting for places.

Simon Burney @SimonBurney: For the "man-made courses are bullshit" brigade: it's so we don't have a course of tyre-clogging, mech-snapping mud after rain like today

tailwindhome

Pross wrote:

I was surprised they didn't have on bike cameras given they did in the track racing. Helmet cam footage would show the technical elements off the most. I'm not a fan of man made courses though. Sometimes it's a necessity like at London but I was surprised Rio couldn't come up with something more natural given the surrounding countryside. Also, I'd have to disagree that DH would 't be more exciting, having timed runs decided by fractions of a second would almost certainly be more exciting to the general public than 90 minutes of what looks to the untrained eye to be a procession of small groups of bikes and very little fighting for places.

First XC race I've watched.
Would watch again.
7/10

Crozza

Pross wrote:

but I was surprised Rio couldn't come up with something more natural given the surrounding countryside.

they'd already used it on the road race

Pross

Richmond Racer 2 wrote:

Pross wrote:

I was surprised they didn't have on bike cameras given they did in the track racing. Helmet cam footage would show the technical elements off the most. I'm not a fan of man made courses though. Sometimes it's a necessity like at London but I was surprised Rio couldn't come up with something more natural given the surrounding countryside. Also, I'd have to disagree that DH would 't be more exciting, having timed runs decided by fractions of a second would almost certainly be more exciting to the general public than 90 minutes of what looks to the untrained eye to be a procession of small groups of bikes and very little fighting for places.

Simon Burney @SimonBurney: For the "man-made courses are bullshit" brigade: it's so we don't have a course of tyre-clogging, mech-snapping mud after rain like today

Surely the ground wasn't imported? I assumed they were just riding in an area with fairly sandy soil. The sport has changed a lot from its 'free spirit' roots when I tried my hand at it (badly) in the early 90s.

davidof

Pross wrote:

Surely the ground wasn't imported? I assumed they were just riding in an area with fairly sandy soil. The sport has changed a lot from its 'free spirit' roots when I tried my hand at it (badly) in the early 90s.

It reminded me a bit of an MTB race I did on Canford Heath in Darzett in the 90s.... the start was a funnel across a field then loop after loop of singletrack. I sprinted for the single and arriving 6th held of an angry field of faster riders lap after lap. A couple final got past me on the last lap by riding across the bracken!

ddraver

Pross wrote:

Richmond Racer 2 wrote:

Pross wrote:

I was surprised they didn't have on bike cameras given they did in the track racing. Helmet cam footage would show the technical elements off the most. I'm not a fan of man made courses though. Sometimes it's a necessity like at London but I was surprised Rio couldn't come up with something more natural given the surrounding countryside. Also, I'd have to disagree that DH would 't be more exciting, having timed runs decided by fractions of a second would almost certainly be more exciting to the general public than 90 minutes of what looks to the untrained eye to be a procession of small groups of bikes and very little fighting for places.

Simon Burney @SimonBurney: For the "man-made courses are bullshit" brigade: it's so we don't have a course of tyre-clogging, mech-snapping mud after rain like today

Surely the ground wasn't imported? I assumed they were just riding in an area with fairly sandy soil. The sport has changed a lot from its 'free spirit' roots when I tried my hand at it (badly) in the early 90s.

This is where the olympic directive comes in I think. The reality is that it is also ver hard to film a natural XC course because there is inevitable a forest or a mountain in the way. Even on the red bull coverage this tends to lead to a long shot zooming out of each section followed by watching the procession of riders coming through one at a time... It's just a really hard sport to film well...

The other thing about the list of obstacles is that it's fine to ride a massive drop once with a rest at the top but quite another thing to do it when you've been flat out for 1 hr and you're breathing out of your ass. As Putty says, most UYK trail riders think they re riding harder course than a pro XC, but they re really not.

Skiing is timed runs separated by fractions of seconds and to be honest, I don't see much of an audience for that. Ski Sunday is now just the last remaining holiday show (man, remember them? with Jill Douglas and Judith Chalmers, what ever happened to Holiday shows...)

Pross

I can't believe I'm the only one who spends too many winter hours in front of Eurosport watching alpine skiing!

EDIT - Don't get me wrong, I'm not against MTB racing as an Olympic sport I just feel it doesn't make the most of the potential spectacle.

above_the_cows

TheBigBean wrote:

Presumably they could grade the sections like they do with rapids. e.g. "He's coming up to the class 9 section now. This will test his...."

With the qualification that I've never watched a race before, I expected some of the following:
- Wider tracks on the less technical stuff to enable passing and route selection.
- Narrower tracks on the technical stuff. Possibly several narrow tracks running parallel. The sort where it's tricky, and if you slip off the edge, you end up losing time.
- Some show piece big airs where they gap something. They don't need to be hard just enough to scare the viewer.
- A technical drop off. A good 6ft or so.
- A tree trunk lying across the track rather than tiny logs.
- Randomly and regularly distributed tree roots that aren't symmetrical across the track.
- A water hazard.

Three-Day-Eventing is the sport for you

ddraver

...in other news, man the spell check on my parent's mac is aggresive (but stealthy)

davidof

Pross wrote:

I can't believe I'm the only one who spends too many winter hours in front of Eurosport watching alpine skiing!

Lynsey Vonn?

PuttyKnees

Don't know about alpine skiiing but I'd definitely watch the ski/shooting biathlon - highlight of the winter olympics. Maybe MTB + shooting is the way forward?

Daz555

the_chief15 wrote:

DeVlaeminck wrote:

The rocky bits looked technical enough to me - technical enough to put me off the idea of ever taking up MTB racing anyway - a couple of those falls looked nasty. Not exactly a spectator sport though for me - don't think I'd tune in if it wasn't the Olympics - ended up fast forwarding the second half - think if I was i charge of what cycling I'd scrap the time trial and XC and stick cross and DH in .

DH won't make the Olympic program, it's too venue limited.

All events don't have to be local to the host city (Sailing for example) and all they need is a decent hill with 250m+ of vertical rise.

Richmond Racer 2

^Red Bull + IOC Rule 40...yeah....

Daz555

Richmond Racer 2 wrote:

^Red Bull + IOC Rule 40...yeah....

Care to elaborate?

ddraver

This is only one example but have a look at this - https://www.instagram.com/p/BJe8tHlhhuW/

Look how smooth Nino (in particular) is, whereas Sagan bottoms the forks out and nearly goes over the front....

ddraver

...and on Grant Ferguson - http://www.thewashingmachinepost.net/