2021 USAC Marathon Mountain Bike National Championships

Looking at that video it makes me wonder how something like a carbon Salsa Beargrease fatbike with some light carbon wheels would do. Could put a Bluto fork on it too.

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I can now understand the slow speeds mentioned earlier. Those leaves looked treacherous. I only watched snippets of this video, but he seemed to really struggle to get rolling to more easily clear the rocks. Is it just that difficult, or is he not used to it?

(I don’t say this to judge, I struggle in general with rock gardens more than roots etc)

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It’s a skill—I was browsing through some of the Strava activity of one of the top finishers who mentioned he had lapped a few folks who were on a 7-8 hour pace. (And the XCM course last weekend didn’t include any of the really technical stuff… :slight_smile: )

The folks I ride with all cut our teeth riding those trails on 26” hard tails so it kind of becomes second-nature. Michaux SF is a few miles north and it’s even more technical. Up until very recently they ran an amazing race series up there consisting of three 40-mile races throughout the season. Fun stuff!

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Any word on what time of year they’ll be running it? October again?

Yeah, but the guy in the video is riding a very basic hardtail and clearly had never ridden there and was overly skiddish. All of the rocks he was failing at were on downhill segments. Granted the trail system there also hosts a downhill and Enduro, Race Report: Downhill & Enduro in Frederick, Maryland - Sheduro 2021 - Pinkbike. but the trails which were chosen had a lot of doubletrack which are bumpy but not really technical.

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Now that’s technical:

image

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That makes my heart flutter. Love me some rocks!

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