Dirtopia: what are your opinions

[Melch]

Hey

 

Was just wondering what people thought of dirtopia. I went through for the "DH" race as it was originally advertised. It was then changed to an all mountain race. In the end the course was a section of the xc marathon race was very smooth, not technical at all and quite flat.Tokai has some all mountain trails and they can be quite fun on a dh bike but this was closer to the fairy garden than any of the all mountain/DH trails.

 

Was wondering what peoples opinions of the event were? I will be avoiding anything with their name on it for a while.

[Guest Omega Man]

Hahaha. Sorry dude.

 

Hopefully next year it will be back in Greyton. Now that is fun.

[pablo]

sorry, what type of riding do you do at dirtopia? any pics?

[wesley_r]

I was there and rode the dual racing event - I had a lot of fun but I feel the event could have been better organised. The course wasn't exactly marked (common sense should tell you where to go though) and I heard many grumblings about the dirt jumps being too big or too far apart or without enough space to roll into. At one stage the dual racing guys and jump guys were sharing the track in practice. Not until just before the seeding runs started where the start gates and finish line even in place, and the whole event ran fairly late. Due to the small number of entries, rather than race in classes (I entered "fun" and not "open" for a reason) everyone was thrown together. It just seemed very casual and helter skelter.

 

That said for R50 I had a ridiculous amount of fun.

 

Also I think changing it from a DH race to an "all mountain" race at the last minute is a swak move - surely they knew in advance what courses and trails they had available? That said they DID keep their website well updated (and I noticed the change in event at least a day before the weekend kicked off).

 

The layout was good - spur, pronto coffee, a beer tent - but it seemed to me the event was poorly attended, which is a shame!

 

Anyone else got any feedback?

[4u2nv]

bring it back to Greyton!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pablo]

so, its suppose to be a downhill race? can anyone enter?

[wesley_r]

so, its suppose to be a downhill race? can anyone enter?

 

anyone "could" enter - it was last weekend

[DJR]

I did the all-mountain (and the dual slalom) race and had great fun. I can understand that the hardcore downhillers were upset, especially those that didn't know beforehand what kind of event it was. I rode a Trance X, which I thought was perfect, there were quite few short sections where serious pedalling was the only way to keep the speed up. (Very glad I didn't have to ride a 20kg downhill dozer.) There were lots of tight hairpins and enough rough rocky bits to make it interesting with a few small drops or jumps if you cared. It was definitely a lot rougher than the Fairy Garden in Tokai. The idea of this type of race was to get more single track all mountain types involved and it is a pity so few tried it, because it can be a very good way to get more youngsters involved in downhill.