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How Fast Can You Really Descend on an XC Bike?


gummibear

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oh long stem and narrowish bars

 

dear the criminality of it all

Don't let anyone tell you what to ride, if you want to ride a fully rigid 26 with 110 stem and 580 bars, 3x9 gearing with 1.9 tires. Just. Do. It.

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Don't let anyone tell you what to ride, if you want to ride a fully rigid 26 with 110 stem and 580 bars, 3x9 gearing with 1.9 tires. Just. Do. It.

 

I do,

 

faster than a lot of techno geeks too

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now go do they 7 times in a row - with traffic...love to see the time difference on lap 7 between the two

 

I love and admire both disciplines and each of the special place in MTB

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For me its simple. Mountain biking is about enjoying yourself. My bike with its 120/150 fork, heavy but grippy tyres and short stem (just went down to 40mm) is about as far from XC as I can go on a hardtail but the fact is that everything I've changed has made it more fun to ride on singletrack. Yes I suffer on the up hills and I still do ride a fair amount of XC (signed up for a trailseeker this morning) but when I point the bike downhill or find myself pushing it into turns I remember exactly why I have to suffer on the up hills. Its just too much fun. I can't imagine going back to less grip and less travel and less fun. I'm sure there's a point where you go too far but I don't think I've found it yet. If I had the money I'd probably own a bike for racing that fit the XC mould but since I only own one bike my feeling was it should be as much fun as possible.

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Perhaps some cross country riders are so focused on fitness and endurance training that technical skills takes a back seat? It makes sense to work on your strengths. I've often considered making my trail bike lighter. So I can climb better. I suck at climbing big time. 

Which can be attributed to lack of fitness and just pure laziness. But changes to my bike to make climbing easier would compromise the bikes ability coming down. Something I'm much better at doing. My argument has always been what ever time I lose on the way up i'd make up for on the way down.

 

Had the test timed the full laps between riders on the same bike.I'm sure results would have been alot closer. Perhaps the XC rider being faster overall on the entire lap itself

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